As a U.S.-based mental health brand, we are legally obligated around the Thanksgiving holiday to address the subject of gratitude. Ok, not really. But it sure feels that way. Hell, it feels downright illegal just to be ungrateful around the thanksgiving holiday at all. As though the positivity police will show up any minute to brainwash you into bland happy thankfulness.

Difficulties with Gratitude

I don’t know about you, but I am not naturally a positive person. My life experiences have not generally led me to believe that good things simply happen. In fact, based on my past experiences, I have a strong inclination to be outright frightened of focusing too hard on the good things for fear they will be ripped away all too easily.

Mental health struggles and trauma history aside, negativity bias comes far too naturally to humans. We are much more likely to notice negative information and allow it to more strongly influence our judgments and choices.

It’s been suggested that this negative focus is a survival trait. Gifts and good things assumedly won’t attack and threaten you. But bad things just might, so they need to be watched and accounted for. Seeing the bad things is as natural as breathing. Finding the positive takes training and effort.

Too often, it can feel like an uphill battle, learning to be positive. There are so many things wrong in the world. So many blatant injustices, biases, and prejudices. Trauma and mental illness aren’t just side effects of this culture, but seem like an intentional part of its existence. Given the state of the world, being optimistic can seem like lying to yourself.

Also, if you are anything like me, being told what to do or especially how to feel makes you irate. You spent enough of your life having unreasonable demands made of you. Not to mention an entire childhood of emotional invalidation that left you questioning your every emotion. Now that you are finally on your healing journey, you don’t take kindly to strangers or culture coming along and telling you to be grateful, happy, and merry.

Is Gratitude Worth It?

Unfortunately, though, these gratitude glad-handers have science on their side. When we develop and maintain a positive focus, we are more likely to perceive stress as less threatening. When things are less threatening, our bodies react less to them. This means we have fewer physical side effects from the stress response (such as anxiety, heart disease, or digestive issues).

Being underwhelmed by stress, also means that we are better able to choose healthy, adaptive coping skills to address it. We aren’t stuck in panic mode trying desperately to stop the threat. Instead, we can use our logic and come up with a plan to effectively deal with the stressor. Thus, a positive attitude often goes hand-in-hand with the ability to effectively handle stress.

Gratitude can go a long way in helping to increase this positive attitude. Gratitude also has direct effects on our perceived quality of life, as well as indirect effects on our mental and physical health. A recent review of the literature found that being grateful is associated with:

I don’t know about you, but those sound like some pretty sweet perks.

Wrestling with Gratitude

Negative focus helped me to survive a childhood of trauma. It helped me to navigate a threat-ridden environment successfully. Unfortunately, though, I came to rely on negativity too much. It became the only thing I could see. This meant that everything became a threat, every stressor was overwhelming, and, perhaps worst of all, there was no hope for anything better.

I got to a point in my life where my negativity was bleeding into everything around me. It was stripping the color out of my life and relationships. I also simply got tired of being pissed off and pessimistic.

When I started looking for alternatives, though, everything seemed so trite and inauthentic. It felt like I was supposed to ignore all the bad things. This felt like lying, and it felt very threatening. Being acutely aware of the negative was what allowed me to survive. Being positive and grateful felt like giving up a survival skill.

I knew, though, that I couldn’t keep living the way I was. I wanted to be happy and I knew it was up to me to create that happiness. I also knew that my gratitude and optimism would have to be authentic and balanced if it was going to do anything for me.

Authentic, Balanced Gratitude

After a few months (and in some cases years) of digging and experimentation, I found a handful of ways I could be grateful authentically and with balance. I learned behaviors, perspectives, and activities that could help me balance out my negativity, without changing who I was or giving up what I still felt to be a necessary survival skill.

If, like me, you are looking for ways to be grateful and honest, to be positive and safe, here are a few of the things I did.

Track Facial Expressions

Most of us actually do experience happiness, hope, and these other positive feelings throughout the day. They may be fleeting and short-lived, but they are there. When we are focused solely on the negative, though, we often don’t even consciously register these tiny moments of joy.

To help combat this, I tracked my facial expressions. I am a very expressive person with my face. So, I started paying attention to it. When I felt myself smile or heard myself laugh, I would intentionally stop for a moment to register what had caused the reaction. At the end of the day, I would try to write down at least 3 of these things.

Try finding your happy cues, whatever they may be, and focus on what caused them. It might be a thought or something in the environment. If you want to make sure it registers, take time to document it.

Imagine an Absence

Negativity bias can also blind us to many of the things that make our lives easier or more joyful. Instead of being aware of the good things, we take them for granted.

In my mind, I didn’t need to focus on the positive things, because they weren’t an issue. Turns out, though, that not focusing on anything positive created its own issues. To help me see what I was taking for granted, I started imagining what my life would be like without it.

If you have taken things for granted long enough, it can be difficult to start seeing them again. Trying focusing on specific occurrences, items, or relationships that are common in your day. Then imagine your life without them. Without a pillow, without your dog, without the heat working in your car. You will quickly find a lot of things you are very happy to have around.

Notice the Lack

It is also amazingly easy to overlook the things we don’t have to deal with. We have enough on our plates already, we can forget there is a whole table of stress we haven’t been dished out yet.

On days when it was particularly difficult for me to find anything to be grateful for, I started asking myself what I was grateful I didn’t have. I didn’t have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, I didn’t have a cockroach infestation, I didn’t have to eat hominy if I didn’t want to.

If you are already negatively focused, it is often easy to think of negative things. To turn all this negativity into positivity, just think about all the negative things NOT in your life.

Accept the Bad

It may seem contradictory, but accepting the bad can actually help increase positivity. At least, it did for me. Many of us are negatively focused because we are assessing for threats. Threats that we must then do something about.

It took me a long time to realize this logically, and an even longer time to realize it emotionally, but not everything needs to be dealt with. Some things are annoying or sad or itchy and that’s ok.

Negativity, annoyances, sadness, and even being itchy are all part of life. They are part of what makes up the balance that allows for happiness to exist. Especially if these stressors are short-term or not out of our control, accepting that they are and moving on can do wonders.

This is much, much, much easier said than done though. If you are interested in building your acceptance, I recommend meditation as a starting point.

Focus on the Teeny

When we step back and look at the world, it can seem like everything is going wrong. There is so much pain, so much need, and so much responsibility that we are forced to carry. Everything can be just too much. Or at least it was for me.

Because I was intentionally looking for positive things, I had to narrow my focus until I could see them. At first, this meant going super tiny. It was a dandelion seed blowing in the wind, the warmth and weight of my cat laying on my lap, or the taste of a single bite of food.

Focusing on the tiny things can help disconnect them from the bigger web of impending doom. It also requires, though, that you stay in the moment as much as possible.

One-for-One

Whether we like it or not, negativity bias does serve a purpose. It can help us assess and deal with real threats in our life. Getting rid of negative awareness completely can lead to reckless behaviors and disastrous consequences. As we know, though, focusing only on the negative can do the same.

Knowing this, I tried balancing the two. Negativity comes easily to most of us. Why not use it as a cue to see the positive too? Every time you have a negative thought, require yourself to also have a positive one. Every time you recognize or experience a stressor, take a moment when you can acknowledge a blessing or comfort as well.

Precision of Language

In the book The Giver, by Lois Lowry, the dystopian culture stresses precision of language. A boy is reprimanded for saying he is starving, when in fact he is only hungry. Being forced to constantly be precise with words would be oppressive. But, taking time to consider our word choice isn’t a bad idea.

One of the lessons I unintentionally learned in my dysfunctional home was to blow everything way out of proportion. Tiny emotions had to be huge emotions before they would be recognized at all. Making things seem much more taxing encouraged others (especially those outside the household) to lessen their expectations of me.

Unfortunately, though, this trait can lead to us creating narratives of doom and horror. Narratives we are also telling ourselves. Try looking at the words you use for negative or stressful experiences and see if they are actually accurate. Were you really about to lose it or were you simply annoyed? While it may not be a total positivity flip, changing words can help reduce the amount or intensity of the negativity we perceive.

Create Positivity

The gratitude glad-handers and optimists seem to think that positivity is just soaking into our lives. Maybe it is, and we just don’t see it because of our Debbie-Downer goggles. But maybe also, sometimes, life sucks.

Maybe we are in a bad place in our relationship, our house burned down, our health is suffering, and we just got fired. All the happy blessings we are supposed to be grateful for just can’t be found. When I started feeling this way (or when my life simply was this way) I decided I could bitch about it and be sad or I could do something about it.

Sometimes, you can’t make lemonade because life didn’t even give you the lemons. Instead of lamenting your lack of lemons, try picking apples or taking a nap. Discover what can give you a boost of happy, and do it.

If you don’t know what makes you happy, I encourage you to start exploring. Try starting with tiny things that give a few seconds of joy and then move on to the bigger things. Just remember to include things that are easy and, if possible, free in your happiness regimen. Because, after all, sometimes life’s a bitch.

What have you done to help you increase your gratitude authentically?

Gratitude Shmatitude: Being Authentically Grateful in a Shitty World