Grateful even though …
I find it difficult at times to pause for a moment of gratitude. I think this is partly because the feeling of gratitude is not always at the top of my hierarchy of emotions felt at any given moment. Sometimes I feel frustrated more than grateful, or overwhelmed more than grateful, or sad more than grateful. And that’s okay. Actually, it’s more than okay, it’s a necessary human experience.
For a while I thought I should be grateful, and so I should stop feeling those other uncomfortable emotions and require myself to be grateful. It’s easy to get lured into this kind of toxic positivity where we think the goal is to feel ‘good things’ and ‘be grateful’ at all costs. Well, the main cost is that along with the other uncomfortable emotions I was trying to ‘gratitude snap’ myself out of, I was also feeling shameful for not really feeling grateful. I’m learning that you can ‘should all over yourself’ as much as you want but it doesn’t change the anchoring impact of unprocessed emotions. Should means shame. And I don’t need to add shame to my list of discomfort.
So, I’m learning to just feel all the feels, and accept them. I also use EFT tapping to help my nervous system process the energy of these challenging emotions. It’s okay to be sad, and be okay with being sad because the voice I give my sadness will lead me to speak true words of gratitude when the sadness is finished..
