Dark Side of Gratitude

What if gratitude, for all its beauty and wonders, also has a dark side?

Today, I’m diving into a darker side of gratitude, the impact it can have on our psyches and well-being, how to notice when you might be caught in it, and possibilities to make a shift.

Before I move any further into this topic, I want to offer a reminder that this blog is intended for informational purposes as a support our well-being only, and is not here to provide or substitute for clinical treatment, diagnosis, or clinical recommendations of any kind.

So, what do I mean by the dark side of gratitude? Can gratitude really have a negative side to it? It’s supposed to be amazing for our physical and emotional health, right?

Yes – practicing gratitude and acts of kindness is amazing for our emotional, physical, and spiritual health. For sure.

And yet, we can sometimes get caught in a very tricky side of gratitude when we somehow go astray from the kindhearted and abundant essence of gratitude, and move into the shaming and damning, righteous, black and white world of “should”.

This is when gratitude morphs into platitude. When the shoulds and platitudes enshroud gratitude, the notion of gratitude can become very tricky, invalidating, and even damaging.

What do I mean by that? Stay with me here, I’ll explain.

Has anyone ever told you, “Look at all you have, you should be grateful!” when you were experiencing an uncomfortable feeling like sadness, anger, grief, or trying to uphold a boundary for yourself?

Most of us at some point in our lives have experienced that condemnation. Some of us may have even expressed it to others, too. We may have also expressed this kind of thing to ourselves (“I should be grateful”) as a way to negate or minimize what we actually are feeling, thinking, or experiencing in that moment. This is typically a judgmental phrase, with an implicit or explicit message that you are not being/feeling/acting in ways that are honorable or acceptable.

When we receive that message from ourselves or others, it can actually feed an inner belief of not doing things right enough or not being good enough. Of feeling or thinking in ways that are not ok or acceptable or that don’t have permission to be attended to because they are somehow wrong.