The Hidden Cost of Gratitude…

Gratitude for our lives is a good thing. For many of us, gratitude practice is a meaningful and practical antidote to despair and overwhelm. But it turns out that gratitude also has a cost…

Last month, I organized and enjoyed my second West Coast Constellations Intensive. In this work, themes always emerge that seem to say something special about the gathering, the needs of the participants, and the moment. This time was no different.

Over and over again, in the constellations we witnessed, the client and some aspect of their family system would run into a massive “no” to being alive and moving forward. It was challenging, let me tell you! Participants would come forward with their specific and heart-felt request for healing and growth, we’d get to work, and then this “no” would arise that would block our efforts and tempt us all back into despair about the possibility of feeling well in life.

Each time, we did find a way forward, and this is where our theme emerged. It turned out that what these families had in common was a terrible loss or violation that left the descendants feeling guilty for having it better or easier. But not just any loss or violation, but one which, if it had not happened, would have meant the client would almost certainly never have been born. Which meant that, for that person to be alive, that terrible event had to happen.

Many of us are here due to these kinds of events. No, scratch that: ALL of us are here due to these kinds of events. If World War II had not happened…if slavery had not happened…if the Spanish flu had never happened…if Stalinism had never happened…if the genocide of Native Americans had never happened, we wouldn’t be here.

Sometimes the events are more specific and feel more personal. The person who was born only because their older sibling died and their parents wanted a replacement. The person whose father divorced his first wife, and married their mother, which means that for them to be alive, their older half-siblings had to lose their father. The person with the parents for some reason needed a “good child” and a “bad child,” and so their sibling got the role of bad child that has plagued them their whole lives. Our good luck, in these instances, depends upon the very bad luck of someone else.

I think all of us wish that these things had not happened, but changing that they did, indeed, happen, is not in our power. We can only live in the unfolding of those events, which is our present.

So, to be grateful for being alive – which is a very good thing to do – feels like it means that we need to be grateful for these things having happened. This is untenable – untenable that they happened and untenable that we should be grateful. So, some life force stops in us, in honor of – out of love for – these ones who suffered so much.

The trick of gratitude for our lives, then, is de-coupling it from the impression of gratitude for the horrible things that happened. Bert Hellinger has some beautiful ritual sentences that help with this. Imagine you are looking at those who suffered, and say “I honor the dignity of your fate. I will always hold a place in my heart for what you suffered. It could have been me, but it was not. I leave it with you. Please bless me as I say yes to the good fortune I have received, in honor of you. I commit to living my life fully.”

If you just did that now, I hope you felt some small but meaningful relief. If you did not, please remember that these situations are complex and often need more movements of awareness,  honoring and including before such a simple ritual statement can be fully taken in. But it is a truth of life. We can imagine the ancestors who had it so hard, wishing desperately that their children and grandchildren might have it easier than they did.

Do you ever notice yourself holding yourself back because you feel like you don’t have the right to your life? Do you notice any members of your family or of your larger culture who have it harder than you, and whom you are trying to honor, remember and perhaps even atone for by not living fully? What brave movement forward might be inviting you to honor them in a new way?

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