Wanna flip some mental health clichés?
You just need to be more grateful.
Ever had a mindfulness or mental health cliché thrown at you? Like the one above?
It's mental health awareness/mindfulness month - May. And I've heard from so many of you about the clichés and tropes and platitudes thrown at you like weapons, like rotten tomatoes, like casual fix-all no-brainers… that really do more harm than good, that shows how little space there is to be different, to cope different, to exist outside the scope of what is deemed normal and acceptable.
Which, I guess, is why months like these exist; to raise awareness, to create conversation, to move the needle forward… or just at all.
This week, we'll take a different mental health cliché each day and flip it, stare deeply into it to see if there is any substance inside of it; if we can harness its energies and use it for our good and well-being.
So let's start here:
Gratitude.
Promoted as the cure-all for anguish, disappointment, and worry, gratitude itself is shorted and underestimated when it's treated as a blanket - a cover-up - for the very real experiences and emotions we go through in life that evoke a different-than-happy response.
There is merit to gratitude, absolutely. Gratitude will set you in good stead, bringing health and vitality to your heart and, dare I say, your bones. I say this often: the story you tell yourself about what you are experiencing informs how you go through it. Gratitude can be part of that story, and it does make a difference.
Eckhart Tolle said:
"Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance."
Eileen Caddy Said:
"Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you."
These things are true.
And also, gratitude is not a magic pill that changes everything in a heartbeat. It is not something you can use to cover over sorrow and heartbreak in the hope that the feeling in your gut and in your soul, will be numbed, silenced, relieved, satisfied. No. It can even seem offensive to experiences of tragedy and loss: just be grateful… how? How do you apply gratitude when you're overwhelmed with sadness? Fear? Regret? The loss of not just this moment but all you dreamed of for the future?
Gratitude doesn't work that way. It doesn't cancel out doubts and anxieties. It doesn't minimise pain and heartbreak. It won't restore to you what you lost.
It doesn't work like that. Anyone who tells otherwise are themselves trying to find a fast-tracked and seamless way out of their own pain.
There is no such way. But you know that already. That's why you're here. That's why when you're told to be more grateful, it doesn't land right in your soul.
Gratitude is a practice, not a prescription. It's a perspective, not a numbing agent. It has depth and shape, light and shade. It's not a static, stoic thing that only sees happy-clappy goodness. Gratitude holds the nuance. Gratitude is fuelled by the kind of grace that enables you to be present in pain and joy. Gratitude is powered by the courage to grieve and mourn and rage and cry and be honest about life and loss.
Sukant Ratnakar said:
"Gratitude is the power to connect with the cosmos and harness its energy."
And Christina Costa said:
"By practising gratitude, we can actually wire our brains to help us build resilience."
You don't apply gratitude; you practice it. And it's not that you need to be grateful for the shit in life that hurts and twists and knocks you around… maybe that will come, maybe not. Gratitude doesn't make demands of you like that. It's the practice of being present to joy and pain as they both co-exist in every moment. It's the underlying faith that goodness is just as powerful and present as all the seemingly corrupt, dangerous and harmful things. It's a story about the value of life, your life, as it is, as you are.
So even when you can't find anything to be grateful for, you practice trusting, believing, and hoping that the world offers itself to you in love and that it is your highest calling to offer yourself to it in return.
MINDFUL MOMENT: Gratitude is a practice, not a pill. Give yourself the grace to try using gratitude in different ways and spaces until you find what works for you.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series titled "Flipping Mental Health Clichés", with a subscription, in the App.
