As someone who grew up in England, celebrating Thanksgiving never used a be a part of my life. When I moved to the United States, I was aware of what Thanksgiving was about, but I had never had a chance to participate.
It’s been close to 30 years since my first Thanksgiving, and while I enjoy the time spent with family, I have to confess that it’s not my favorite holiday, and it’s one that always leads me to be quite reflective.
Because I seem to have a gratitude problem.
And to be honest, that’s bugged me for quite a while. I can remember a Christmas probably in the early 80s when my sister and I were both given a Walkman for Christmas. (For those of you too young to know what that is, it’s basically a cassette tape player that was small enough to put on your belt and have music as you walked). Although I was grateful for what I had received, in truth I was somewhat upset because the one that my sister received was functionally better than mine.
At the time I was too young to realize that my reaction was a symptom of a much greater problem.
But as I started to get a little older, and a little more introspective, I came to realize that gratitude was not an emotion that came easily to me. So I went through a period of believing that I was an ungrateful person, and that I was not good because I felt that way. I wished that I could “feel” this deep sense of thankfulness that other people seemed to experience.
And, of course, I spent a lot of time judging myself harshly over it.
Fast-forward to a situation about 10-15 years ago where somebody did something for me that was truly, profoundly and wonderfully kind. Something that should have brought forth from me a strong sense of gratitude and thankfulness. Although I was grateful at the time, and although I did express that to the person who did something for me, I was forced to realize that the magnitude of their kindness to me was not reflected in the magnitude of my gratitude towards them.
And I felt really bad about that, and struggled to figure out why I was responding that way.
Through a lot of meditation, reading, introspection and time, I finally came to understand the answer, and in order to explain it, I’m going to start with a small story that started making the rounds a number of years ago in the online business space.
It’s the story of a young man who goes to a business guru and asks the guru to teach him how to be successful. So the guru has the young man meet him on the beach the next morning. The guru takes the young man by the hand and walks him out into the water until it is almost over his head, and then dunks the young man down into the water and holds him there until the young man nearly drowns.
Then the guru pulls him out of the water and tells him that when he wants to succeed as bad as he just wanted to breathe, he will be successful.
I realize that seems kind of a strange story, but here’s how I think it applies.
Sometimes people have enough of a wound in their soul that it overshadows all of their other emotions. For some people it manifests in their inability to be happy, for some in their inability to form meaningful relationships, and for some it can even be a strong difficulty towards feeling grateful, because the magnitude of the wound is so great that unless that wound is healed, nothing else really means anything.
Because for that young man on the beach, nothing other than air was going to solve his problem.
I realized that the psychological wound I was struggling with was so significant to me that unless somebody gave me a solution to that situation, anything else was going to seem small in comparison. It didn’t mean I wasn’t grateful, it’s just that my fear and pain over the situation that wound created made it so much harder to feel what should have been a commensurate amount of gratitude to the person who helped me.
When I finally realized this, it helped me release a lot of the shame and self judgment that I was carrying.
Please understand, I’m not saying gratitude isn’t important. The longer I study and the more I learn, the greater certainty I have that gratitude is one of the most powerful ways that we can change our lives. It’s just that sometimes people are hurting so much that trying to be grateful is supremely difficult, because the weight on their soul distorts how they feel about anything that doesn’t solve the problem that is causing them pain.
And although it sounds kind of funny, I am very grateful for that lesson, because it has helped me to understand so much about the behavior of others.
I recently had the chance to talk with the mother of a teenage boy who was acting in a way that was not appropriate for him or his future. She came to me in frustration because she couldn’t get through to him, and help him see that his behavior now was going to hurt him in a few years time.
I think it really helped her when I was able to explain that he was hurting so much now, that worrying about pain in the future was outside of his emotional capability right now. When she finally understood the magnitude of the pain he was feeling in the moment, all of his current actions made sense. He wasn’t “acting out”, he was just trying to change how he felt.
Because emotionally, all that young man wants to do right now is breathe, and trying to tell him to take actions in the future that don’t solve his pain right now is to disrespect and minimize how he actually feels. If it doesn’t help him solve his pain right now, he’s probably not going to take it to heart.
I’ll be honest with you and tell you that I still struggle with gratitude, because I’m still struggling with that same wound from many years ago. It affects me less in some ways, and more in others, but I’m trying harder to find the place within my soul to feel truly an profoundly grateful for the many wonderful people and circumstances that I do have in my life.
And I’m trying to judge myself less, and give myself more grace and understanding.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings