45: The Darker Side of Gratitude

It's pretty easy to find your typical stuff about gratitude this time of year while that's lovely and everything, I like to explore the grittier side of things. I was going through my massively long list of episode ideas, I came across some jumbled thoughts that I had recklessly typed out probably in early 2018 about gratitude and spiritual bypassing (I'll explain what that is in a bit in case that's a new term for you) and it was some pretty heartfelt stuff about what I was going through and it was about gratitude, but it certainly wasn't all cupcakes and rainbows — I do love cupcakes and rainbow themselves — but when blurbs about gratitude are so overtly lovey-dovey sometimes it comes off as forced to me which is why I'm here to talk about the DARKER side of gratitude!

A lot of posts on social media or blog posts about gratitude feel cliche and make me cringe a bit. Not that I'm not grateful for many things—I most certainly am—but sincerity and being genuine are big-time important to me. When I personally experience a feeling of real gratitude it's something that tugs at my heartstrings to a point where I often have to fight back tears. Not every moment of gratitude has to feel monumental. Of course, it's cool to be grateful for smaller things too, but I am definitely a believer that feeling gratitude for anything, big or small, should go along with sitting with the feeling and exploring it. Explore all around it with your thoughts and finding extra ways to confirm why you feel that way. So while I don't have any proof that anyone didn't do that when they said "Day 18: Today I am grateful for ice cream sandwiches", I gotta admit it feels like they posted it only because they didn't want to forget to make a post for Day 18. This matters not only from a sincerity standpoint, but it also matters from a science standpoint.

Also in this episode: • the connection between science, hormones, the brain, and gratitude • going deeper with gratitude • spontaneous gratitude vs. gratitude practices • spiritual bypassing and how it relates to gratitude • my own experiences with spiritual bypassing and some examples

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