The holiday season is here again, and for those who celebrate, it’s just about time for Thanksgiving. This is a good time for people to consider all the blessing in their lives, and what they are grateful for. Taking time to express gratitude on a regular basis, for example by keeping a gratitude journal, has been shown to improve people’s overall happiness and in some cases, even seems to have a positive effect on their health.
But people who are going through the grieving process don’t always feel like expressing gratitude, and why should they? Grief is focused on loss. We know from David Kessler and other grief experts that grief truly is an expression of love (you don’t feel sad about losing something or someone unless you care about them), but it is still a painful process.
Grief is complicated. The pain is caused by the loss of something you can’t get back. In theory, a person could simply accept that their loved one isn’t coming back and move on—but most of us don’t want to do that, not for some time. Because of our love, we hold on to our memories, and the pain that comes along with being forced to find a new normal, in a world that is missing the person we wish was still there. In other words, we choose to grieve, because even though grief hurts, it is still a form of love. And to feel and express that love is extremely important.
Important, and tremendously difficult. And not really conducive to a “gratitude” mindset. But you know what? That’s okay. There is a time for gratitude, and there is a time for grief. We all have blessings, and we all have losses, and they don’t cancel out. Whichever one you choose this holiday season—any holiday season—is perfectly valid.
That being said, we here on the IDLM blog team strongly support journaling of all types, so if you or someone you know is going through something that makes you want to scream whenever someone asks you what you’re grateful for, here is a different idea that might be useful for you.
Rather than a gratitude journal, make yourself an accomplishment journal. At the end of each day, whether you’re in a good mood, bad mood, sad, angry, anxious, whatever… take a couple of minutes. Don’t worry about forcing yourself to be grateful if you’re not feeling it, or finding things to be happy about when happiness feels fake. Just write down the things you got done in the time since you got up in the morning. You can list tasks you accomplished at work, errands you completed, interactions with other people—literally anything counts. If you’re in a place where just taking a shower and brushing your teeth feels like an effort, write down that you managed to shower and brush your teeth. Write down the little things you did because the big things felt like too much. Write down the things you didn’t want to do, but you did them anyway because they needed to be done.
If you want to write out how you feel about everything, go for it, but it’s okay to just put bullet points. What matters is making a list on paper, that you can see. Chances are that list will turn out to be longer than you think it is. Every item on that list, no matter how small, is something you can be proud of getting done. You might be surprised at how many reasons you have to be proud of yourself, especially if you’re going through a hard time, and you should celebrate every accomplishment! You deserve it. Be proud of yourself now… you might be grateful for it later.
