Hello,
Every time I hear someone talking about practicing gratitude, they’re talking about keeping a journal. Which is like if I said I was practicing cooking, and in your mind you thought, “He must be working on his French sauces, perfecting different protein temps, and the crispiest way to sear salmon skin. And I was like, “No, I’m heating Kraft Dinner on a Bunsen burner.”
You’d be like, “I guess that counts as cooking, but it’s pretty basic.”
And that’s exactly what keeping a journal is to practicing gratitude: It’s basic. And yet, it’s all anybody talks about. They brag about it on social media. "I practiced basic gratitude today!"
Have I offended you?
I’m sorry; it’s not my intention. But it is my job. My job is, very broadly, to Tell humanity we suck at being Loving people because we don’t have control of our minds, and writing down you’re grateful for your 7AM spin class doesn’t really help much.
Which sounds a little harsh, but the fact is, humans suck. We shouldn’t suck; we have the tools not to suck. But we do—we suck. And that’s because we aren’t doing enough to become Loving people. And it’s literally killing us. And not saying we suck because it might hurt some feelings is not compassionate. When the stakes are as high as they are, it is compassionate to say, “Hey! We suck! Here’s a better way.”
That’s my job as a Become Love Coach: to tell humanity we suck, and here’s a better way. It’s a calling, really.
And there are much better ways to practice gratitude than keeping a journal.
So step away from the Bunsen burner. I’m going to teach you how to really cook.
What’s Wrong With My Gratitude Journal, Big Shot?
First, what is a gratitude journal? This is typically a pricey book from the impulse-buy section of a chain bookstore where people write down the good things they’re grateful for. Is this practicing gratitude? Yes, it is, just like heating Kraft Dinner is cooking.
But how exactly is this practicing gratitude?
Because you’re putting your gratitude into an action: the writing down of the gratitude. You’re practicing turning the feeling of gratitude into the action of writing over and over again. Somedays, you aren’t going to want to do it, but you do it anyways. That’s practicing.
But let’s look at the specific action being practiced: writing. By keeping a gratitude journal, you’re practicing turning your gratitude into writing. Do you see how this is shallow? You could be practicing putting your gratitude into literally any other action you choose that expresses feeling grateful towards yourself and others, but instead, you’re practicing turning gratitude into scribbles on a page.
Again, that’s like saying, “I’m going to practice cooking today. Hand me the Kraft Dinner.”
And cooking Kraft Dinner for every meal is not how you learn to cook coq au vin. You learn to cook Wine Chicken by burning a few chickens and drinking too many half bottles of wine. Do you know what I mean?
Probably not, that didn’t make any sense.
What I mean is, by practicing gratitude using a journal, you don’t practice expressing your gratefulness using spoken words or other actions. Meaning, you don’t get better at doing anything other than writing down your feelings. And people who can only express gratitude in their writing are as constipated as foie gras. Therefore, your gratitude journal is actually making it harder for you to express gratitude in other, more profound ways. I’ll even go so far as to say your gratitude journal is making you a less grateful person. Mon dieu!
In conclusion: Keeping a gratitude journal is a great daily practice... Wait, what? Did my keyboard just get snatched by a Wellness Coach? No. It’s still me, your asshole Become Love Coach. Keeping a gratitude journal is a great daily practice... if combined with other, more impactful practices.
Gratitude journal alone = Kraft Dinner for every meal.
Gratitude journal paired with hard, tough, scary gratitude practices that challenge your ability to be grateful = duck á l’orange coq au vin foie gras. (Or if you’re vegan: duck á l’orange coq au vin foie gras-style hummus.)
So... what are these hard, tough, scary gratitude practices that challenge your ability to be grateful?
What Even Is Gratitude, Tough Guy?
To be able to practice something you need to understand what you’re practicing. Jesus, you should be paying me for these insights.
So what is gratitude? I’ll give you the definition from my free book:
Meaning, gratitude is appreciating everything that helps you become the most patient, forgiving, grateful and compassionate version of yourself. And to do that—to become your most Loving self—you’re going to have to go through some shit. Like, unpleasant shit. Pain. Suffering. Trauma. You don’t wish it upon yourself; it’s just going to happen. You know, you’ve been alive.
Because in order to BECOME LOVE, you’re going to have to practice overriding all the old, unconscious, automatic behaviour that prevents you from being Loving. I call this behaviour old code.
Old code is your impatience, resentment, ingratitude and judgement. It’s your anger, envy and fear. We all have it. You have to practice overriding that stuff with patience, forgiving, gratitude and compassion (PFGC), until eventually, PFGC becomes your new code. That’s how you BECOME LOVE. And when you’re really, really good at practicing PFGC, you spend every second of the day joyfully at peace and you can help humanity do the same. To get to that level requires a phenomenal amount of hard work, but your reward is that you get to walk around knowing you don't suck. So it’s worth it.
Okay so but in order to be at peace always, you gotta practice overriding your pain instead of spewing it. Do you know what that means? That means you need people/places/situations to trigger your painful old code. That way, when it’s triggered, you can practice overriding it. Meaning: You can learn to be grateful for every one and everything, good and bad, that helps you BECOME LOVE.
Gratitude is appreciating everything that helps you BECOME LOVE.
Are you still with me? It’s okay if you’re a little confused. I’m asking your mind to think in ways it doesn’t want to. Our minds default to resentment, to wishing difficult people and challenges just went away! I’m asking you to practice gratitude for these things—to use them as opportunities to practice Love. That’s hard to do; which is why it's hard to understand.
Also, the mind gets real obtuse when you start talking about overriding its unconscious behaviour and becoming a more Loving person. I wonder why?!? (Because your mind doesn’t want to change. It wants to keep being how it learned to be.)
Even if you’re a little lost, that’s okay; we're mostly done with the heady stuff. Let’s get practical.
How Can I Better Practice Gratitude, Coach Know-It-All?
If you don’t already know, I developed a straightforward way to become the most patient, forgiving, grateful and compassionate version of yourself by practicing Love every day so you can stop suffering, feel joyful and help humanity live in peace. I made it up in an afternoon.
Just kidding, I’ve been working on this for years.
I call it The Become Love System. You can read about it in my book, The Practical Guide to Becoming Love.
Here’s the quick Blog version:
We have two types of experiences we can be grateful for: positive and negative.
Positive experiences support our growth; negative experiences push us to change.
You gotta learn to be grateful for both, otherwise, you’re going to turn the negative experiences into resentments, and that’s just going to make more old code which causes you more pain.
Most gratitude journals only focus on the positive—and that’s okay. Practicing gratitude for positive experiences is necessary, otherwise, we become entitled, and nothing is ever good enough. But most people only focus on the positive and try to forget the negative. That’s a big mistake.
You have to practice gratitude towards negative experiences to become a more Loving person. But how you express that gratitude is totally up to you.
One of the coolest things about The Become Love System is that you get to decide who you want to be. There’s no archetype for a Loving person. There are as many ways to be Love as there are people on the planet. This isn’t platitudinal motivation. Think about it: Have you met two people you admire? Do they do everything the same? Of course not. They each have their own way of going about their business. And you admire them both.
It’s the same thing for Loving behaviour. How you express gratitude is going to be different than how I express gratitude. Maybe not radically different. But unique. Specific.
For example: I’m kind of a shy person, so when I express gratitude it’s usually in a quiet moment, pulling someone aside, looking into their eyes and thanking them for what they did. Or, I like to put my gratitude into an act of service. So when someone does something for me, I express my gratitude by doing something for them.
But maybe you're a LOUD person and you like doing big grand gestures of gratitude.
It's up to you. So think about it: How will you put your gratitude into an action?
Not sure where to begin? Try this exercise.
The Gratitude Inspiration Exercise
I have this exercise in The Coaching Edition of my book where I ask you to write down people whose gratitude you admire. These are people who just seem content. They’re grateful for what they have, instead of being disappointed for what they don’t. This includes being grateful for the challenges and obstacles in their life. These people can turn what would seem like a negative into a positive. Do you know someone like this?
You do, and chances are you admire this person's gratitude. So use them as inspiration. Describe their gratitude. Write down on a piece of paper, “I want to be as grateful as my friend so and so who came to my country as a refugee and never takes anything for granted.”
That's the kind of grateful you want to be. Now, all you have to do is figure out how to put that gratitude into actions you feel comfortable with.
(You can read examples of gratitude actions by clicking here.)
Here’s where it gets hard: Practicing gratitude for other people, or qualities about ourselves, that we don’t like.
I’m talking about people who test our patience. People who test our forgiveness. People who test our compassion. People that make us want to scream and yell, “Get out of my life!” How are we supposed to practice gratitude for them?
Because, they’re giving you an opportunity to practice patience, forgiveness, gratitude and compassion. They’re giving you an opportunity to practice Love. Which helps you become more Loving. Which helps you suffer less. Which helps you live more at peace.
The people in our lives who give us the most grief are our greatest sparring partners. And without them, as tough as this is to admit, we wouldn’t be the people we are today.
You can either let these people beat you down and then blame them for you being a miserable person. Or you can rise to the challenge.
Same goes for the parts of yourself you don’t like: Your body, your thoughts. All of our challenges are opportunities to practice Love. You can practice compassion towards your body; forgiveness towards your mind.
And because your body and mind gave you this opportunity to practice, you can be grateful.
How you express that gratitude is entirely up to you.
But if you're doing it right, it should be a little scary. Remember, you're overriding how your mind wants to be with this new, more grateful version. That's scary.
However you choose to be grateful, just please, do something more than writing it down in a journal. You’ve got way much more to give.
Back away from the Bunsen.
Review
Gratitude is appreciating everything that helps you BECOME LOVE.
You must practice gratitude for even negative experiences—they give you opportunities to be who you want to be.
To do this, learn to express gratitude for your challenges by putting your gratitude into an action.
Use your gratitude inspiration as a guide for what your actions will look like.
Practice, practice, practice. Then practice some more.
When you fail, be grateful—you gave yourself another opportunity to practice compassion.
You see how this works?
Gratitude is appreciating everything that helps you BECOME LOVE.
Good Love,
Alexander De Jordy
Become Love Coach
Founder, The Become Love Company
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