Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you may be confusing gratitude with "toxic positivity". Gratitude is not a weapon wielded to prevent growth, that's more like "toxic positivity", where you must be positive no matter what. Gratitude is about drawing attention to the goodness in life, whether someone is bestows that thing upon you depends on your definition of it. There are lots of definitions of gratitude, some focus on the social aspect, oth…
> I say this not to guilt you into being grateful, but to remind you that you seem to have a lot of goodness in your life. Sure, I agree. There is a lot of good in my life. What seems to cause dissonance is how my life still feels like shit, despite all those good things. The answer I most often hear to this is " well, if you practiced more gratitude, you'd appreciate those things " - which feels like the old religio…
I didn't come up with this and obviously cannot say if it would work for you. Look up "Three Good Things" if you're curious about the theory.