Gratitude as a Spiritual Practice: How to Feel It When Life Feels Hard
Gratitude is a prayer without words.
As the holidays approach, there's often a quiet pressure to feel grateful.
To be joyful. To reflect on blessings. To gather with others and appreciate what we have.
But what happens when gratitude doesn't come so easily?
Maybe this year feels heavier than others. Maybe you're holding grief, stress, uncertainty—or you're simply exhausted. And when the world feels overwhelming, gratitude can feel… far away.
But here's the truth: Gratitude isn't about pretending everything is okay. It's a spiritual practice that gently brings us back to what is—what's real, what's steady, and what still holds beauty, even in the mess.
About Me
I'm Janet Rae Orth, and for 30 years I've been teaching people how to work with spiritual energy—not as an abstract concept, but as a lived, felt experience. As an intuitive reader, energy healer, and spiritual coach, I've witnessed countless times how a genuine mindset shift into gratitude can break energetic patterns that have held people stuck for years. Gratitude isn't just a nice idea—it's one of the most powerful tools for spiritual transformation. And it's accessible to everyone, even in the darkest moments.
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Gratitude Is More Than a Mindset—It's an Energetic Shift
Gratitude isn't about bypassing pain or forcing a smile. It's not about making a list of things you "should" be thankful for or posting what you're grateful for on social media. True gratitude is felt—not performed. It softens the heart, shifts the nervous system, and brings us back into the present moment.
Here's what most people don't understand: Gratitude is energy. It's not just a nice feeling or a positive thought—it's a vibrational frequency that changes your entire energetic field.
When you authentically feel gratitude, your energy shifts from contraction to expansion. From fear to trust. From scarcity to abundance. Your nervous system receives a signal: you're safe. You're supported. You're held.
This is why forced gratitude doesn't work. You can't think your way into a higher vibration. You have to feel it. And when life is hard, that feeling can seem impossible to access.
Why Gratitude Can Feel Hard (And That's Okay)
If you're not feeling particularly grateful right now, you're not doing anything wrong.
There are many reasons why gratitude can feel distant:
You're emotionally or physically burned out
You're grieving, overwhelmed, or uncertain
You're under pressure to be "thankful" when things don't feel aligned
You haven't had space to slow down long enough to feel anything
Your nervous system is in survival mode
Let's take that pressure off. Gratitude doesn't need to be loud or performative. It can be quiet. Soft. Even a whisper.
The spiritual practice of gratitude isn't about denying what's hard—it's about finding what's sacred even in the difficulty. And sometimes, the most profound gratitude comes not from what's going well, but from what we've survived.
When Gratitude Feels Impossible: A Client Story
A client—let’s call her Mara—came to me last winter saying, “I know I should feel grateful. I have a good life. But I feel nothing.”
She’d just lost her father, was helping her mother transition to assisted living, and was holding the emotional weight of her whole family. “Every time I sit to meditate or journal, I go numb,” she said. “And then I feel guilty for not being grateful.”
In session, I felt how her heart energy—normally warm and radiant—was constricted, like a clenched fist. There wasn’t a lack of gratitude; there was grief trapped in her energy body.
When our nervous system or energy body is holding unprocessed emotion, especially grief or fear, it can block the frequency of gratitude. Gratitude is an expanding energy—it requires an open channel. But grief is dense. It collapses energy inward until we can release it.
I worked on gently clearing that grief from her heart and helping her release it. Halfway through, her breathing slowed. Tears came—not of sadness, but of relief.
At the end, she whispered, “I can feel warmth again. That’s something.”
That’s gratitude in its purest form. Not forced joy. Not a list of blessings. Just the quiet return of life force to a place that had gone numb.
So if you can’t access gratitude right now—it doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful. It means something in your energy field is still healing.
You may wonder why something so simple can feel so powerful. Here’s what wisdom traditions — and science — have to say.
The Spiritual Science of Gratitude
Ancient wisdom traditions have always understood what modern science is now confirming: gratitude is transformative at the deepest levels.
In Kabbalah, gratitude aligns us with divine abundance. When we genuinely appreciate what we have, we open ourselves energetically to receive more—not from greed, but from alignment. True gratitude requires discipline: choosing appreciation even when our minds want to focus on what's wrong.
Christian wisdom echoes this truth. "In everything give thanks" isn't asking us to pretend suffering doesn't exist—it's teaching us that thanksgiving, the practice of acknowledging what is, creates an opening for grace. Gratitude doesn't change our circumstances immediately, but it changes our relationship to them.
Modern research validates what these traditions have taught for millennia. Studies by psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough found that people who kept gratitude journals were more optimistic, felt better about their lives, and even exercised more and had fewer medical appointments than those who didn't practice gratitude.
And energetically, gratitude raises your vibration. When you're stuck in fear or overwhelm, you're tuned to a lower frequency where you can only receive matching experiences. When you shift into genuine appreciation—even for something small—you literally change the channel. You become receptive to different possibilities, different guidance, different energies.
This is why gratitude is particularly powerful during grief or life transitions. It grounds you. It reminds your energy field where home is.
The Difference Between Spiritual Gratitude and Toxic Positivity
Let's be clear: spiritual gratitude is not toxic positivity.
Toxic positivity says: "Just be grateful! It could be worse! Look on the bright side!" It dismisses pain. It bypasses grief. It shames you for struggling.
Spiritual gratitude says: "This is hard. And also, there is still beauty here." It holds both truths. It doesn't erase suffering—it finds the sacred within it.
Spiritual gratitude doesn't ask you to be thankful for the trauma, the loss, or the hardship. It invites you to notice what's still holding you—the friend who shows up, the breath that keeps coming, the morning light that doesn't quit.
It's the practice of saying: "My life is not what I wanted right now. And I'm still here. And that matters."
This kind of gratitude doesn't deny reality—it transforms how we hold it.
Soulful Practices to Return to Gratitude
You don't need to journal for hours or create elaborate rituals to reconnect with gratitude. These practices—drawn from years of working with clients and my own spiritual journey—can help you access authentic appreciation, even when life feels heavy.
1. Gratitude Through the Body (Somatic Practice)
Your mind might not be able to access gratitude right now, but your body can.
Practice:
Pause wherever you are
Place both hands on your heart
Close your eyes and feel your heartbeat
Notice the rhythm, the warmth, the aliveness
This isn't about your circumstances. It's about the miracle that you're breathing, your heart is beating, and life is still moving through you. That's where gratitude begins—not in what you have, but in the fact that you are.
Do this practice every morning before you get out of bed, or whenever you feel disconnected from appreciation.
If you still feel numb, that's information - not failure. Your body is showing you where grief or fear is stored."
2. The Gratitude-Grief Practice (Holding Both)
One of the reasons gratitude feels impossible during hard times is because we think we have to choose: either we're grateful OR we're struggling. But the soul is big enough to hold both.
Practice:
Light a candle
On one side of a piece of paper, write what feels hard right now
On the other side, write what you're grateful for—even if it's small
Speak both aloud: "I'm grieving _____ AND I'm grateful for _____"
Let the candle burn while you sit with both truths
This practice teaches your nervous system that you don't have to fix, force, or fake anything. You can be sad and thankful. Overwhelmed and appreciative. Broken and held.
3. The Daily Blessing Scan (Micro-Gratitude)
Most of us wait for something big to be grateful for. But spiritual gratitude lives in the tiny, ordinary moments.
Practice: Before bed, scan your day for three micro-moments of blessing:
The warm water in your shower
The person who let you merge in traffic
The way the sun hit your wall
A text from someone who thought of you
Your dog's excitement when you came home
Write them down or speak them aloud. Let the energy of appreciation land in your body.
Over time, this practice rewires your brain to notice what's working, what's beautiful, what's still good—even on the hardest days.
4. Gratitude as Energetic Protection
When you're surrounded by chaos—whether it's family stress during the holidays, Mercury retrograde mayhem, or collective anxiety—gratitude acts as a shield.
Practice:
Visualize yourself surrounded by golden light
With each breath, silently name something you're grateful for
Feel that appreciation radiating out from your heart, strengthening the golden light around you
Know that this energy protects you from absorbing what isn't yours
This practice reminds your energy body: I am safe. I am held. I choose what I carry.
Want to deepen your understanding of energetic protection and boundaries? Sign up for a session on: [Energetic Boundaries]
When Gratitude Feels Impossible: What’s Really Going On
When gratitude feels unreachable, there’s usually something deeper in the way—energy that’s too heavy for the nervous system to process alone.
Sometimes it’s:
Absorbed grief from others you’ve supported
Ancestral patterns of scarcity or fear
Unprocessed trauma stored in the body
Energetic fatigue from being the “strong one” too long
You can’t force light through a field full of static. But you can clear the interference.
If gratitude feels inaccessible, that’s not failure—it’s feedback. Your energy is asking for gentleness, not guilt.
Gratitude Opens the Door
Gratitude doesn't erase the hard things. But it does change how we move with them.
It helps us hold joy and grief in the same breath. It reminds us there's beauty in the ordinary. And it calls us back to presence—again and again.
When you practice gratitude as a spiritual discipline—not as a performance, but as a genuine return to what's real—you create an energetic opening. You shift from resistance to receptivity. From scarcity to sufficiency. From isolation to connection.
And sometimes, that shift is exactly what your soul has been waiting for.
Feeling Disconnected from Gratitude?
If gratitude feels far away and you're not sure why, an Intuitive Reading can help you understand what's blocking your ability to receive the good that's already present in your life. Together, we can identify what you're carrying that isn't yours and clear the way for authentic appreciation to flow again.
[Schedule Your Intuitive Reading →]
Or, if your nervous system is overwhelmed and you need help grounding back into your body and spirit, an Energy Healing session can help you reset your energy, release what you've absorbed, and reconnect with your inner peace.
[Book Your Energy Healing Session →]
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Closing Reflection
Wherever you are this season, may you find one small thing to be grateful for.
One breath. One moment. One flicker of light.
Even that is enough to begin.
“It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”— David Steindl-Rast