The Gratitude No One Talks About
Oct 16, 2025I used to think gratitude was about sunsets and mindfully drinking coffee and the small mercies that punctuate our days. And it is—those things matter. But there's another kind of gratitude that lives in a deeper place, one that most of us avoid because it asks us to do something that feels impossible: to turn toward what has broken us and say thank you.
Not because the breaking was good. It is hard, difficult, and painful, I know these well. Not because we're grateful it happened. But because somewhere in the wreckage, we found something we couldn't have discovered any other way.
The Practice That Changes Everything
There's a practice I want to share with you, one that activates what one can only call the healing power of gratitude. It's not comfortable. It doesn't belong on an Instagram post with soft filters and script fonts. But it's real, and if you're sincerely willing to sit with it and make the effort, it will change you.
Find a quiet place. Let yourself settle. Then, either silently or aloud, consider these words that feel most profound for you:
Thank you for this pain.
Thank you for this betrayal.
Thank you for this heartbreak.
Thank you for this inconvenience.
Thank you for this disappointment.
Thank you for this loneliness.
Thank you for this frustration.
Thank you for this agony.
Thank you for this confusion.
Thank you for this disease, illness, or condition.
Thank you for this hopelessness.
Thank you for this anger.
Thank you for this despair.
Thank you for this relentless cruelty.
Thank you for this depression.
Thank you for this humility.
Stay with it. Don't rush. Let each phrase touch whatever it needs to touch inside you.
Why This Matters
When we thank our pain, we're not endorsing it. We're not saying it was deserved or fair or anything other than what it was—hard. What we're doing is reclaiming our relationship to it. We're refusing to let our wounds be the final word about who we are. You are not broken.
I've learned that gratitude for suffering isn't about positivity or reframing or finding the silver lining. It's about sovereignty. It's about saying: this happened to me, and I will not spend my life at war with reality. I will not let bitterness become my permanent address. I will expand, grow, and mature.
When we thank what has hurt us, something shifts. Not immediately, not magically, but slowly, like ice melting. We stop resisting. And in that release, space opens up—space for something new.
The Turn
And then, if you keep going with the practice, something remarkable happens. The gratitude that started as an act of defiance becomes something else. It becomes recognition:
Thank you for the silence.
Thank you for this liberation.
Thank you for this peace.
Thank you for this joy.
Thank you for this light.
Thank you for this love.
The same voice that thanked the darkness now thanks the light, and you realize they're not separate practices. They're the same practice. Because gratitude isn't about what you're grateful for—it's about who you become when you practice it.
When you can thank your heartbreak, thanking your joy becomes effortless. When you can thank your loneliness, thanking your connection becomes profound. The practice teaches you that you have room for all of it. That you are large enough to hold your entire life without collapsing.
Begin Anywhere
You don't have to be good at this. You don't have to believe it will work. You just have to be willing to try, to sit with the discomfort of thanking what you'd rather curse.
Start with one thing. The small frustration. The minor disappointment. Let "thank you" be a question you ask your pain: What did you teach me? What did you make possible? Heart, show me what I need to know now?
And when you're ready—when you've practiced enough on the smaller things—you can bring this to the larger grief, the deeper wounds. You can sit with what almost destroyed you and whisper, however tentatively: Thank you.
Not because it deserved your gratitude. But because you deserve your freedom.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This is the gratitude no one talks about. The one that doesn't make you feel instantly better but makes you, over time, more whole. The one that doesn't erase your story but lets you stop being defined by its hardest chapters.
This is one practice that heals.
If this resonates with you, I'd love to hear about your own journey with gratitude—the messy, real life, honest kind. You can find more of my work at journeymindfulness.com, or if you'd prefer "let's talk." Sometimes the most powerful practices are the ones we explore together.
