My garden was the game changer for me. After cancer (plus chronic illness plus muscular dystrophy) I started noticing the little things like the robin outside my window bopping around from twig to twig, or the pure joy of a good conversation with a loved one. But my flower garden switched that conversation for me so completely. The flower garden and the nausea. The dahlias and the migraine. The sunflowers and the crippling fatigue.
I'm not sure what turned the corner for me. I think it's been gradual - and then fast. I definitely started a gratitude practice years ago, also because of a therapist, and that helped some.
Then I started thinking about how, if I was gonna spend all day in bed, I should probably make it the nicest most comfortable bed possible, but that proved harder than it sounded, given all my various competing needs and preferences (eg I love velvet, texture, color, but my body needs something that won't make me sweat and that's easy to wash).
Still, I started noticing that what my eye landed on could make me stressed out - or happy. And so I started trying to eliminate (or cover up) anything that stressed me out, and increase what made me happy. Specifically, lately I've been on a mission to introduce items that bring me joy wherever possible, and to replace anything i use regularly with a version that makes me super duper happy.
Some of my favorite things:
- coasters that look like snow trapped in glass (it's actually tin foil trapped in acrylic lol)
- the most stupidly expensive mug painted with gold foil, in which I hold all my eyeglasses. it makes me squee every time I see it
- Brooklinen navy blue silk pillowcases with stars on them. they feel good and they look like space and they make me so happy
- my new red/turquoise rugs, to replace the dishwater grey runners I brought from my old house and HAAAAAAATE with a fiery passion
I have also been making it a practice to notice the joy when it happens, and to do more things that bring it on. Like I literally will stop, while painting, and go "this is joyful. let's feel this feeling. the openness in my chest, the smile on my face, the way my body is relaxed. how great is this?" like taking a body snapshot.
It is improving my quality of life by leaps and bounds. You're right that it doesn't make the pain less. But it does make life with pain more bearable - and, in fact, pretty awesome. (And I too am enjoying and appreciating things now I never did when I had more function - which is also pretty cool. Like: TREES! Who knew?)
I read your articles to gain some small inkling of what my chronically ill friends and family face. What a gift to find this column offered something for me to absorb and apply to my own life and perspective. "This" AAAND "This." So simple; so amazing.
I think a lot of people have had the "gratitude" question weaponized against them. They'll say they are worried/scared/struggling and someone will say "gosh, you have so much to be grateful for, maybe focus on that." Or sometimes "be grateful it's not worse." Those are thought terminating cliches and totally counterproductive. So when the question comes up genuinely, I think people instantly snap to a defensive, protective mode and end up focusing on the negative even more.
Weaponized pop-psy sucks, and in other breaking news, fire is hot.
But leaning into it doesn't have to sound like therapy-talk. It can be resources, strategy, or a quick temperature check on the things that they don't have to worry about.
Personally, I find the gratitude conversation a little weird because it doesn't fit my world view. I feel grateful in a moment, in a scenario. Not long term. But! I *do* feel lucky in ta long term way, so I personally like to contemplate on lucky. And I translate "gratitude" to "lucky" as needed, and that works.
The only other thing I would say is people can feel lucky/grateful about negative things, and I wish that didn't get knocked as 'saccharine' or "putting it on.' Sure, maybe it's perverse joy, but sometimes you only learn something critical about yourself the hard way, and learning that thing is more powerful than the memory it is attached to. Let people be grateful for weird stuff. Maybe especially the weird stuff.
Yes!! So true. Often our greatest sources of pain and loss can become our most valuable teachers. This is what I call the privilege of trauma…ie when we’ve allowed ourselves to intimately experience the depths of our very real traumas and losses, the feelings of total fucking powerlessness they once brought up when we were identified by them indeed begin to dissipate.
But, as anyone who has healed from chronic disease or severe trauma (or both, since they’re often—always?—interconnected) knows, this is an extremely humbling journey. Those who weaponize gratitude, diminishing and distorting it into an obligation rather than an organic product of true healing, are giving directions from and to places they’ve never been. That obligatory positivity is indicative of extreme physiological fragility, not gratitude…which is what I like to refer to as the trauma of privilege.
Amazing, right? Sometimes I want to time travel and slap my former self for not being able to be more grateful for what I had. I’m more grateful now and I “have” even less. So funny how life works!
P.S. you may want to fix the Ally info because it may be deterring some folks. You do not need a minimum of $1k to open the high-yield savings account. No minimum at all, just three months of monthly auto-deposits of any dollar amount. Easy peasy!
I sort of do and don't want to slap past me...yes, she had everything, but no, she did NOT have necessary info or tools. I'm more grateful for the less I have now too. (And I'm not saying getting sick "fixed" me...really good therapy did the legwork there. But it was a perspective shift, for sure.)
Yeah, good point about not having the right tools. I take it back. I would have just shaken her gently by the shoulders and then hugged her while whispering the needed info in her ear 🤣
I heard someone on some podcast somewhere (i have terrible recall) say they like to focus on appreciating “small delights” instead of thinking about big g “Gratitude” because it felt more accessible and not co-opted by the toxic positivity that Beth described. I liked that framing a lot and it’s helped me pull out of negative brooding thought spirals a few times lately.
My garden was the game changer for me. After cancer (plus chronic illness plus muscular dystrophy) I started noticing the little things like the robin outside my window bopping around from twig to twig, or the pure joy of a good conversation with a loved one. But my flower garden switched that conversation for me so completely. The flower garden and the nausea. The dahlias and the migraine. The sunflowers and the crippling fatigue.
Love this article, my friend. Per usual. 💗
I bought a set of very pretty coffee mugs during covid in an effort to cheer up my mornings and take great joy in choosing one daily.
SO MUCH THIS.
I'm not sure what turned the corner for me. I think it's been gradual - and then fast. I definitely started a gratitude practice years ago, also because of a therapist, and that helped some.
Then I started thinking about how, if I was gonna spend all day in bed, I should probably make it the nicest most comfortable bed possible, but that proved harder than it sounded, given all my various competing needs and preferences (eg I love velvet, texture, color, but my body needs something that won't make me sweat and that's easy to wash).
Still, I started noticing that what my eye landed on could make me stressed out - or happy. And so I started trying to eliminate (or cover up) anything that stressed me out, and increase what made me happy. Specifically, lately I've been on a mission to introduce items that bring me joy wherever possible, and to replace anything i use regularly with a version that makes me super duper happy.
Some of my favorite things:
- coasters that look like snow trapped in glass (it's actually tin foil trapped in acrylic lol)
- the most stupidly expensive mug painted with gold foil, in which I hold all my eyeglasses. it makes me squee every time I see it
- Brooklinen navy blue silk pillowcases with stars on them. they feel good and they look like space and they make me so happy
- my new red/turquoise rugs, to replace the dishwater grey runners I brought from my old house and HAAAAAAATE with a fiery passion
I have also been making it a practice to notice the joy when it happens, and to do more things that bring it on. Like I literally will stop, while painting, and go "this is joyful. let's feel this feeling. the openness in my chest, the smile on my face, the way my body is relaxed. how great is this?" like taking a body snapshot.
It is improving my quality of life by leaps and bounds. You're right that it doesn't make the pain less. But it does make life with pain more bearable - and, in fact, pretty awesome. (And I too am enjoying and appreciating things now I never did when I had more function - which is also pretty cool. Like: TREES! Who knew?)
Treeees! Are you even a sickie if you don't commune with trees like never before!?
You are not !
Did someone say TREATS?? x
I read your articles to gain some small inkling of what my chronically ill friends and family face. What a gift to find this column offered something for me to absorb and apply to my own life and perspective. "This" AAAND "This." So simple; so amazing.
I think a lot of people have had the "gratitude" question weaponized against them. They'll say they are worried/scared/struggling and someone will say "gosh, you have so much to be grateful for, maybe focus on that." Or sometimes "be grateful it's not worse." Those are thought terminating cliches and totally counterproductive. So when the question comes up genuinely, I think people instantly snap to a defensive, protective mode and end up focusing on the negative even more.
Weaponized pop-psy sucks, and in other breaking news, fire is hot.
But leaning into it doesn't have to sound like therapy-talk. It can be resources, strategy, or a quick temperature check on the things that they don't have to worry about.
Personally, I find the gratitude conversation a little weird because it doesn't fit my world view. I feel grateful in a moment, in a scenario. Not long term. But! I *do* feel lucky in ta long term way, so I personally like to contemplate on lucky. And I translate "gratitude" to "lucky" as needed, and that works.
The only other thing I would say is people can feel lucky/grateful about negative things, and I wish that didn't get knocked as 'saccharine' or "putting it on.' Sure, maybe it's perverse joy, but sometimes you only learn something critical about yourself the hard way, and learning that thing is more powerful than the memory it is attached to. Let people be grateful for weird stuff. Maybe especially the weird stuff.
Yes!! So true. Often our greatest sources of pain and loss can become our most valuable teachers. This is what I call the privilege of trauma…ie when we’ve allowed ourselves to intimately experience the depths of our very real traumas and losses, the feelings of total fucking powerlessness they once brought up when we were identified by them indeed begin to dissipate.
But, as anyone who has healed from chronic disease or severe trauma (or both, since they’re often—always?—interconnected) knows, this is an extremely humbling journey. Those who weaponize gratitude, diminishing and distorting it into an obligation rather than an organic product of true healing, are giving directions from and to places they’ve never been. That obligatory positivity is indicative of extreme physiological fragility, not gratitude…which is what I like to refer to as the trauma of privilege.
literally capitalism is held together through a treat society. great rizzead
Amazing, right? Sometimes I want to time travel and slap my former self for not being able to be more grateful for what I had. I’m more grateful now and I “have” even less. So funny how life works!
P.S. you may want to fix the Ally info because it may be deterring some folks. You do not need a minimum of $1k to open the high-yield savings account. No minimum at all, just three months of monthly auto-deposits of any dollar amount. Easy peasy!
I sort of do and don't want to slap past me...yes, she had everything, but no, she did NOT have necessary info or tools. I'm more grateful for the less I have now too. (And I'm not saying getting sick "fixed" me...really good therapy did the legwork there. But it was a perspective shift, for sure.)
re:ps: thank you so much for the reminder--fixed!
Yeah, good point about not having the right tools. I take it back. I would have just shaken her gently by the shoulders and then hugged her while whispering the needed info in her ear 🤣
I heard someone on some podcast somewhere (i have terrible recall) say they like to focus on appreciating “small delights” instead of thinking about big g “Gratitude” because it felt more accessible and not co-opted by the toxic positivity that Beth described. I liked that framing a lot and it’s helped me pull out of negative brooding thought spirals a few times lately.
Ooooh, I love this frame more. I was looking for a word for the title and "treats" didn't feel quite right...delights is better!