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I’m gonna say something you probably don’t wanna hear.
Sometimes, the only thing holding you together is a delusion you whisper out loud till your brain finally shuts up.
Sometimes, saying “I’m grateful” feels like lying to God and yourself. But weirdly… it works.
Let’s talk about that.
The Key Takeaway.
Gratitude and affirmations are not cute Pinterest habits for soft girls and YouTubers in pastel pajamas. They’re emergency survival tools for when life is chewing your brain like gum. It’s not about faking happiness, it’s about forcing your brain to remember that it is still possible.
Gratitude.
You know what’s hard?
Saying “thank you” when you’re in hell.
Gratitude sounds so basic when you hear people talk about it. Like, yeah, I should be thankful for my lungs and legs and air and stuff. Duh. But when life is kicking your ass, gratitude feels like emotional gaslighting.
I’ve had moments where I just sat on the floor, no music, no tears, no lightbulb epiphany and just muttered:
“Thank you Lord for… I don’t even know. Just thank you.”
Not because I felt thankful. But because the silence was too loud and I needed something to say. And somehow… that gave me a reason to keep breathing.
See, people think gratitude is only about celebrating what’s going right. It’s not. It is about refusing to let your pain erase everything else. It’s you grabbing a candle in a blackout and saying, “Yeah, I still have this.”
The Real Benefits of Gratitude and Affirmation Practices.
Gratitude doesn’t change your life. It changes your lens.
The problems don’t magically disappear. You just stop letting them shrink your world.
When you start naming what’s still okay, your bed, your friend, your breath, your charger that hasn’t spoiled yet, you stop living like life owes you something and start realizing you’re still here… which means you still have options.
Positive affirmations reprogram your shame, not your ego.
Affirmations are not about boosting your confidence. They’re about replacing the trash your mind keeps throwing at you every single day.
- “I’m disgusting.”
- “I’m a failure.”
- “I’ll never get better.”
- “I’m behind.”
Now, try saying the opposite out loud. Not once. Not twice. But like… every day for 3 weeks, while brushing your teeth or staring at your cracked mirror like a lunatic.
At first, you’ll cringe. Then, you’ll resist it. Then, something shifts.
Because your brain is basically a messy Google Doc. You can’t delete the old thoughts, but you can overwrite them with better edits.
Gratitude makes pain less loud. Not less real.
This one’s important. Being thankful doesn’t cancel out your trauma. It just helps you hold it with softer hands.
When you’re grateful, you’re still in pain, but you’re not alone in it. You’re saying, “Okay, it’s hard… but I still have this, and this, and this.” Suddenly, the darkness has cracks in it. And light gets in.
Saying nice things to yourself feels fake, until it doesn’t.
Let’s be very honest, affirmations feel so dumb when you start.
Who TF am I talking to? Why am I saying “I’m enough” when I literally cried for two hours and haven’t replied messages in days?
But then every mean thing you’ve ever believed about yourself also started as a thought.
You heard it once. Then again. Then again. Until it felt true.
So guess what?
Your affirmations are going to do the same thing. You’re just feeding your brain new lines and if you say them long enough, they’ll start to sound familiar. Maybe even believable. Eventually? Truth.
Gratitude pulls you out of your own head.
You ever notice how being depressed makes you super self-obsessed?
Like, you spiral into this echo chamber of “me, me, me” but not in a cute selfie way, more like “my life sucks, my dreams are dying, my body is trash, my future is a graveyard.”
But when you start pointing out what you’re thankful for—even if it’s “the sky didn’t fall today” or “this soup slaps actually,” you shift your focus outward.
You stop drowning in you and you remember that the world still exists. And you’re part of it. Not trapped in your head.
You don’t have to believe it. You just have to say it.
This is the most honest truth I can give you. There were days I said “I am safe” while shaking.
- “I am loved” while feeling like a burden.
- “I will be okay” while holding back a breakdown.
But saying it out loud still did something. Even when I didn’t believe it.
Because sometimes, healing starts with lying to your brain until it finally listens. Not fake positivity, I’m talking about strategic rebellion. You’re choosing to speak what could be true until it wants to be.
You say the words. You grip them like rope. And somehow… you get through the day. Sometimes, that’s enough. Sometimes, that’s everything.
