Keywords: 500 things to be grateful for, be obsessively grateful, deeply grateful, everyday grateful
I was at a big grocery store, mid-November. I pushed a full cart while walking down the food aisles with my little ones.
My daughter, two years old with a pink fleece hat, her wispy blonde hair already static-clinged to it, was happily munching on some blueberries with a blanket and her winter coat tucked around her. The corners of my mouth turned up as I licked my fingers and tried to put some back into place.
My three year old son’s hands were on the cart handle and his feet were on the bottom of the full-size shopping cart, ready to pick up cans of soup from the shelves or find the perfect ripe bunch of bananas.
I read a sign next to the frozen turkeys: Welcome to Gratitude month! Share your gratitude around the table.
I stopped my cart.
In my cart, I had a cornucopia of bountiful food. My kids were healthy, helpful, and kind. My husband makes an abundance; we have everything we could possibly need.
I felt I should be grateful, but I wasn’t. My head started chiming in.
What is wrong with me? Am I entitled? Am I part of the problem? I write thank you notes to people for everything, for Pete’s sake!! It’s, literally, part of my job as a fundraiser. I’m sure I’m grateful for something in this moment.
“Mommy, what do we need?” my son chimed in. I looked at his sweet face then back down at my list.
“A break from all this!” I said out loud, then cupped my hand over my mouth. My face turned red and a pit formed in my stomach. My head started up again. With the errands, the baking, the preschool coop duties, the looming holiday checklist flooded in.
“Silly mommy, yes let’s finish up to get a break from shopping and then we can get you home for some fun rest time!” I exclaimed and restarted our journey.
Why we feel we should be obsessively grateful, deeply grateful, everyday grateful, when we’re not
MOST IMPORTANT TAKEAWAY ALERT! Not feeling genuinely grateful does not make you a bad or entitled or ungrateful person.
What does it really mean? Here is what’s going on underneath: When we can’t access gratitude, it does not mean it’s not there. It means something else is there that needs expression first.
Simply put, when you fake being grateful, you are invalidating other emotions or needs that have to be addressed first. Think about it like firmly standing on pile of clothes you are trying to put on. (with gratitude at the bottom) Hard, right?
– Heidi Esther, Joyologist
That’s what you’re doing to your emotions – yes, including gratitude!
First: Don’t feel like you need to force gratitude. Forced gratitude is in the category of “toxic positivity”. While it might smooth over some things on the outside, on the inside you are creating a greater divide between who you are to yourself and who you are on the outside. If you feel like being grateful would be like wearing a mask, this is why.
A Simple Way to Explain the Relationship
Healthy emotional expression clears your emotional room.
Gratitude decorates it.
If you decorate without clearing, it feels forced.
If you clear without decorating, it feels empty.
You need both for emotional wellbeing and balance.
5 Reasons you might not be able to authentically feel everyday gratitude
- Your body is in survival / manager / fixer / problem solver mode. You are living in fight/flight/freeze. As a result, your brain prioritizes danger scanning.
- You have an unprocessed emotion(s) taking up space. When you’re unaware of your other emotions, gratitude gets repressed as well. You might have an elephant in the room that is taking up a LOT of space.
- You’re in burnout or emotional exhaustion. When the emotional load and workload are high, there’s no room to process and get to gratitude. (This is the primary state I was in at in the grocery store)
- You unconsciously invalidate. You might rationalize or justify pieces of your life you need to validate to see (Also, I was here – I was constantly invalidating my thoughts as “silly” or “stupid”.)
How can you open up to feel deeply grateful, even obsessively grateful? Emotional Expression, baby
Here are three steps to becoming the. most grateful version of yourself.
Emotional Intelligence Growth Step 1: Feed yourself
Before you can identify and process any feelings, here’s a question. Do you identify as someone who is in constant problem solver mode or trending towards burnout? Then it’s time to work with a coach or mindfulness professional to help you create a routine that gives you energy vs just takes it.
Know that you are worth feeling good, every day.
There are many wellness professionals, therapists and coaches. I am a Certified Mindfulness Based Stress Practicioner and you can book a Clarity Call with me at https://HeidiEsther.com/calendar/#coffee
STEP 1 SUMMARY: Take care of your body to move it towards gaining energy through an inner care and physical care routine.
Emotional Intelligence Growth Step 2: Self-Awareness of Repression
In Emotional Intelligence, getting to gratitude calls upon two pillars: self-awareness and self-regulation. Often, we do not let ourselves feel certain emotions (because we have been socialized to be perceived as “that kind” of a person.)
But, guess what? When it comes to emotions, All of Us are “that kind” of person. Emotions are one of the things that we all share, that make us uniquely human.
However, in service to safety, a persona, a set of family values, or a commitment to overwork, we may have learned that certain emotions were neither necessary or allowed. And then we learn to do something that slowly makes us lead less authentic and joyful lives.
We learn to repress our emotions. Our emotional regulation goes to the extreme: we become emotionally numb. We live in emotional deserts.
To get to gratitude, it’s critical to understand how you bypass your feelings. To understand how you Distract yourself.
Can’t stress it enough: Self-awareness is key! A good place to start to is how you react to stress and how your parents or caregivers managed difficulties. Maybe we rationalize them away. Maybe we become ticking-time bombs. Maybe we watch cute kitten videos. Maybe we obsessively organize closets or drink Diet Coke. Maybe we get overly involved in other peoples’ problems. Maybe we turn into a human productivity machine.
STEP 2 SUMMARY: Understand how you are repressing your feelings. Practice stopping yourself and acknowledging them before you repress them.
Emotional Intelligence Growth Step 3: Process through the Emotional Ladder
On the Emotional Ladder, Gratitude is at the TOP. Which means we need to process (step-by-step) all the other emotions to get there.
TO KNOW: Emotions build on each other step by step, like a ladder. And we can feel more than one emotion at once.
So, yes, to feel deeply grateful, it’s imperative to feel your other feelings.
(Which is exactly why you can’t tell someone who is depressed to cheer up, because on the way to “cheerful” the depressed person needs to go through anger, jealousy, overwhelm, and boredom)
If you’d like a sheet to help you process emotions, you can download them in the Emotional Management Folder in the Phoenix Vault
PRO TIP: When we feel we should be grateful, we are adding another emotion to process: Shame. When we “should” all over ourselves, this is us punishing ourselves. So, remember to bring out some self-compassion when processing that one – and all emotions! <<HUG>>
STEP 3 SUMMARY: Process your humanity (feelings.)
5 life benefits of Emotional Expression
1. Reduces stress and overwhelm Letting emotions move through your body lowers physical tension, reduces anxiety, and prevents emotional “build-up” that leads to snapping, shutdown, or burnout.
2. Improves clarity and decision-making When you acknowledge your feelings, your nervous system calms and your prefrontal cortex (the thinking part of your brain) comes back online.
3. Strengthens emotional resilience Regularly naming and processing emotions teaches your brain that feelings aren’t dangerous, making it easier to navigate future stress.
4. Builds self-awareness and internal trust You learn what your emotions are trying to tell you — needs, boundaries, desires — and you trust yourself more deeply.
5. Improves relationships When you understand and regulate your own emotions, communication becomes clearer, conflicts soften, and empathy grows.
4 Physical benefits of Emotional expression
- Reduces sympathetic activation: Lowers stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline) and helps the body shift out of fight/flight/freeze.
- Regulates the nervous system: Activates the parasympathetic system, slowing heart rate, relaxing muscles, and improving digestion.
- Improves emotional processing in the brain. Naming feelings reduces amygdala activation and increases prefrontal cortex functioning (clarity, logic, decision-making).
- Prevents physical tension buildup: Lower risk of headaches, chronic tension, gut issues, and stress-related inflammation.
And here’s a helpful article about Processing Emotions
Emotional Expression or Gratitude?
Okay, so can you just do gratitude? Or just feel emotions without gratitude? Yes, however…
Emotional Expression Without Gratitude
- You may feel cleared out but empty — like you processed the hard stuff but didn’t refill.
- Mood may stay “neutral” or slightly heavy.
- You risk reinforcing a belief that life is mostly hard or overwhelming.
Result: You feel honest… but not hopeful.
Gratitude Without Emotional Expression
(This is very common in overwhelmed moms, high achievers, and people pleasers.)
- Gratitude stays as an emotional cover instead of a joy-bringer.
- Emotions don’t get processed and start to stack up. This can cause irritability, numbness, resentment, exhaustion.
- You feel like you’re wearing a mask and forcing it.
Result: You feel fake or inauthentic.
Getting to Deeply Grateful: 500 things to be grateful for
While the emotional ladder only has a couple dozen emotions, did you know that we are capable of feeling up to 34,000 different feelings!?!
So, let’s start with feelings: that’s 700 x 500 things to be grateful for!
Ready to leave “shoulds” behind and start feeling gratitude? Download my Gratitude Calendars in the Phoenix Vault in the Confidence and Brilliance Folder today!
