Are you someone who’s sometimes had a thought “I should be grateful for that,“ but that never seems to help? Have you had to endure so much emotional strife that feeling thankful seems like a far-off concept? If you answered yes to either of these two questions, then this blog post is for you!

Feeling Grateful is a Struggle for Many People

We live in times in which there seems to be no end to the difficulties and trials that people are going through around the world. You may feel like you spend most of your time just trying to keep your head above water, which can make feeling grateful seem very lofty indeed. Many difficult circumstances can prevent people from having feelings of thankfulness for something, or anything at all for that matter.

Feeling Grateful is About Your Attention

If your attention is caught up with how difficult and stressful things are, then you will naturally struggle to feel grateful. That may be a necessary thing in any given moment, so there’s no suggestion of any blame for someone who can’t feel thankful at any given moment. However, if you do have the ability to cope with difficult circumstances, or get support from others who are on your side, you have the chance to experience appreciation. Whether you do it at any given moment or not, is at least partly up to you. Again, circumstances may not allow you to experience or focus on thankfulness at any given time.

Here’s My List of 5 Things That Will Definitely Interfere with Feeling Grateful

1. The ‘Shoulds’: if you find yourself saying that you “should” be grateful then you will most likely not experience any feelings of genuine gratitude. Likewise, if somebody else says the same, you probably will also be feeling unappreciative.

2. Self-pity. If you feel sorry for yourself, then you’re obviously feeling a sense of being deprived or lacking something. This is also a sure fire way to not experience gratitude at all. Again, the point is not to blame, but to simply understand, that self-pity and thankfulness can’t exist in the same space at the same time.

3. Anger and resentment. Again, these are two feelings that simply can’t exist in the same space and time as feeling grateful.

4. Abuse, and neglect. If you are experiencing either of these, then you simply will not be in a place to feel thankfulness for anything at all.

5. Blame. Blaming yourself or blaming other people are sure-fire ways to disempower yourself. And if you are in such a situation, then you’re almost guaranteed to not have any feeling of gratitude.

Feeling Grateful and Your Brain

Feeling grateful is basically a right brain phenomena. Most of our time in our culture is spent in the left brain, which tends to focus on the negative, what’s wrong, unpleasant feelings, the past, etc. To be able to move oneself into the headspace of feeling thankful, then finding a sense of connection, purpose, feelings of compassion and love hold the key. There are activities and practices that can help you to be in a space of thankfulness, which I have outlined in my previous blog posts on the topic.

What If You Continue to Struggle With Gratitude?

Feeling a lack of gratitude can often go with some forms of mental illness. Depression, trauma, addiction all can be related to an inability to experience appreciation and thankfulness. I have worked with my clients over the course of my entire social work career to develop an ability to experience and express thankfulness and appreciation. Feel free to call the number at the top of the page or to fill out the form below if you would like a free 20 minute phone consult to find out whether I could help you with your struggles, particularly if you live in Maryland or Texas. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can to go ahead and schedule something, but do you understand that you are not to blame if you can’t experience this important feeling. Whatever you do, take good care of yourself and try to find small things you can appreciate on a daily basis as much as possible. And give yourself some credit for doing something on your own behalf.

Visit our page on trauma therapy to find out more about how Scott can help you with gratitude.

About the author:  Scott Kampschaefer, LCSW is a private practice therapist in Frederick, Maryland.  He has an extensive background in working with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder at a clinic for older adults with these disorders in Austin, Texas.  He now works with adults and adolescents 14 and up in private practice. His most recent book is titled The 5 Pillars of Addiction Recovery and is available for purchase on Amazon and in paperback on this website.