Being Grateful the right way

I was going through the worst times of my life. I had huge setbacks, dealing with depression and anxiety, and it became practically impossible to think of a way ahead. However, as usual, I was given unsolicited advice to practise gratitude. I was told to be grateful. This drove me mad, and I thought it was rude and inconsiderate like I haven't tried it already. So I did some digging and google searching and all I could find was a plethora of articles on the miraculous benefits of being grateful.

After reading Rhonda Byrne's The Miracle and watching a bunch of videos about the law of attraction I wouldn't deny how being grateful can be a game-changer and can take your life in a positive direction. Nevertheless, it irks me to think if we should be grateful mindlessly all the time?

Gratitude is projected as some noble exercise, especially by religious groups, and if you question how counting my blessings could change my circumstances, there's no persuasive answer. I'm not against gratitude. I leave no chance of expressing gratitude if something good happens or someone has done a favour to me. I feel it's a natural human tendency to point out generosity, it's a virtue that we should always develop and it's going to cause happier life. it's going to make our content, optimistic, altruistic and better people generally. However, this imposed idea to force out gratitude as a self-help tool is merely stopping us from feeling complete human emotions. The Ohio State University Research has mentioned that gratitude interventions cannot cure your depression and anxiety. It's mentioned -"It could be that these kinds of interventions, on their own, aren't powerful enough or that folks have difficulty enacting them fully once they are feeling depressed and anxious."

I think perpetual happiness is toxic. This generic idea of expressing gratitude, despite how one feels, is obnoxious. If something is wrong in your life for an awfully long period of time, counting your blessings won't solve it. This illusion of happiness makes us overlook our problems some things not fixed for an extended time. as an example, if you're stuck in an abusive household, it becomes really difficult to be grateful for a roof over your head.

I'm not saying we should always be relentlessly negative or cynical all the time. But making us be grateful even when we aren't is pointless. we've as much right to express our anger/sadness as gratitude. Some personal circumstances are often such, that require different responses and gratefulness won't cut it. How can we justify gratitude to have-nots, survivors of varied oppression?

"On the Last Thursday of November 1931, some 200 people celebrated the primary Annual Blamesgiving Service gathered in New York City. Their leaflet mentioned ''there will be no harm in making an identical list of things that weren't so good.''

So my point is to see things as they're. However, in fact, life would feel amazing once your crisis is over and even the littlest things are going to be a reason for joy like feeling the sun on your face. it's because your brain compares your present experiences with the days when life wasn't good.

A pro-tip for feeling a touch of gratefulness even within the midst of crises - Consider what your life would be like without certain people or things, instead of just tallying up all the great stuff. Be grateful for the negative outcomes you avoided, prevented, or became something positive. Writing a gratitude journal as a habit will cause you to become numb to positive events. It's better to leave space for surprises.