A few years ago there was a Druid I’d see fairly regularly who usually commented that he felt blessed, and that his life felt very full, and very rich.

I always felt that was a powerful thing to be able to say, but at the time it also felt alien and unobtainable.

It doesn’t work just to declare it. That can be a toxic positivity move. If life feels tough, miserable and draining and you try to tell yourself that you feel blessed, that can make everything worse. It is basically trying to gaslight yourself into believing something that isn’t true. If you are struggling with real problems then re-framing won’t magically fix that and it can leave you feeling unrooted and more unhappy. I have tried this approach, more than once and it has never taken me anywhere even slightly good.

Practicing gratitude is good; Being alert to the small beauties, the wins, the little joys can make worlds of difference. If your problem stems from a lack of gratitude, this can be a healing process. If you’ve internalised capitalism so much that you can’t enjoy what you have then investing time in noticing the blessings already in your life is an empowering, life enhancing sort of daily practice. 

If you have to work hard to find the good in a day, then that may be because there isn’t enough good. If you’re dealing with constant pain, with overwhelming work stress, economic precariousness, cruelty, insufficiency, loss and so forth then you can’t gratitude your way out of that. You can’t get on top of this kind of thing by being grateful for the lessons if you truly have no way of learning those lessons to improve the situation you are in. It is a good idea not to feel grateful for a life that keeps knocking you down.

A blessed life is not a life free from struggle. There are always going to be challenges and setbacks. If you care about anything you are also going to experience loss and grief. What I’m finding is that when life is informed by love, these things seem meaningful. To struggle for a reason, can be meaningful. To struggle when it feels futile is soul destroying. Difficult, painful things work in very different ways when you feel loved, supported and understood by the people around you. Struggling as part of a group is very different to feeling alone with it.

How we take care of each other has a huge impact on how we experience life. Care and support might not solve all the problems, but entirely change the experience of dealing with them. Feeling loved, valued, held makes worlds of difference to how setbacks land. When you don’t have to haul yourself up from the blow, when instead people reach out to help you get up and get going again, those knockdowns aren’t so brutal. When life is a process of lifting and supporting each other and responding to adversity with kindness, compassion and love, then whatever comes can be faced.

This last year or so has brought me a lot of challenges. It’s also been the happiest year of my life so far, and for the first time in my life I find I feel blessed.

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