Inverse vs. Direct Gratitude

Is your gratitude glass-half-full or glass-half-empty?

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In the US, Thanksgiving serves as a reminder to slow down and be grateful. However, with the stress of living through a pandemic combined with the rise in “gratitude as a practice” philosophies, it can be challenging to pinpoint what gratitude is and how it can help us. 

Like any human emotion, gratitude is a word that we hear and think we implicitly understand until challenged to truly define it. What does it mean to be grateful? We might remember what it feels like, but can we put it into words?

Unless we maintain a strong definition for ourselves, it’s easy to accidentally co-opt gratitude and find ourselves unhappy with our “gratitude journals” and other reflective practices.

Inverse vs. Direct Gratitude

Let’s examine two common poles in our expressions of gratitude. I will call them Inverse Gratitude and Direct Gratitude. 

Think for a second about something for which you feel grateful.

It is common to think first about friends, family, connections, or health. These are essential pillars of our well-being and likely candidates for gratitude. Now dig a little bit deeper - what makes you grateful for that one thing? 

For example, if we are grateful for health, we might express the two poles this way:

• Direct Gratitude - I am grateful I am healthy because I get to spend more time outdoors and playing with my nieces and nephews

• Inverse Gratitude - I am grateful for my health because I do not like being sick

Acting on this core gratitude through either lens may come to drastically different outcomes. The former may remind you to call close relatives or reschedule a meeting that would have cut into time spent with them. The latter might make you wary of shaking anyone’s hand or going out instead of spending the night with Netflix. Both expressions are mindful of your health, but one is more expansive. 

“Inverse Gratitude” happens when we are grateful because we are lacking something bad, and it tends to focus us on fear. “Direct Gratitude,” on the other hand, identifies something in our lives that is a positive influence, and it focuses us on enhancing the benefits.

Feel the difference in other common gratitudes:

I am grateful for my house because:

• I don’t want to be homeless (inverse)

• It is a calm area with all the people I love most (direct)

I am grateful for my friends because:

• I don’t know how I would get through the bad times without them (inverse)

• I have someone to share victories with (direct)

The Best of Both Worlds

Direct and Inverse Gratitude can help us identify positive influences in our lives. However, applying inverse gratitude too often focuses us on mitigating risk rather than acknowledging our fortune.

For instance, we can feel grateful to not have a sore throat right now. Are we then focused on the benefits of health or avoiding the common cold?

Inverting our gratitude is a great stepping stone to identifying positives in our life, and once we see those foundations, we must take on the second challenge of using them as fuel to run towards our goals rather than run from our fears.

Humans are naturally inclined to watch for risk and focus on negativity before positivity - it’s a valuable instinct for survival after all - but too much focus can be the difference between living and Living with capital L. Taking time to reflect on the foundation of our gratitude can help us identify a different, more expansive way to approach life. With some diligence and practice, the choice is ours.