Gratitude Transcript

Liz: I just kind of want to say “fuck gratitude”.

Rhea: I have to say there is some merit to that.

Liz: Oh there is. There is certainly.

Rhea: Because I know that for a very long time, I was never one who was able to stop and be present. I was always thinking five steps ahead and remembering too much about what had happened to me in the past. What I found gratitude useful for was making me look around in that moment and appreciate the present. The actual concept of gratitude and being in flow and seeing the beauty of divine timing and seeing the beauty of the present. These are all amazing things and there's always a place for that.

Liz: Yeah.

Rhea: But it shouldn't come in the place of the stuff that needs to come before that. And if you say thankful for one thing, it doesn't mean you're going to be thankful for everything, because in a lot of ways it comes from a place of you owe someone something. So you have to be thankful for receiving it. It's not something that is yours. It's been bestowed upon you in some way.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: So very much linked to this idea that if you're not grateful for this thing you have, it will leave you and you're not deserving of it. It minimizes my feelings. It minimizes my emotions. It brings me further away from myself.

Liz: It does, doesn't it? Because this isn't the time to talk about the positives. It's not about being cynical either, but it's about talking about our hurts. It's about talking about our pain. It's about understanding that what we're seeing manifesting in the world, everything that's out there hurting one another is because we are in pain and if we keep saying, well, yes, I hurt, but that person hurts more, therefore I'm okay. I'm better off. Then we're constantly stuck in this relationship with polarity again of, but I'm still better than the other person.

Rhea: Comparing yourself to anyone is the path to self-destruction. Every single time I've been happy about something in my life, guaranteed you can find someone who does it better than you or worse. Again, you're giving away your own agency by comparing it to someone else. If I trace back a lot of my self-doubts, a lot of the things where I felt like I was failing, I didn't actually think I was failing, but in comparison to my peers I was. So when you compare yourself to someone else, what you're doing, and we've spoken about this in previous episodes when we're talking about social media and abundance and FOMO, this idea that you're comparing yourself to someone else but they'll have a different purpose to you. They'll have a different joy to you. They have different values to you.

Liz: Precisely. You're moving yourself away from you, creating this divide between where you are in that very moment, failing to honor that because you're too busy telling yourself how you should be, and that's why I have despised the word should. You less so, but the shoulds really also bother me because it's not acknowledging where you're at. And if you can't fully be present with yourself where you're at, then where you are tomorrow does not matter whatsoever, because you're not going to get there, because it's not organic. You could force it in your mind. You could play games in your mind and sort of fake it till you make it if you want, but positive thinking is not always the Law of Attraction.

Rhea: Why?

Liz: Because positive thinking sometimes is us playing tricks on ourselves, and it still is based in fear. If I'm thinking this way, therefore all these bad things that I really am afraid of are going to happen won't happen if I'm putting out this energy that, Hey, I'm all good, because ultimately the motivation is fear. The other shoe's is going to fall or you're going to be disappointed again, whatever loop that you find yourself in. And as we discussed in the previous episode, Law of Attraction doesn't work that way. And especially if you're coming at it from a place of fear, it does not work. So ultimately all your positive thinking is doing is just pushing you to constantly be aware of all these “good things” are happening, however small or whatever, or the sun is shining today or you got a great parking space. It’s all really lovely, but no one's giving you that.

Rhea: But can I ask you a question?

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: In our first episode, you said the stories you tell yourself are your reality.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: The best way to shape your reality is to challenge the stories you tell yourself. Surely being more grateful for your present is a way of changing the stories, therefore changing your reality.

Liz: Yes, it certainly is that, but are you changing your reality for your highest good? Is it really a story that's healing old wounds? Is it a story that's really transforming your life in the bigger way in which you really need it, as opposed to these little ways that feel safer? Because I think the thing about gratitude is that we see it as a bit of a safety net where you feel like, okay, well if nothing else, I will at least have earned a bit of this goodness in my life by saying, Oh, this is all so good, when in reality most of us aren't in that space and it feeds that idea that my external conditions will somehow shape my reality, as opposed to my internal that shapes my external.

Rhea: Why? How?

Liz: Because ultimately we are the ones responsible. We are the architects of our reality and as we said before, everything is a reflection of who we are and where we are. So you will only get to the ideal place in your heart where you feel in love and in peace when you can really get through the hurt. And I never said that gratitude was wrong. I'm not judging it per se. I think we're just a little too soon for the lesson. I think it's being shoved down peoples’ throats before they're really ready.

Rhea: Well, what's interesting about it is that it is not just that it is shoving it down peoples’ throat before they're ready, it is preying on peoples’ fears to enforce it. So the one thing that it's being touted to solve is the one thing it is actually feeding off. Because if you weren't scared of the bad happening, you wouldn't need to self-flagellate for not using gratitude, because there would be nothing to be scared of.

Liz: Exactly.

Rhea: And you'd be naturally grateful because you'd be in flow. So if you think, Oh, I need to be grateful, because if not XYZ will happen, it becomes this full circle of I'm scared, therefore I should be grateful so I'm not scared anymore. But in being grateful whilst remaining scared, I'm not actually getting rid of any of my fears. Yes, it's making you happier in a more superficial way, but actually if you want to be significantly happier as a person and know that whatever life throws at you, you can weather it. That requires an inner foundation that can only happen once you actually turn around and go this, that and the other were really fucking shit.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: And the problem with gratitude is it tells us not to do that.

Liz: No. Not at all.

Rhea: So it's actually blocking the real path to gratitude. Because when you say it comes too soon is that you have to be ready to be grateful, but if you're still angry about the shit that's happened and you haven't actually dealt with it, you're not in a place where gratitude can work in a significantly deep way because gratitude isn't a medicine. It's the result once you've cured it. What we're doing is we're taking the medicine to treat the illness in the hope we don't get sick. There's stuff that needs to come before that instead.

Liz: There's a lot of stuff we still have to attend to as we see outside of ourselves. One of the most dangerous things that people fall into, I think around gratitude is the way they shove it down their children's throats. The way gratitude is sold to our children because we can't handle being told something's not right. At least appreciate it please, because I want to feel appreciated. Do I really care if they're grateful? I just need to know that I'm appreciated. But even more than that when my son was being bullied in school and his teacher would say, well, just be grateful you don't have it as bad as that kid. Here are these adults who've lived long enough to know that that's not how the world is. There are obstacles to be faced. There will be hurdles, and if we cannot teach our children and prepare them.

Rhea: You're right. Because with kids nowadays, some things suck and some things don't, and it's not about teaching them to find the positive in everything.

Liz: No.

Rhea: It's about teaching them to see the positive where there is, but also be brave enough to sit in the negative should you need to.

Liz: Yeah, and to experience things like sadness or grief or pain or confront trauma. I've had to work with my son for years over his experience with bullying.

Rhea: Not only are we comparing ourselves to each other, but we're also comparing different aspects of our life. So I can't say I'm unhappy in X and Y because I've got a roof over my head.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: I can't say that I'm frustrated about something that happened to me because I can eat food and in doing so we're not growing the way we need to grow. At the end of the day, saying everything's positive is totally unrealistic, just as saying everything's negative is totally unrealistic, which is not what we're saying either. We're just saying life is a bit of all of it and just like the episode where we talk about allowing your emotions rather than surrendering, there is a whole spectrum of emotions to be had and different things can give you three, four emotions at one time. So trying to make it simple and good, is only going to get you further away from peace and ironically further away from true gratitude.

Liz: Absolutely.

Rhea: Well, what I find really interesting that I've learned more recently than I'd like to admit is that no one likes a perfect person. The way in which you can create connection with another human being often is to talk about shared disappointments, shared experiences that are more painful. Oh, I've experienced that too. Oh, I understand you. Oh, we connect whatever else. The movies and the books that do well tend to be ones that showed quite multifaceted characters in a lot of ways. So we know that vulnerability, honesty, a variety of emotions and a variety of experiences is what makes us human.

Liz: Yeah.

Rhea: So by painting our life with this gratitude brush…

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: We're actually removing the humanity from our existence.

Liz: Very much. And humanity is that spectrum from joy or whatever to deep profound grief.

Rhea: It goes back to what has to be weirdly my favorite episode.

Liz: Oh, death!

Rhea: The episode about death.

Liz: You're hilarious about that.

Rhea: I know it's weird, but it's because it goes back to this black and white. Be grateful you're alive. I don't know why it doesn't feel like as a society, we are emotionally mature enough to say, I'm grateful I'm alive. I'm grateful for the things I have that are good, but I would like to fix the things that aren't.

Liz: But as a society, our emotional maturity is about that of a toddler. Really. We are just on the whole a bunch of children trying to figure out and play at this maturity game. And it's not working. And I think our children, so many of our children are more emotionally and spiritually mature than we are, and yet we keep trying to get them to swallow the positivity pill because it's what keeps us safe. So what's ironic is that we are harming our children in order to avoid growing up, and I think that's one of the most frustrating things I find about the gratitude myth.

Rhea: Because there is a place to be grateful.

Liz: Oh yes.

Rhea: And there are ways in which embracing gratitude can help you live a better life. Our issue is that, not that it exists but it does not replace the unhappy emotions. You can have both. We've all got fucking trauma.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: Let's look at our trauma. Let's look at our shadow. Let's see where that is. Because unless we integrate that stuff, we won't ever get to a place where we can be in flow and be at peace. That's the reality of where we are. And like everything else, you can't come to love yourself unless you see all of yourself. And with gratitude, what we're doing is we're telling ourselves we're not allowed to be upset about these things, therefore we're denying our own emotions about stuff. Therefore we're telling ourselves that those emotions aren't worthy. Therefore we're telling ourselves that we're not lovable, and again you're perpetuating the same thing again and again. You're not lovable, therefore how can you love yourself? And if everyone else is a mirror, you're not getting experiences of love either. So actually what gratitude is doing in this blanket way is actually removing love, not adding it.

Liz: And then you just extend that out from the individual to the relationships the individual has and that's where the world is.

Rhea: Let's say you're in a relationship and you're not happy in this relationship and everyone around you is like be grateful that you're in a relationship. 

Liz: Be grateful you have someone 

Rhea: Accept less than what your heart is telling you to accept. You don't deserve as much as you think you want. And actually from the Law of Attraction, from all the stuff that we've been doing this far is we've been saying the same thing over and over again. The more you love yourself, the more you allow yourself the space to be you, the more people will love you for you.

Liz: Because you're loving yourself.

Rhea: Because you're loving yourself.

Liz: And that's just all people are doing. They are just mirroring that self-love.

Rhea: So when you're told you don't deserve what you want or you should be grateful for what you've already got, and you shouldn't feel like you should ask for more or want more or desire more, we're saying be small. We're saying be in your box. Do your role. Do not evolve.

Liz: Do not evolve.

Rhea: A lot of people out there who hold positions of influence, they don't show that side of themselves. They only show the stuff that's good. So we as a society get told, if you don't like something about your life.

Liz: You're weak.

Rhea: You're weak. And so we also, from a selfish perspective, want to show that we're grateful about everything because we don't want people to know that something's wrong.

Liz: The flip side is that also when people are honest, something's wrong. It reminds them of their powerlessness. For too long, people haven't had the agency to change things, so it's easier to ignore it than to acknowledge it because the moment you acknowledge it, then something must be done about it.

Rhea: Yeah.

Liz: It's time, no matter where we are in our lives, to find a way to change it.

Rhea: You don't have to change it if you acknowledge it straight away. It's not one of those things where now I've acknowledged it, I must react. Sometimes it's okay to acknowledge it and then sit in the emotions that come from acknowledging it, and sometimes that's far more scary than actually doing something to change it. That is a much more preferable stage than forcing oneself to be grateful about the things that you don't really want to be grateful for.

Liz: You don't really need to be grateful for it.

Rhea: In doing that, you’re probably holding yourself back from ever being happy in that way.

Liz: That's the irony is that there's no peace, there's no contentment, there's no joy in it.

Rhea: With a massive undercurrent of fear

Liz: And insecurity. Ultimately we are connected to beauty and divinity and love, but I think that we've put so many conditions around those things and I think we've also just have so many obstacles to getting there that I think right now it's all about seeing those obstacles—emotional, spiritual, physical, whatever—and dealing with them. And then I think there is a point where we will be able to exist in that space of love, where even gratitude, even in its highest form is entirely unnecessary. Just being means you're grateful and joy is an appreciation for life. There're so many ways in which we can experience it, that we don't have to think it. We won't get there till we can just say, life hurts. It can be total shit. It can bring a great deal of disappointments and heartache and pain. And then once we can really be honest about it all and look in the mirror and see the ways in which our hurt is being put out in the world, then we can really see shifts. Then we can honestly say Karma’s my bitch.

Rhea:  Without seeing the hurt and the pain, we can't grow, and without growing, we can't be further connected to ourselves, and if we're not connected to ourselves, we can't love ourselves the way we need to, which means we can't experience joy the way we need to. And if gratitude is inherent in joy and love and laughter and all those things, we're actually not being grateful at all.