This is a guest post from Stephanella Walsh. Stephanella writes about the creative process at The Creative Identity, tweets as @stephanellaw.
Earlier this year a friend of mine tried to articulate contrasting feelings which, it seemed to me, were rooted in her perceived lack of identity since the birth of her child. One thing above all struck me as she sobbed her way through our meeting: she felt that she should have been grateful for all she had and yet could not come to terms with the potent sense of inadequacy that had permeated her days since the euphoria of the first few months had petered out.
Over the past few years, we have witnessed a publishing trend that churns out countless guides which promise to reveal us secrets to happiness, wealth, health, in all their combinations thereof.
However, that which claims to reveal a great secret is often either presenting common sense re-packaged by a stellar marketing strategy or leaving us painfully aware that there is no secret after all and that we knew this stuff backwards anyway.
Gratitude, positive thinking, attraction, prosperity, secrets, powers are all terms that scream for our attention from bookshelves everywhere. While it is now unfashionable to call oneself Christian, Muslim, Hindu or whatever, throngs of devotees are out there putting thoughts to the universe, talking of manifesting and of intentions, of materialising a whole raft of things, while somewhere else forward-thinking authors are already penning books for those who are not manifesting enough, quickly enough, often enough.
Yet this movement rooted in the law of attraction discounts the true power we enjoy as individuals: free will channeled through action.
It is not the mere thinking about the job, the house, the holiday, the lawn or the cruise that will materialise them out of the blue sky; it is our actions towards the goal that turn possibility into reality.
The staunchest supporters of this pseudo-science claim that people who die in natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks must all have been on the same thought frequency (as Byrne states in The Secret) and yet this is an insult to intelligence. To suggest that people encounter grievances because their thoughts have summonsed them is Medieval hocus pocus that values denial of reality above acknowledgment of, and response to, it. Hardship turns up at our door uninvited and unannounced, breaking bread with bad people and with good people too.
It’s called life.
This artificial dichotomy between gratefulness and adversity would be more effectively addressed if we allowed ourselves to admit to weakness and fear, and if we accepted, rather than implicitly denied, that we are human beings, not transmissi
on masts beaming subliminal messages into the sky. This does not logically translate into a lack a spine and stamina or into bleak paranoia which holds hands with depression.
Pure gratitude, the one for which we need no thank you journals, no happiness diaries, no fake checkes, no marketing gizmos, is the one that allows us to embrace our selves when we need it the most; when, stripped bare of everything else, our sense of self remains intact, sustained by the realization that life may not come wrapped up with a bow but is still a gift.
It is now near impossible to state facts in certain circles without being accused of being negative or of being told that we should learn a lesson from it. However, there is a fundamental difference between negativity and factuality: the former thrives on skepticism and denial (and lingers), while the latter acknowledges reality, usually sits on it for a while and then moves on.
It is the forced movement of gratefulness that is rooted in denial. When we disconnect from our feelings in favour of a mantra that has no correlation with our emotional state, we are more likely to amplify our sense of inadequacy. I find Julia Cameron’s persuasion about anger (from The Artist’s Way) more likely to help us get back on our feet when all else has fallen to pieces: ‘
Anger is to be respected.
Why? Because anger is a map. Anger points the way, not just the finger. [...] We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us’. In other words, if you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you. This is radically different from claiming that I can bend a spoon with my thoughts. I have no doubts I will bend a spoon, but I’d rather use my hands.
What are your thoughts? Do you think we’re being short-changed by gratefulness? I’d love to hear your perspectives.
**
Stephanella Walsh has defined the constituents of our creative identity for her workshops and eCourses. She writes about the creative process at The Creative Identity, tweets as @stephanellaw, has a degree in English and has completed a PhD in critical theory and cultural studies. She is the author of the forthcoming Slaughter is the Best Medicine and lives in Manchester, England.
If you liked this post, please subscribe!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting argument. I generally get quite uncomfortable when people start talking about “facts” and “reality” as these are themselves tools that are often used to impose dogmatic ways of thinking. I often feel shortchanged by other people’s notions of “realism.” Stating facts is never uncomplicated and never uncoloured by our cultural upbringing.
The Law of Attraction also makes me uncomfortable in that its implications of unlimited and instantaneous wish fulfilment are like crack cocaine for the vulnerable, but I can’t deny the power of mindfulness about my own thought process and the shocking amount of times I think about what I don’t want, rather than what I do want.
As you point out, the problem is when self help becomes yet another way to deny our underlying emotions. Bizarrely but perhaps understandably, we translate our goal oriented, “should-be” society into the sphere of self acceptance and it becomes yet another stick to beat ourselves with, which just shows how much we’ve missed the point.
I think the answer to your question depends on what it is you’re expecting to achieve from the practice of being grateful. I’m skeptical of the claim that simply visualising something will make it magically appear in your life, without any further effort on your part. However, even in the Science of Getting Rich (often claimed to be the origin of the law of attraction) the author cautions that you have to take action (do all that you can each day, do it to the best of your abilities, and focus on self improvement or more than filling your place) in order to become rich. In addition, the author tells us to be grateful for all that you presently have before you can receive more – in this disposable, instant gratitification society, that’s a refreshingly reminder. I’m also a fan of gratitude because it makes me feel more positive, it reminds me to look for opportunaties rather than obstacles, and on the most difficult of days it helps me to see that there are still blessings to be counted (sometimes just that the sun has risen, or there’s toothpaste left in the tube!). I choose to keep a gratitude journal, not because it’s a new age gimmick, but because the daily ritual of jotting down at bedtime the good things that have happened to me that day reminds me to pause, reflect, and enjoy those little moments rather than letting them simply slip by. But other people prefer to take a moment to enjoy the moment as and when it happens – each to their own. And yes, I still get angry/sad/frustrated etc, and when I do I don’t try to smother the emotion in gratitude, rather I stop to examine the cause of my feelings and if necessary respond…but I can still be grateful for the learning that gives me, and the opportunty to move forward. I understand the point you’re making, and I do agree that the practice of being grateful has gotten a bad rap of late. But, I would ask you not to discount gratitude entirely simply because others may have aimed to use it for their own gain. I can attest that gratitude, used for good not evil, is a powerful tool that can help you to develop a healthy positive attitude (contrast with blind positivity), and the positive psychology movement can back that up with research. So, my answer to your question is “no”, but I’m grateful that you’ve made me stop and think :)
Oh Claire but I am not discounting gratitude because it has suddenly become fashionable and New Age and a goldmine for the supposed experts who talk about materialising stuff out of thin air. In fact, I am not discounting gratitude at all. What I am suggesting is precisely what Nicole has epitomised by saying that when it becomes yet another yardstick to beat ourselves with, we have entirely missed the point. This is precisely where my thoughts stemmed from when I found myself perplexed by my friend feeling down and bringing the dreaded ‘and I should be grateful’ into the picture. Well, ok, but she didn’t feel that grateful at that moment in time and, surely, beating herself up because she felt differently, does not automatically mean, as Byrne would have it, that she deserved what she was dealing with because of some principle that, while pedalled as scientific and rooted in quantum physics, is, in fact, neither.
When cancer patients are told by some self-fashioned master of philosophy, as I have witnessed, that their thoughts are preventing their healing, I feel that we are overstepping the line. When people who have lost their jobs in the midst of a recession are told that it’s their thoughts that have caused the redundancy, I feel that we are intellectually masturbating ourselves. It’s the economic downturn that has caused people to be sacked in the thousands and nothing else and to claim otherwise is… well, moronic.
What I do find ironic though is that, while the underlying principle of gratitude is, love thyself, you are enough, the marketing strategies employed by publishers and authors are underhand ways to tell that, actually, we are *not* enough, we need fixing, coaching, adjusting, improving and that this book, this DVD, this gratitude journal, this CD, this pencil will do just that. And, by the way, I agree with you both: I love to stare at the ceiling when I am in bed at night, thinking about all the GOOD of my life. It is my favourite time of day. I feel like it illuminates the path ahead. But walking that path still entails a lot of hard work (and by hard I don’t mean painful) that the current movement of law of attraction discounts. In the Science of Getting Rich the link between getting rich and action is tenuous; in the writings of Florence Scovel Shinn which came some years later, there is no such mention. In The Secret we are all shopping from the catalogue of the universe. Yeah right.
Laura, thank you for having me. I very much enjoyed consolidating these thoughts. Claire and Nicole, thank you for reading and commenting. Thank you very much.
Wow. This is incredibly well written, well reasoned, and well-put. As someone who struggles with daily, life-long depression, the distinction between the power of our thoughts and the power of our actions is a fundamentally important one. My brain often undermines my will – and so, it is crucial that I remember, at every moment that I am capable of remembering, that it is what we DO with our lives that matter, not only what we think.
I do think we are being short-changed by relatively empty gratefulness. What this does is simply perpetuate myths and the concept that mothers are supposed to be happy with our lot in life and not seek to change the status quo. Certainly in the North American 21st Century, becoming a mother is miraculous – but the daily act of mothering is not. It’s grueling, unending, unsupported and unrecognized WORK. We have never been expected to do so much with so little support. Isolated and idolized, we moved from being the “Angel in the Home” to just being the Angel – everywhere. And saying that we should be grateful for every moment negates the very real burden of this reality.
However, that is not to say that we cannot also be optimistic – and driven. I love how you defined gratitude -as allowing “us to embrace our selves when we need it the most; when, stripped bare of everything else, our sense of self remains intact”.
Yes.
It is the acknowledgement of the full range of emotions and experiences that get us through, the combination of free will with action. Anything less is dishonest, and a disservice not only to ourselves, but to each other.
Hi mindofgrace – thank you for your thoughtful comment and for sharing your personal struggles and perspectives. I totally agree with your statement – that we can be optimistic and driven, acknowledging the full range of emotions. I know of too many people that have said, ‘well, I should just be positive,’ almost immediately after acknowledging a negative feeling or situation, without having fully processed, felt it, experienced those feelings that they need to in order to get through and be their true selves.
Again, thank you!