The Radical Act of Gratitude

We’re living very real, very human lives while experiencing intense collective local, national, and global trauma.* 

Both things are true.

Maybe…

• You’re applying for a job.

• Your child is ill or struggling in school or just missed that promotion.

• You just learned something about your health that you really didn’t want to know.

There’s personal stress layered on top of relentless collective stress.

It’s a lot.

And yet somewhere deep inside, we know this is our One Wild and Precious Life, and we long for joy.

Holding Joy and Pain at the Same Time

Holding both truths at the same time is part of being human. But how do you find joy amid the hate, the stress, and the chaos?

I know “finding joy” can start to sound like a platitude — or as we say in our house, Rainbows and Unicorns (usually accompanied by an eye-roll).

What I’m pointing to is something different. It’s a muscle. And muscles get stronger with practice.

Gratitude as a Discipline

Specifically, the practice of gratitude — not as denial, but as discipline.

I have an unfair advantage here. I was born into it. I thought everyone sang Whistle While You Work while doing chores. In our Irish Catholic household of nine, nightly prayers were a running list of everything and everyone we were grateful for. 

It conditioned me to actively shift my focus toward what was good, even when the list of hard things was just as long. And sometimes it was. There have been seasons when the most I could muster was gratitude for my morning tea or my dogs. Even then, if I could truly focus on the feeling, not just the thought, I could sense my body shift.

That’s the discipline.

Holding onto gratitude, even briefly, changes our internal chemistry. It quiets the constant drip of fight-flight-freeze-fawn hormones so many of us are swimming in daily.

Choosing to look for what is good in the world is not naïve. It’s resistance. In times like these, it’s a radical act.

But building that muscle isn’t simple. It takes practice. And the outcome is not sunshine and lollipops. It’s something sturdier than that. A life oriented toward joy…or at least toward small moments of restoration.

Start Small

Recognizing joy doesn’t diminish the pain around us.
It doesn’t absolve us from acting on the injustices we see in our families, communities, or the world. 

It simply gives us the fuel to keep going.

So try it.
Really focus on one thing you’re grateful for today.
Gratitude doesn’t have to wait for the big things.

Notice the little things.

A sunbeam.
A flower.
The incredible taste of food.

Then, see what happens.

*Some recent heartbreak- and anger-inducing trauma. Depending on when you open your email, this list may require updating:

• ICE raids still occurring in Minnesota without the national spotlight that accompanied the more sensational actions.

• Foreign affairs increasingly defined by a might-makes-right posture, with deadly consequences in Iran, Venezuela, Ukraine, and Cuba, to name a few.

• Protections for trans adults being dismantled, in some cases criminalizing their very existence.

• The signs of climate change feeling less theoretical and more lived.