What Is Gratitude Shaming?

This video offers a brief introduction to the concept of gratitude shaming. Gratitude shaming occurs when we inadvertently minimize our emotional experience and try to mask it with gratitude, which can cause shame. We can subconsciously gratitude-shame ourselves and others if we are not mindful of the tendency.

Transcript

Hey everyone, My name is Hannah Rose and today I really wanted to talk about the concept of gratitude shaming. So what is it? Gratitude shaming, In my opinion, Is when we ever have the narrative, Whether we say it to ourselves, To anyone else, Or someone says it to us. You should be grateful. Now, This is really common, Right? We use gratitude as a tool. We love gratitude. Gratitude can put things into perspective, Can make us feel like what we have is already enough because it is. We love gratitude. I love gratitude. However, Gratitude shaming is pretty covert. I feel like it's a little insidious because in a culture that praises gratitude, What can happen is that we can inadvertently minimize our emotional experience by forcing faux gratitude on top of it. So that's a mouthful. So I'm just gonna break this down a little bit. I want this to be a quick video. Side note, This is my second video ever on Insight Timer. I don't really know what I'm doing. So thanks for watching. Gratitude shaming, For example, In real time would be me saying, Oh, I'm feeling really insecure and there's some imposter syndrome. You know, I'm having these feelings and then I shouldn't feel that way. I should be grateful that I get to do this. I should be grateful that I have a job. I should be grateful that I live in an age where technology allows me to do something like this. Gratitude shaming is corrosive and can actually lead to this subtle gaslighting of ourselves. Because when we don't honor our emotional experience and we shove it down and put gratitude on top of it, The original emotional experience doesn't just go away. It doesn't just become eclipsed by gratitude and swallowed whole and turned into something really positive, Right? We've all heard of, Most of us have heard of toxic positivity. I believe gratitude shaming is right up there with it. And so my invitation to you is to just notice how often you're gratitude shaming yourself. And how often you may want to inadvertently gratitude shame someone else because we're uncomfortable with their pain, Right? Brene Brown has a wonderful short animated video that I encourage everyone to watch. It's called Empathy vs. Sympathy. And she says that rarely does an empathetic statement start with at least. You know, So, Wow, I'm really stressed out at work. At least I have a job. Gratitude can be such a powerful tool and really, Really helpful, But forcing gratitude when it's not authentic leads us to not trust ourselves, Leads us to feel resentful, And essentially leads us to feel shame. And shame is uh, You know, Starting with I am. Not good enough. I'm not grateful enough. I am, You know, Fill in the blank. I have a whole introduction to shame as well on here. And so, Again, My invitation to you is, Do you gratitude shame yourself? Do you gratitude shame others? And we don't have to shame ourselves for doing it, Right? If you catch yourself shoving down the original emotional experience and trying to force gratitude onto yourself, Try not to shame yourself for doing that, Right? The practice of mindfulness is nonjudgmental awareness. Can I just be aware that I'm doing that? And I can't stress this enough. Gratitude is a wonderful tool. We love gratitude. And so if you're watching this video and you think, Well, Sometimes I do that and it really does help. Sometimes I do that and I do feel better. Cool. Keep doing that. I do not have a monopoly on what is true for you. I just want to bring up the concept of gratitude shaming because I don't think it's talked about enough. So with that, Have a wonderful rest of your day or night.

Reviews

Subtle and clear. A helpful concept! Thanks so much.

That is so true, and something I never thought of! Thanks for brining it to light. I was gratitude shamed as a kid, so it makes sense why at times I would do it to myself. Great food for thought and something to be aware of!