Gratitude Doesn’t Ask Us to Ignore What Hurts

| October 2026

4 minute read

Making space for it all, without asking one part to diminish another.

Last month, I sat at a long dinner table surrounded by people I love.

It was one of those rare occasions when generations, families, old friends and new ones had gathered in one place.

I found myself taking in the faces, the conversations, and the laughter. Around us stretched the rugged coastline, the trees bending to the wind, the sun setting on the horizon. I felt uplifted beyond words.

To my surprise, the elation lingered well beyond the celebration. In fact, when I reflect on that beautiful evening, now a few weeks behind me, I can still access the joy I felt that night.

I have long thought of gratitude as an appreciation for the moments that stand out, like this one, at the very instant they occur. Those blissful experiences that elevate my mood, deepen connection, or touch me.

Lately, I have taken a different approach.

Now I am exploring what it means to bring a tone of gratitude to whatever emerges, including moments when gratitude is far less obvious, when discomfort, disappointment, uncertainty, or pain may be what first captures my attention.

Can gratitude become a quality we bring to an experience rather than only a feeling produced by it?

I am discovering that it can.

And perhaps this is where our own agency comes in. What life places before us may be beyond our control; how we relate to what arrives is something we can cultivate.

So much of what arrives is layered, even as our human tendency is to separate it into either/or.

Joy and disappointment, 
ease and uncertainty, 
clarity and confusion.

More than one truth can be present in the very same moment. One does not have to diminish the other.

Joy alongside disappointment.

Love alongside grief. Gratitude alongside sadness.

With practice, we can strengthen our capacity to widen our attention, hold the whole, and acknowledge its ever-changing nature, without allowing any one part to become the entirety of our experience.

That evening around the long table offered its own example.

Strong winds swept through the celebration, and the cold became increasingly uncomfortable for many of us.

That, too, belonged to the evening.

And so did the friendships, the intimacy, the food, the laughter, the landscape, and the extraordinary privilege of being gathered together.

It all belonged.

Life gives us opportunities to practice this kind of wider attention all the time. It also reminds us that everything is in a constant state of flux.

A conversation disappoints us.

Plans unexpectedly change.

As we age, our bodies and our health ask different things of us.

Sadness, frustration, fear, or resistance may be present.

And so might something else.

As more of the experience comes into view, we may discover tenderness, connection, learning, an unexpected kindness, or something about ourselves, another person, or our worldview that we could not see before.

Perhaps the disappointment reveals how deeply we care.

A change in plans asks us to loosen our grip on how we thought something would unfold.

Changes in our bodies may ask us to listen more carefully to what they need.

The shadow does not need to disappear for gratitude to be present.

Gratitude also leaves the shadow as it is, without asking us to turn it into something positive.

There are experiences, too, so raw, painful, or life-altering that gratitude may be the last thing available to us in the moment. We can allow ourselves to feel all the feels, so to speak, and be with what is arising, knowing that experience is impermanent: always changing, unfolding, and taking new form.

Sometimes the practice is to acknowledge: This hurts. And isn’t there something reassuring about naming what is true?

I know this from my own life. Just like weather, our inner and outer worlds are continually changing.

I have lived with lupus since the birth of my second son. There have been years marked by physical pain and the emotional burden of finding my way through an illness I did not choose.

I would never suggest that I should have been grateful for those experiences while I was struggling to endure them. There were times when it felt unbearable.

Now, forty years later, I can see more of the whole.

Lupus is part of my life, but it does not define who I am. Alongside the pain and the losses, I can see the resilience and deeper understanding that have grown through living with it.

I can make space for it all, without asking one part to diminish another.

And from where I stand today, I have learned that I can feel gratitude for all of it. Living through these struggles has shaped who I have become, and for that I am deeply grateful.

Making space for it all, without asking one part to diminish another.

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