I was having a conversation with a good friend the other day about gratitude. She was dealing with some major medical issues that just kept coming, one after the other. Eventually, it got to her. She was having a moment and was lost in the emotion of it all. 

This particular person always finds the good in every situation. She would have gotten there on her own eventually. 

She ran into a friend of hers who reminded her that she was fortunate to have the means and live in a country where she could get her medical issues taken care of. 

The intention was to remind her of all the good things she had in her life. 

And it did just that. It helped my friend snap out of her funk.  

But does that really serve her? 

I’m not suggesting that she should sit around for hours, days, or weeks feeling sorry for herself. However I do think it’s important to feel our feelings before we move on to gratitude and appreciation. We need time to process so we can move through them.

If we are pushed to move them before we are ready do we end up replacing what we are already feeling with guilt or shame for having the feeling in the first place? 

This is a perfect example of being asked for things to be either/or when they can really be yes/and. We can feel bad AND be grateful. They can occur in us simultaneously.

Our emotions are called feelings. This is because we “feel” them in our body. When we don’t fully honor what we are feeling then those emotions get stuck in our body. Stuck emotions don’t go anywhere. They sit in our body until they can eventually be released. 

There is nothing wrong with being reminded of things that we can be grateful for. Sometimes it is exactly what we need to snap out of our funk. There is also nothing wrong with feeling our feelings so that we can process and move through them. 

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!