How can we be grateful when life is hard? Or, as we say in South Africa, when we’re gatvol?
For those who aren’t familiar with that wonderfully expressive South African word, gatvol means we’ve had enough. We’re fed up. Life feels like a struggle, things aren’t working out the way we want them to, and then somebody tells us to be grateful.
Really?
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In this video, I explore why gratitude can make such a difference when life is difficult — and how we can find something to be genuinely grateful for without pretending everything is wonderful.
We’ve all heard about the benefits of gratitude. Oprah famously spoke about keeping a gratitude journal and writing down things she was grateful for every day. I’ve attempted that myself, but there’s a problem. When I’m in a bad mood and I write, “I’m so grateful for my bed. I’m so grateful for this. I’m so grateful for that,” the bitchy backchat pops up with, “Yeah, right!”
Then the whole exercise feels like one big fat lie.
So how can we practice gratitude during difficult times without pretending to feel something we don’t?
Why Gratitude Matters When Life Is Hard
In my article Why Befriend the Mirror?, I spoke about the filters through which we experience the world. Our brains receive far more information than we could consciously process, so much of it gets filtered out. What gets through is influenced by what we’ve been focusing on.
When our attention is continually drawn towards everything that is going wrong, we become increasingly likely to notice more things that are going wrong. I certainly don’t want to become better at finding reasons to be miserable!
Life is about duality. Darkness and light are at opposite ends of the scale, and so are many of the experiences and emotions we encounter in life. I explored this further in What Can Politicians Teach Us? – Malema vs Groenewald. The real question isn’t about the politicians. It’s about where we are on the same scale and in which direction we want to move. We can’t always change what is happening around us, but we can influence where we place our attention.
Gratitude doesn’t magically remove the difficult things. It reminds us that the difficult things aren’t all there is.
When I Realised I Believed Life Was Hard
Recently, I had an evening when I was feeling particularly despondent. I couldn’t sleep, and as I lay there thinking about what was going on, I started wondering what beliefs were underneath those feelings.
Eventually, I got out of bed, went to my office and meditated. Two beliefs became very clear:
Life is hard. Life is a struggle.
My immediate thought was, Why would I want to hold onto beliefs like those? Then I asked myself a different question:
How have these beliefs been working for me?
The answer surprised me. Believing that life was hard had encouraged me to appreciate what I had. Struggle had developed my tenacity and encouraged me to become innovative, creative and resourceful.
The problem wasn’t those qualities; it was my belief that struggle was required in order to develop them.
So I acknowledged what those beliefs had given me and asked the Divine for those qualities to continue without requiring life to be hard or a struggle. Then I asked the Divine how I could shift those beliefs.
One very simple thought came into my mind:
Focus on the good.
The Two Wolves Within Us
That thought reminded me of the well-known story of a grandfather sitting around a campfire with his grandchildren. He tells them there are two wolves inside each of us. The light wolf represents kindness, friendliness, appreciation and joy, while the dark wolf represents anger, jealousy and frustration. The wolves are constantly competing for our attention.
One of the grandchildren asks, “Which wolf will win?”
The grandfather replies: “The one you feed.”
I love this visual because it illustrates what happens with our attention. When we dwell on everything that’s wrong, we feed the dark wolf. When we notice something we genuinely appreciate, we feed the white wolf.
That is how I see gratitude. It is a way of feeding the white wolf.
How to Be Grateful When We’re Struggling
I once explained this to some youngsters in a township while teaching them about the wealth mindset. When we’re struggling, being told to write down three things we’re grateful for can easily bring up that same bitchy backchat: “Yeah, right. There’s far more to be miserable about.”
Instead of asking them to make a gratitude list, I encouraged them to look differently at what they already had.
Take the food they were eating. Who bought it? Perhaps they bought it themselves, which meant they had the money to buy it. Perhaps a family member bought it for them. Isn’t it wonderful to have someone willing and able to provide food for us?
The same applied to the roof over their heads. Instead of simply saying, “I’m grateful for the roof over my head,” they could think about what it actually meant to have somewhere to live.
I realised I could apply the same approach myself. I could look at something as ordinary as the clothes I was wearing. Did I like them? Were they comfortable? I could feel my scarf and think, This is so soft. It feels lovely. It keeps me warm.
When we spend time noticing what we actually like about these ordinary things, something happens. We don’t have to tell ourselves to be grateful. The gratitude starts to well up naturally.
It could be food, comfortable clothes, a beautiful sunset, something that made us laugh or a conversation we enjoyed. The important part isn’t saying “I am grateful.” It’s appreciating something until we can actually feel the gratitude.
One Thing Leads to Another
Once we start looking for something good, we begin noticing other things. Our attention shifts, and we may start seeing opportunities we previously overlooked or having ideas about what we could do differently.
The circumstances that made us gatvol may not have disappeared. What has changed is the filter through which we’re looking at them.
There can be a problem here and something wonderful there. There can be disappointment and love, frustration and laughter, uncertainty about tomorrow and something beautiful happening right now.
We aren’t denying the dark wolf. We’re simply feeding it less and less.
Another Way to Feed the White Wolf
Gratitude is one way we can consciously feed the white wolf. Another tool I use is the iThrive web-app.
iThrives combine affirmations and release statements and can play gently in the background while we sleep, work or go about our day.
Feed Your White Wolf
Start with 14 days of FREE access to the full iThrive library — and if you decide to continue with an annual subscription, use FEELFIRST to receive 40% off. The discounted rate continues for as long as you remain subscribed.
Offer available until 31 August 2026.
Click the button above to explore the full iThrive library FREE for 14 days.
Or, if you’d rather start with something completely free, you can sign up for the free Confident You iThrives. There’s no credit card and you can keep using them.
From Gatvol to Grateful
So if we’re wondering how to be grateful when life is hard, we can forget about creating the perfect gratitude list. We can start with one thing we genuinely like or appreciate and spend a little time noticing why we appreciate it.
That’s how we begin to feed the white wolf.
We don’t have to pretend we’re not gatvol. We can acknowledge exactly how we feel and then gently shift our attention towards something we genuinely appreciate.
And as we spend a little time with that appreciation, we may discover that we don’t have to force ourselves to feel grateful at all.
The gratitude begins to well up naturally.
What about you? When you’re really gatvol, what can you focus on that could begin feeding your white wolf?
I’d love to hear what you discover. Leave a comment below the video and share your experience.
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