Why "Counting Your Blessings" Is Both Good and Bad Advice

I struggled with clinical depression for most of my adult life.

Thankfully, now that I am on the other side, I can take a step back and see things from a fresher perspective in order to evaluate them more clearly.

Well-meaning friends and loved ones who had not faced such a battle often told me to "count my blessings" and "think about how much worse other people have it."

While these statements are true, when you feel like you are drowning in quicksand it is hard to think straight, let alone acknowledge and appreciate things like, "I'm glad I have-n't drowned before this," "Oh all those poor people who have drowned before me."

In cases of clinical depression, telling the depressed person to "count their blessings" is not only unhelpful, it may actually make them feel more isolated and misunderstood.

Clinical depression and anxiety are illnesses. They are not just a state of mind, a pity party, or a cry for attention.

The treatment plans for these illnesses are as varied as the people who suffer with them. In a future post, I'll talk about the steps and missteps in my journey and what finally turned things around for me.

Today, however, I want to talk about how counting our blessings can be not only helpful, but transformative, for people who may get depressed, or have periods of BEING de-pressed, but are not diagnosed with clinical depression.

As I've discussed in other columns, we spend so much of our time, looking at the things that we perceive as "wrong" in our lives, that we forget to seek out, acknowledge and appreciate what is "right."

This isn't our fault. The reason for this is two-fold. First, survival instinct is hard-wired into our brains. We are no longer constantly faced with threats to our physical safety like in the caveman days, so instead, our ego spends its time constantly assessing perceived threats to its well-being. The ego doesn't realize that while being embarrassed, rejected, hurt, or slighted may be uncomfortable, it won't actually kill us.

When we are in a hyper-vigilant survival state, as most of us are, most of the time, there is not much room to seek out and appreciate the good things around us.

This is why practicing gratitude is so important.

It's called a "practice", much like with a yoga practice or meditation practice, because these are skills that aren't innate to us. They need to be cultivated.

Gratitude, however, is the easiest of the three to practice in my opinion.

You can start right now. Quick, without overthinking it name one thing you are grateful for in your life. Now, think of one thing you are grateful for today. Now think of one thing you are grateful for in the past hour.

That wasn't so hard, was it? Admit it--it kinda felt good too!

The thing about gratitude is, the more you actively acknowledge the things around you that you are thankful for, the more you suddenly notice and the more that seem to appear. It's like a positive self-fulfilling prophecy!

There are no rules to being grateful. Some people have a gratitude journal, where they write down the things they are thankful for. Some people start their day with gratitude, while others end their day by counting their blessings, almost like a prayer.

A gratitude practice or ritual is as individual and unique as we are as people. Find one that works for you. The longer you practice the easier it becomes. I am at the point now, where I automatically find things to be grateful for even in the direst and tragic of situations, and believe it or not, for THIS I am thankful