the guilt of not feeling grateful
and the bliss of it's return
You know what feeling sucks? The feeling when you’re trying to tell someone what a hard time you’re having and they try to tell you what you should be grateful for.
I know people’s intentions are good, and sentiments like this are more often an attempt to be supportive and encouraging. But in reality, they can quickly become dismissive to the depth and complexity of what it is to be human. Sentences like —
“Well at least you’re _______.”
“Thank God you didn’t _______.”
“That’s a silver lining in this dumpster fire!”
I’m partially being a hypocrite here, because until my experience of supporting my partner through major life-changing health diagnoses this past year, I stood proudly in my ability to remain optimistic.
At times it even went into the dangerous territory of spiritual bypassing. Heavily influenced by all of my life coaching training, I always tried to find the growth edge. The breakdown to breakthrough. The opportunity to crack a pattern open.
My anxious attachment style also has a tendency of kicking into solution-finding-gear, eager to fix a situation — when sometimes, a hug would be more helpful.
I still jump to fixing at times, it’s an automatic trauma response at this point. But overall, this past year has changed me — and one of the major lessons I’ve learned is sometimes THINGS JUST SUCK.
It can be pretty powerful to let yourself feeeeel the suckiness. In fact, I’d go as far as to say, in the long run it’s better to let yourself feel the suckiness. Because if you don’t, those feelings get pushed down all the way to your toes and you’ll end up feeling them anyways — probably in a more explosive sort of way later on.
For some reason, the image that always comes to mind when I think about pushing feelings down is a pressure cooker’s lid flying across the kitchen!
Knocking out a tooth on the way to the ceiling as chili splatters across the white kitchen walls. And even after you have cleaned up the chili chunks, the walls are stained. There is an imprint let over from the explosion.
We might think we are doing ourselves a favor by pushing down the complicated emotions, but maybe we’re creating even more of a problem in the long term. Unknowingly contributing to future regret, shame, and pain that’ll surface on the other side of releasing what’s all bottled up.
I wrote a poem about the duality of oscillating between feeling gratitude so deeply and the guilt of not feeling it at all while inside
‘s transformative Lyric Threads Lab this Fall (excerpt above).It was the cathartic release I didn’t know I needed. A release that paved the way for me to be more accepting of exactly where I was, without pressure. Without chili chunk stains decorating the kitchen.
The intention I wrote for this past week in my Dear Self With Love planner celebrated a genuine shift I’ve recently been feeling: kiss the ground in gratitude.
A genuine flood has been washing over me after months of not feeling it. I wrote it down as my intention of the week because I wanted to center it, celebrate it, and remember it.
I wanted to remember feeling the gratitude for the flexibility of my self-employment and that I was able to go to three different appointments with my partner Taj.
I wanted to remember the moment in the park with KP where I very literally kneeled down on the ground and kissed the earth because I was finally feeling financial relief after months of instability.
I wanted to remember the way it felt to co-write with my friends.
I looked back in my planner to see the last time I truly centered gratitude. It wasn’t since we got home from the hospital in February. That’s a long time!
I’m sharing this to normalize that sometimes life is so hard, and gratitude is difficult to come by, and that’s okay.
Maybe, it’s really about holding onto the thread, the possibility, that we’ll be able to genuinely feel it again. Someday. Some way.
With Love,
Jenna
These questions are an invitation to grab your journal, text your bestie and start a conversation, or marinate on when you’re out on your next walk!
When was the last time you experienced a genuine flood of gratitude? Where did you feel it in your body? Was it a big deep breath and exhale? A heart swell?
How do you show yourself compassion when you’re navigating big complicated feelings?
What channels of release do you keep open for yourself? How do you give yourself space and time to let the hard stuff move through you?
Feng Shui Experiments — My dear friend Natalie taught me that I should be facing the door when sitting at my desk. Since opening up my creative virtual assistant doors for my new business, Have Cake Creative, I’ve been experimenting with this. It FEELS GOOD and I LIKE IT. I think it’s working?
I also stumbled across this Feng Shui video about why you shouldn’t have photos on your fridge and holy smokes did it do something to me. In the same day I took allll of the photos, notes, letters, etc down from our fridge. It’ll be an adjustment getting used to it’s boldness now, but I’m very much looking forward to experimenting with more warmth in my relationships I didn’t know I was freezing.
Endorphins Baby - I’m on my second week of jog/walking inside of my Couch To 5k app and the endorphins on the other side of a run are truly a treat. I’ve been adding a cold shower on the other side of my runs and something is happening.
I Now Have An Espresso Machine - My dear friend KP has gifted me an espresso machine (the kind with a steam wand!) and I’m besides myself thinking about the lattes I will make, the chai-ders I will froth, and the hot chocolates I can infuse with love. I’ve missed my coffee shop job and I can’t wait to be able to pour lattes again! When I told my partner that I’d be able to make chai-ders at home she exclaimed, “our house is going to be the place to be!” 😂
- and I are co-hosting our Substack 101 workshop this coming Thursday (11/21)! If you’ve been dreaming of starting your own Substack or feel curious about how you can use this platform to satisfy all of your early 2000s Tumblr/Blog vibes, this introductory workshop is going to be a friendly place to dip your toes!
Dear Self With Love 2025 Self-Love Planners ARE ALMOST HERE! Be on the lookout for more planner profiles before the 2025 planners drop in my Etsy Shop for Small Business Saturday on 11/30!
your house is the place to be *wordless joy!*
there's so much I want to respond to about this post but I will keep it simple: look at youuuuuuuuuuu