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I am trying to practice gratefulness

User Profile: SoberLife
SoberLife July 15th, 2023

My world is so difficult right now. Ex is dating, barely see my daughter, and staying with my old man while I trade some labor for a car, so missing my home base, things are so hard and I don't feel any joy anymore and I just don't see any way out :(

I am grateful for an incredibly smart daughter who loves me
I am trying to find more things to be grateful for and its so hard.

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User Profile: hopefulPond6108
hopefulPond6108 July 15th, 2023

@SoberLife Hi. Sorry that you’re struggling right now. Gratitude to me felt a little ineffective when it was first suggested to me. I’d think, “I’m grateful for [whatever] but…” or I wouldn’t follow my gratitude thought with “but” and then I’d notice it wasn’t a huge mood lift or any lift at all. So it seemed to me this gratitude stuff was maybe not for me. Later in life I picked up gratitude practice again and my attitude toward it changed. Maybe my earlier practice might have been “gratitude against” my problems and now it’s more of “gratitude for nourishment.”


This saying always bugged me. People would quote the complaint of a man who had no shoes who then saw someone with no feet. I think that kind of comparison is “gratitude against” something. If you have no shoes it still fricken hurts walking around on sharp stones and no little story about someone with no feet is going to make the pain in your feet go away. You have no shoes, it sucks, period end of story.

Acceptance can be easier if you try to live in the present as much as possible. You can’t do tomorrow right now. You can prepare, but once you have a plan and preparation for tomorrow complete, let it go. You can’t fix the past, let it go. Maybe that feels uncomfortable, like there is this vacuum. If I can’t think about the past or the future, where will my mind go? How about here, right now. Where is your left foot? Literally pay attention to that kind of mundane detail. Are you hurt? Are you Breathing? Yes. Great. Are you in imminent mortal danger? I’m guessing not or you would be doing anything but posting to 7 Cups right now. Did you eat today? Asking yourself these types of questions is where gratitude almost fills in the blanks automatically. You’re breathing, you’re safe, your nourished. AND you have your daughter. You will almost assuredly have more some day. You may have lost some supportive resources in your life, but you have not lost your “base.” Breathing IS your base. Remembering to breath, to pay attention to it from time to time, to what your left foot is doing, to what you have right now in this moment. That is your base. Life will mess with our supports from time to time, so it’s important to have these “simple” base foundations to return to. They are always there. What gets us messed up is we spin out stories about ourselves and the past and the future. Those stories are a trap, we want to “fix” the things in those stories, and when we can’t we sometimes resort to unhealthy escape.

If you haven’t tried it, mindfulness meditation might be useful to you. It really is very supportive of acceptance and gratitude.

Wishing you all the best.
User Profile: MeaningfulSilence
MeaningfulSilence July 15th, 2023

@SoberLife

Hi there SoberLife!

Sorry for the difficulties you are facing lately, it's understandable you feel demotivated.

The good point is that you are trying to react to it, finding ways to fight the negative emotions. Gratitude is really important for everyone, to practice it can really change our way to face life, for good.

I would say that to be grateful on daily basis, also for small things, can fill the list of everything you can be grateful for, it's about to observe with different eyes any event, situation or what you have .... but it includes also yourself! For example you can see the strength you are showing in dealing with everything, the efforts you make. Or also be grateful because you are somewhat close to your father (if you have a good bond with him) in this difficult time. Anything nice that can happen...the list can become long, it's up to us to add to it the more we can!

Feel free to join the Forum whenever you feel to share and hopefully we can be of support to you!

Take care

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