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Sheila's avatar

I really connect with this! Although gratitude as a word doesn't provoke a reaction the way it seems to for you, the sentiments behind it does. I find it so hard when I share the difficulties I've faced these last four years (and some I just didn't have a name for them), to be met with 'you have to focus on the positives' when really it just plain poop what's going on. Reading this I thought the next time someone retaliates with toxic positivity I could meet it with 'I need my struggles recognising before I can focus on the positive positive'. Or words to that effect.

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Urgh it’s so insensitive to tell a person struggling (whatever it is) to focus on the positives. I’m glad my words resonates and I love your wording for how to approach toxic positivity! Thank you so much for sharing 🌸

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Sheila's avatar

Isn't it just! I think people just want to try and 'help' but really they just come across as ignorant. THANK YOU for writing your piece, always lovely to connect over such struggles xx

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Lovely to connect!

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Sheila's avatar

Likewise 😊

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Amber Horrox's avatar

So much love and appreciation for this post ! 🙏🙏 I’ve been trying to connect so much with my own journey and put together all pieces that I hope make up a complete puzzle and this has helped a little with my experience of gratitude - thank you, thank you thank you. Nearly 3 years in to waking up to disability by chronic ill health and embarking some kind of journey I didn’t even realise I was on to begin with, I realised that there were so many days that I actually felt “ok”. Some days I even felt good. Yes, there were 6 bed-bound days (down from 24) and 10 days I could get up but little else as I was still very unwell. But I realised I was really ok with feeling ok and this was good enough for me. Only then when I was comfortable with how I was feeling did I start a gratitude practice each night before sleep. Gratitude for the blue skies and sunshine out my bedroom window, for the clothes on my back, the walk I had taken, the food I had eaten, the friends I saw/spoke to. The whole experience was a real door opener to joy and I started telling people exactly how I felt (and still do - another healing). Previously I used to say “yeah I’m good thanks” even when I was in pain and suffering. Now I say it exactly as it is and gratitude is often a state of being for me (but so it tiredness, not feeling my best self, and any other feelings I may be happening to feel). I’ve also noticed a similar thing with the word appreciation and find myself using that word too x

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

I looove what you’re sharing here, Amber. A slow process towards gratitude and healing while acknowledging your true feelings. That’s powerful!

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Amber Horrox's avatar

Super powerful ❤️‍🔥🔥⚡️✨☄️

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Kat's avatar

This resonates heavily! Several years ago, I started keeping a "Good Sh*t Log" in my journal for exactly these reasons. Some days, I wasn't grateful for having only been able to brush my teeth, but I needed a way to acknowledge that it was still something. Space for the rough feelings rather than pasting over them.

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Good sh*t log - love it!! I need one of those.

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Emily Kaminsky's avatar

Thank you for this. Found your post thru notes shared by another stacker. Years ago I went thru a positive affirmation craze to deal with a major life upheaval and ultimately trashed it all in favor of what ended up being some pretty dark and ultimately therapeutic art therapy.

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Thank you for sharing, Emily. Dark and therapeutic art therapy - I can imagine that would be helpful.

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Janelle Hardacre's avatar

Thank you so much for writing this, Madelleine. And for your honesty and vulnerability.

I have a half drafted piece about this very point. You've encapsulated it so well here.

I'm very fortunate to have accessed therapy last year and he supported me to notice that I'd been doing what you write about. I had developed an almost obsessive gratitude practice. I wasn't letting myself feel anything 'negative' because I truly do have so much to be grateful for. I was using it to bypass and gloss over difficult feelings.

I still grapple with it but having this new framing on it has massively helped.

I really like how you've arrived at appreciation.

I'm really sorry to read about losing your case. Sounds like an incredibly tough and painful time.

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Thank you so much for sharing! Sounds like you found yourself a good therapist there. Am so happy to hear that you too have come to the realisation about bypassing real emotions with gratitude. I still grapple with it too, it’s a daily practice. Good to connect here.

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Sophie Pødenphandt's avatar

Today I am grateful that I allowed myself to have an off day.

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Yay! More of those days 🍀

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Sophie Pødenphandt's avatar

Jeg er nysgerrig i øvrigt, jeg har selv lidt en aversion mod ordet 'taknemmelig'. Appreciate er et virkelig godt ord, men skriver du på engelsk eller dansk? Og i så fald, hvad bruger du? Sætte pris på er ikke særlig mundret..

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Skriver på engelsk og tænker på engelsk. Har endnu ikke fundet et godt ord på dansk... hmm.. det vil jeg tænke over.

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Line Bech Nielsen's avatar

Jeg ved naturligvis ikke, om det ræsonnerer bedre med dig, men jeg bruger selv "værdsætte".

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Aah ja selvfølgelig!

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Sophie Pødenphandt's avatar

Perfekt ord, tak!

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Tamsin's avatar

I got bored of daily gratitude affirmations. I am grateful for my husband, I’m grateful for waking up again today (or am I?), I am grateful for what ever weather is outside etc. Boring! Actually just let me grump if I need to, let me be realistic, let me find mown way not some fad on the internet. (By the way I’m also PDA so can’t be doing with being told what to do.)

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

I sooo hear you! I get bored listing the same things too.

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Michelle Spencer (she/her)'s avatar

Thank you Madelleine. I’m starting to try for an ‘and also’ or even a ‘because’ in my gratitude. “Today I’m grateful for sitting and watching the clouds and also I spent the afternoon lying a darkened room with a migraine” “Today I was grateful to cook a simple meal because I was too sick for the whole week prior.” Partly to witness myself, and partly to practice doing it so I can —maybe—bring people who aren’t experiencing chronic illness along with me. I don’t yet have a response when they say, “Its great that you’re being so positive.” “You’d run away if I weren’t,” while true, doesn’t seem useful.

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Ah yes! ‘Because…’ is a great one too! I also don’t have a reply for the ‘you’re so positive’ one… let me know if you find one… I could use it!

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Julia Thorne's avatar

Absolutely agree. What you say about the word 'gratitude' itself is true, and I think it doesn't help that 'being grateful' is a term used negatively - 'You should be grateful for what you have' (i.e. stop complaining).

I have similar feelings about CBT, which I have tried before. It felt to me like professional gaslighting - 'Just take that negative thought and turn it into a positive one' feels like I'm being invalidated. I'm finding mindfulness, especially the idea of noting feelings in a *non-judgemental* way, much more beneficial (I've felt judged my entire life because of undiagnosed AuDHD).

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Oh yes, I too find the practice of non-judgment more helpful. Hard… but helpful.

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Sarah Raad's avatar

Thank you for sharing all of this. For me, gratitude during hard times sits alongside the things that are not good. Feelings of gratitude and appreciation are not there to try to cover up or paperless over the negative situations and emotions, but rather just act as a counterpoint in a sort of ‘and also’ way if that makes sense. So I might say that I am really in pain with my knees today and also I can hear a bird singing and that is uplifting me.

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Exactly, it’s an ‘and also’.

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Catherine The Middle Aged's avatar

This is also how I view gratitude and appreciation 💖

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Chele's avatar

Oh, how I relate to your post. The being shamed for not being grateful thing that's done to people living with chronic illness or injuries is unbelievably toxic. Yes, I am grateful to still be here. No, I am not grateful to live every single day of my life with nerve pain. I had a near fatal accident and went overnight from young and able-bodied to disabled and feeling ancient. Here in America, we have the "inspirational happy cripple" trope. (I wrote lyrics about it, years back...) If you're disabled and not a paragon of acceptance and gratitude, you are made to feel that *you are doing it wrong* By people who don't have a clue how it feels. I think the happy inspirational cripple character was invented by able bodied people so they can deny that it could happen to them, and even if it did, oh, look, you can still be happy. Yeah, I'm happy on the good days, but I'm not going to deny my reality to make them feel better. Being in pain and being limited is not something to celebrate. Being alive, yeah. Because it could always be worse...

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

I love your reflections here! We’ve got the inspirational cripple trope here in Denmark too and it’s annoying. And I think you are right about it’s origins. Are you a fellow songwriter (you said you wrote lyrics)?

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Chele's avatar

Hi, Madelleine. I don't think I dare call myself a songwriter yet... I am trying to figure out how to get the music in my head that goes with my lyrics onto paper, but it's not a natural skill for me. The words come easy, and I could hum the melodies, but translating that to notes on paper (or on my keyboard) is where I get stuck. Hoping it's a skill I can learn!

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Ah yes, that is a skill and it’s definitely something you can learn. Good luck! Would love to hear your songs one day!

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Chele's avatar

Thanks for the encouragment! Would love to hear yours, too!

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Madelleine Müller (she/her)'s avatar

Thanks! The entire album is with a bass player right now, I hope to release some time this year 😀

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Chele's avatar

Congratulations! Looking forward to it!

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