The Gratitude Contradiction
For two years now, I’ve had a daily gratitude practice: after I wake up each morning, after at least 10 minutes of guided meditation, I make a list of every single thing I’m grateful for. Some days the list is very long and others quite short. Some days all the good things in and around my life are just at the tip of my tongue and on other days I have to think harder. There's a lot of repetition, but there’s a grounding relief I find in doing this: it reminds me to stay present, that nothing is too small and that there’s always something good to hold on to.
After my diagnosis with trigeminal neuralgia (TN), gratitude has been a pillar to lean on, buttressing me when so much feels uncertain and scary. When I have felt the very real claws of despair sinking into my awareness, gratitude is what has anchored me. I don’t do it because I feel I have to; I do it because it’s become second nature.
But I’m still learning. And what I was wholly unprepared for is how my gratitude practice would help me find things to be grateful to my chronic illness for.
What the hard stuff reveals
It is hard for me to write these words: “I’m grateful to my chronic illness for…” They’re controversial and, to my ears, trite-sounding. Because there’s so much I hate about TN. Chronic illness has hijacked my life in painful, demoralizing and isolating ways. When my loved ones tell me they wish they could take my pain away, I find myself praying to the universe and every deity who hears me that I don’t want this condition to afflict anyone, least of all anyone I love.
But if I’m honest, TN forced me to pare back layers of my life that needed to be excavated and let go of. It’s an old cliche that it takes something jarring and catastrophic for us to make necessary changes in our lives, but it’s also at the core of being human. Until we’re confronted by something hard and ugly, we don’t validate our dreams and desires, nor do we trust we have the courage to chase true joy and freedom.
Confronting truth
In the first few months of my diagnosis, TN revealed:
I was putting off focusing on my passion — writing — and too afraid to let my imagination run wild and free.
I wasn’t building the business I wanted.
How much pressure I was putting on myself to complete really insignificant tasks and lackluster goals.
I took my health and wellness for granted. And I punished myself for not adhering to standards that didn’t work for me.
I wasn’t spending quality time with my loved ones in the way I wanted, and I wasn’t allowing them to show me the love and support we are all deserving of in our lifetime.
I have never prioritized my joy and pleasure — I’d never even truly contemplated what that meant. Like most people, I was operating on autopilot.
TN may have been a shock to my physical and psychic systems, but the truth it revealed pierced my heart in a way nothing else has. That’s why once the blinders came off, overhauling my lifestyle wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, for the first time in my life, I saw what I had to do through the clearest, purest lenses possible. Truth confronted me, so now it was up to me to do something about it.
No more status quo
Chronic illness laid bare the essential and non-essential, and though it has complicated my life in big ways, it has also simplified it down to the basics.
For that, I’m grateful.
Each and every truth TN revealed was a guidepost helping me zero in on what I had to do to change things. And change them I did:
Writing has become the cornerstone of my work. In fact, it’s happily become my primary business, as well as help me be more specific and discerning about which client projects I take on.
My health and wellness are priority #1 in my life — before writing, work and anything else.
I no longer commit to goals that don’t excite me or help support the work and lifestyle I want.
I consistently make time for the people I love in the ways that feel most doable and comfortable, even if that just means via text message.
Every single day, I make intentional choices about how I can feel good — even when things feel bad.
There are many steps that went into making these changes, but the strange thing is that once I saw what wasn’t working, it was easier for me to see how to turn things around, step-by-step. Being more mindful hasn’t eased my chronic illness, but it has helped me curate more ease into my life.
I don’t know if I would have made the changes I have in the absence of TN, but I know that I wouldn’t have acted as quickly as I have without it. When my health status changed, so did the status quo. I could no longer live by the same rules and routines I’d established for myself. I could no longer kid myself that pushing harder and faster was even option.
I now know that the way I chose to live pre-TN wasn’t supporting my health and happiness, and that is another thing I’m grateful to TN for: I’m more discerning about how my choices contribute to my overall quality of life and peace of mind.
It has taken a tough diagnosis for me to truly understand some of the principles I’ve been talking and writing about for years — creating boundaries, working with your limitations, using your voice, embracing your passion, asking for help, trusting yourself, loving yourself. These principles have always been precious me, but chronic illness has taught me what they truly mean and how to (imperfectly) practice them every single day.
This is about you
It is through a regular gratitude practice that I have been able to reframe the role chronic illness plays in my life. I’m able to hold that crazy contradiction at all times: awareness of the good things that have transpired post-TN as well as the pain it casts across my life. I don’t feel the need to under- or overstate what chronic illness means to me; I’m present with the good and the bad, and I know that is because of gratitude.
It would be irresponsible of me to sit here and say that gratitude is a cure-all because it isn’t. It won’t take away your chronic illness and that in itself makes it hard to hone in on the good that may have come from it. Gratitude, like any healthy habit, can help — if you’re open to it. It can help you maintain perspective and stay grounded. It can help you slip into a positive mental attitude with greater ease. These benefits are good for all of us, but they take on a different, healing importance when you’re living with chronic illness.
I know none of this is easy, but I also know that it’s worth trying. You have nothing to lose. If you can find one thing to be grateful for today — just one, no matter what it is — that’s a start.
From there, let your heart lead you forward.
