Hard Gratitude
Gratitude can come in many forms. There’s the easy kind, where we find it simple to feel thankful for positive events in our lives. Then there’s hard gratitude, which involves finding a sense of thankfulness for experiences that are painful and challenging. This post explores my journey with both easy and hard gratitude, and how these concepts have shaped my life.
What is Easy Gratitude?
Easy gratitude is the kind of gratitude that you feel when you think about something that happened, like I feel gratitude that my wife had a successful surgery. Another example might be feeling grateful for a sunny day or a good meal. I feel gratitude for many things like this, and it’s easy.
Understanding Hard Gratitude
Hard gratitude is different. It’s when I think about something painful that happened and try to be grateful for it. I can appreciate that it made me who I am. But when I examine my feelings, I don’t feel grateful. Instead, I feel mad, left out, cheated, embarrassed, and ashamed. Have you ever found it difficult to be grateful for a challenging experience? How do you navigate those feelings?
Hard gratitude isn’t a magic bullet. It helps me appreciate who I’ve become, but in and of itself, does not change my reactions to situations, my habits of a lifetime. It’s been a long road coming to the realization of hard gratitude. I hope that my writing about hard gratitude will help victims, perpetrators, and loved ones come to accept and appreciate who they are. We are so much more than the things we need hard gratitude for. We have the potential for so much joy.
Warning: This blog post deals with childhood sexual abuse.
Discussing childhood trauma is never easy, but it’s important for healing and understanding.
My Journey with a Gratitude Journal
I started keeping a gratitude journal in April 2020. A friend and colleague recommended this practice. The gratitude journal that I started with is called Gratitude Journal by the Kurzgesagt company. One of the things it says in the introduction is that “researchers have found an antidote against dissatisfaction: gratitude”. This gave me hope, and I decided to give it a try. By the time I filled up the Kurzgesagt journal, I was hooked. Now, I use a lined notebook journal, and I’ve filled 3–4 more books over the years.
For the past four years, I’ve been writing in my gratitude journal at least a few times per week. Five or six times a week is best for me. I like to write in my gratitude journal almost every day because my negative emotions tend to catch up with me. By the end of a day I’m usually feeling anxious or embarrassed or agitated or something of that sort. But when I write in my gratitude journal, gratitude comes over me. And when I read back over my entries for the day, they invariably make me smile.
Let me give you an example from my entry from May 3, 2024.
Three best:
- Peaceful Jane
- My stepdaughter helped in the evening with Jane.
- Kitties using the new litter box
Gratitude:
- Healing powers of Jane
- My stepdaughter
- Our kitties.
“Three best” and “Gratitude” are an outline that helps me.
One of the best things that happened on 5/3/2024 was a peaceful Jane, my wife of 39 years. She had surgery the day before. Jane was sleeping peacefully in the hospital for a while and that made my heart lift because I know that although she hurts because of the surgery, sleeping is the best way for her to heal.
Often there is a “Gratitude” corresponding to the “Three best”. Gratitude #1, “Healing powers of Jane”, corresponds to “Peaceful Jane.” My gratitude is often a general concept of which the corresponding “3 best” is an example. Thinking of these items written in my Gratitude Journal, I’m filled with gratitude, happiness, hope, and strength.
Personal Reflections on Childhood Trauma
On the other hand, thinking of being sexually abused as a child, which happens unbidden most days, I’m filled with disgust, sadness, loss, anger, and shame. A “best” from before it happened is playing “horsie” with my dad. My Dad played the horse and I sat on his back. Dad dropped his head and shoulders, tilting his back, and I’d tumble off to the ground with glee. This memory fills me with light, happiness, and joy. I loved my Dad utterly. I’m grateful for the love and glee I felt.
I was six years old, in his bedroom. It started innocently, maybe with a fun game like horsie. But then, things took a dark turn, and I was forced into a situation that left me feeling violated and confused. I pulled away and left. I don’t remember the next thing that happened, but my mom does. She reports that I got a bottle of maraschino cherries out of the refrigerator, shook it, and splattered it on the popcorn ceiling of our living room.
My mom Lorraine blamed me for what happened with my dad Pat. She yelled at him something to the effect of, “should we send him back to the adoption agency?” I developed asthma. I remember sleeping in our living room on a hot summer night, gasping for air. No one came to me. Eventually my lips turned blue. Pat and Lorraine noticed this during the daytime, and Pat drove me to the hospital. He carried me into the hospital on his back. I felt satisfied. The doctor gave me a shot of adrenaline. Blessed relief. I never played with childhood delight with Pat again.
My experience of childhood sexual abuse left me with a complex mix of emotions. I felt betrayal, shame, fear, and anger when Pat sexually abused me and Lorraine blamed me. On the other hand, there are also many good memories. For example, Pat took me and my younger sister Theresa fishing. One day, we got our boat into a school of crappies. The fish were practically jumping into the boat. It was so much fun! An example related to Lorraine is when Theresa and I walked home for lunch when we were in elementary school. We ate lunch and watched soap operas with Lorraine. It still makes me smile. I’m grateful for those examples and for many other things, like food, clothing, good schools, and college. Those are easy gratitude. On the other hand, while it’s hard to feel grateful for being abused, I’ve learned to appreciate how it has shaped my resilience and ability to empathize with others.
The Impact of Hard Gratitude on My Life
But, how and why can I feel gratitude for being abused? Let’s take the situation part by part.
- Pat violated me. I felt disgusted, angry, and hurt. He betrayed me. I learned to resist something wrong with all my being. I learned to not trust someone that I once loved.
- Lorraine blamed me and threatened to send me back to the adoption agency. I learned to avoid an existential threat by devious, possibly life-threatening extreme means: developing asthma and pneumonia.
Through these painful experiences, I learned to resist wrongdoing and to rely on myself rather than authority figures. This embarked me on an independent journey to:
- teach myself programming,
- figure out surprising aspects of fruit fly evolution in high school honors biology,
- replace my own brakes alone on my first car,
- become a whistleblower back in my high school days,
- choose Stanford for college,
- choose psychology as a major instead of engineering,
- choose to become a teacher,
- marry a fellow teacher, Jane, who is 20 years older than me.
My independent journey wasn’t always pretty. For example, I was angry at Jane for many years without understanding why. It wasn’t her fault and I’m sorry. Getting to the bottom of my anger was another blessing that came out of abuse, but it came at a cost. Fortunately my marriage has held through anger and dire physical challenges. And we’ve had so many adventures together. We’ve been married 39 years and counting.
If Pat did not sexually abuse me and Lorraine did not blame me, I would not have become a teacher and met the love of my life. So, I am grateful to them for what they did. It doesn’t mean what they did was ok. It was wrong. But it happened to me and I like who I’ve become, mistakes and all. Hard gratitude has taught me to appreciate the strength and resilience I’ve developed. It has allowed me to form deeper, more meaningful relationships and find joy in the present. So, I’m grateful.
Hard gratitude reminds me of radical acceptance, a concept I learned in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) class. “Radical acceptance involves fully acknowledging and embracing the present moment, including its difficulties and discomforts, without trying to change or control it.” Hard gratitude adds the idea that my experiences have shaped who I’ve become. And I like who I’ve become, warts and all.
Hard gratitude also reminds me of Opposite Action, a skill I learned in DBT class. “The Opposite Action Skill allows us to choose to respond opposite from what our biological response would activate us to do.” In this case, my biological response to thinking about my sexual abuse is shame. The opposite action is exposure, like this blog post.
Hard gratitude doesn’t mean I absolve myself for the mistakes I’ve made in my life. I’m responsible for all my adult actions. But it does help me to accept myself and where needed, make amends.
I mentioned this at the outset, but it bears repeating here: hard gratitude isn’t a magic bullet. It helps me appreciate who I’ve become, but in and of itself, does not change my reactions to situations, my habits of a lifetime. It’s been a long road coming to the realization of hard gratitude. I hope that my writing about hard gratitude will help victims, perpetrators, and loved ones come to acceptance and appreciation of who they are. We are so much more than the things we need hard gratitude for. We have the potential for so much joy.
Hard gratitude is like finding a hidden gem in a rough stone. It’s about acknowledging the roughness while appreciating the value it has added to our lives.
Hard gratitude isn’t about absolving the past; it’s about accepting it and recognizing how it has shaped who we are. I hope my journey encourages others to find their own path to acceptance and self-appreciation.
Have you experienced hard gratitude? How has it shaped your life? Share your story in the comments below. Let’s support each other in finding acceptance and joy.
Thanks to:
- Slalom Chat Beta based on GPT-4o, for feedback on the first and second drafts.
- Every experience of my life. You shaped who I am, and I’m grateful to be me.
- My friend and colleague who recommended the gratitude journal.
- My colleagues at Slalom. You have encouraged me to be myself, and to be as effective as possible.
- My therapist and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teacher. You taught me useful skills for managing my emotions, and you continue to support me on my life journey.
- My DBT classmates. You helped me understand that I’m not alone with hard things.
- My stepdaughter, son in law, and grandchildren. Your unconditional love gives me the strength to be a whole person.
- My wife, Jane.