How to Find Gratitude in the Struggles
It is Thanksgiving week when we gather with family and friends, show gratitude, and eat good food! It is also the start of the holiday season, which brings many mixed feelings. We are entering a beautiful but challenging part of the year, so I want to address an important topic for this week: learn to find gratitude in struggles.
We don’t talk enough about just how much of a toll struggling with mental health has on a person. Mental health issues can impact many areas of someone’s life. Sometimes, they can create roadblocks to life milestones and everyday tasks. A person with mental health issues may struggle with relationships and careers. Some may have anxiety about driving or living alone, while others may have difficulties with hygiene. Mental illness and addiction are also related, bringing a whole host of problems. These are all parts of life that can cause a person shame and to feel ostracized by mainstream society. It’s difficult to talk about, let alone live. So why am I discussing such a bleak topic…during Thanksgiving week?
Gratitude….
Gratitude is the focus of the week. Social media has made it even worse for people to feel gratitude as we compare our lives to other people’s. We spend hours scrolling through lives that aren’t ours. We may see people getting married and starting families with thriving careers. The people in our “friend list” or people we “follow” have seemingly perfect lives with virtually no struggles. And the holiday season highlights this. You may find yourself lost in the sea of storybook holiday pictures with smiles and matching pajamas. As you look through social media, you will see many images of beautifully done tables. It leaves us thinking, what is wrong with me? Why can’t I have that? How does all this make any of us feel, especially those who struggle with their mental health? This modern world makes it nearly impossible to show gratitude.
The reality is as cliche as it sounds: we have much to be thankful for. Even when everything seems to be going wrong, it’s so crucial that we find gratitude in the struggles. In the mental health community, it is often said not to hate the illness as it’s part of you. Your struggles are part of your journey and how you got to where you are. And although it was and continues to be so hard, and you wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone, it’s what makes you-YOU! This is what I want you to think about this Thanksgiving week. Celebrate you and your story because a true story is worth more than any perfect picture we don’t know the whole story of. Celebrate your struggles because it will make your victories even sweeter!
Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy this week, celebrate, and show gratitude for the journey that has brought you to where you are now.
