BY PAUL BRIAN
Encouraging people to feel grateful is insincere as genuine gratitude arises spontaneously from deep within, after acknowledging and working through negative emotions and inner conflicts.
To practice gratitude, it is essential to be honest with yourself, accept your emotions and experiences without judgment, and cultivate an inner awareness of blessings without forcing yourself to feel grateful.
To cultivate gratitude, it's important to avoid confirmation bias and silence the story in your head by looking honestly at others and acknowledging that, as humans, we tend to prioritize our own experiences and filter out the struggles of those around us.
To cultivate gratitude, it's important to avoid black-and-white thinking, compare yourself to others less, and realize that many people are struggling more than you may imagine, and dismissing them as irrelevant only disempowers yourself.
Many online demonstrations of gratitude can come across as insincere and about boosting one's ego, rather than being a true reflection of gratitude, which is not a contest and is worth experiencing for its own sake without seeking validation on social media.
Gratitude goes beyond being a feeling and encompasses actions such as giving back to others without expecting anything in return, being there for friends and family during difficult times, and finding joy in helping others.