when gratitude goes wrong

When I think about gratitude, I grimace.

I remember a past love who was starting to explore developing a practice. He was sincere and curious when he shared with me. I scoffed. “Gratitude is stupid,” I told him. “It doesn’t work.”

Let me tell you about a time I practiced gratitude—and it made everything worse.

(Insert eye roll here.)

I was convinced I had the better answer. First-born daughter energy. Fix-it queen. If someone had a thought, I had a better one. And in that moment, I bulldozed his budding curiosity and made him feel small. I’m laughing now, because… wow. But there’s a deeper truth here, and I want to keep going—because it’s a story worth telling.

What I didn’t realize back then is that you can do gratitude wrong.

And I had.

When Gratitude Becomes a Mask

Thirteen years ago, I got engaged (not to the past love guy, a different past love). It should’ve been a joyful time, but instead, my world fell apart from the inside out. I was anxious as all get out. My nervous system was on super high alert. I wanted to run from everything, including myself.

Here I was transitioning from a wild, free, binge-drinking lifestyle to becoming a stepmom and creating a completely new life. Slowing down and prioritizing my new family was exciting but it also cracked me open. Everything I drank away came pouring up through the cracks and there was no way I was going to let anyone see the pain I was in. But there was no escape hatch—I had to go through it.

I went to therapy. I got into yoga. I was perscribed medication. I drank all the green smoothies. And of course started a gratitude practice… or so I thought.

Each night I journaled:
I’m grateful for...
I’m grateful for...

But the truth? I wasn’t grateful. I was scared. And instead of facing that, I was using gratitude like a bandaid—trying to force a smile over my fear.

“Gratitude doesn’t work when it’s used to skip the truth.”

After the wedding I suspected my husband was cheating on me.
Turns out… he was.
I didn’t know it then, but my body did.

Still, I ignored the gut screams and forced myself into gratitude. Because that’s what good women do, right? Stay grateful. Stay quiet.

It wasn’t healing. It was hiding.

Gratitude that Includes the Mess

Looking back now, I wasn’t doing gratitude—I was doing avoidance.

“Oh, I’m furious and confused? Well, better be grateful for this sweet new man and the dog that just had explosive diarrhea in the crate. Thank you Universe!”

It was gratitude as a performance. Gratitude as a mask. Gratitude that left no room for grief, for rage, for the real feelings underneath.

“Real gratitude includes the ache.”

What I know now is that even in hard times, you can access gratitude.
But it can’t be a bypass. It can’t be a cage.

There’s a difference between being grateful while feeling all of your feelings… and using gratitude to shut them down.

A New Way In

These days, my practice looks a little different. It’s slower. Softer. Messier. Realer.

I sit in the morning and let it all be there. I write what I’m pissed about. I cry when I need to. I let my sadness speak.

And then—then—I find the gratitude.

Not the forced kind. The kind that lives in my cells. The kind that says, “Thank you for getting me here.” The kind that says, “Thank you for the sensations that remind me I’m alive and the breath that fills my lungs.”

I look at old photos. I remember the people who shaped me. I say thank you to the earth, to the sky, to resilience. I say thank you to the heartbreaks. Yes—even those.

“Gratitude, when it’s honest, makes space for the holy and the human.”

What I Didn’t Know Then

Funny enough, that past love (the first one I mentioned)—the one who first brought up gratitude, the one I pushed away with my certainty and side-eye—comes to mind often.

I wonder what might have unfolded if I’d met his curiosity with curiosity of my own. But I wasn’t ready then. I didn’t know how to sit with discomfort. Gratitude felt like a lie because I hadn’t yet made room for the truth. Oof!

I pushed him away, thinking I had the better answers. Maybe I missed a chance to grow alongside someone instead of in opposition to them.

But I’ve come to believe that even the messiest moments have something sacred stitched inside.

We don’t always get to redo the past.
But we do get to relate to the present differently.

So here’s to your gratitude practice.

Let it be real.
Let it be messy.
Let it make space for your whole self—
the ache, the awe, the tenderness, the truth.

And may you always find your way back to yourself in the process.