I used to think that being positive during a difficult time was a fancy form of denial. That it meant you had to gloss over the bad stuff and pretend that life is all rainbows and unicorns.
I wanted to slap anyone who told me to ‘just think positive’ when my Mum was ill and shove their gratitude journal squarely into their rectum.
What did I have to be grateful for back then?
Grateful for my measly carer’s allowance?
Grateful that Mum was dying in slow motion in front of my eyes?
Grateful there were no treatment options to cure her?
Grateful Dad was already dead so couldn’t help us?
But over time, I began to see that it’s not a binary decision. I had to stop thinking of it in terms of ‘positive -v- pessimistic’ or ‘happy -v- sad’. There is a middle ground.
Gratitude doesn’t mean forgetting the bad things that are happening, but nor does it mean forgetting the good things that are also happening at the same time.
There’s always going to be bad and good. The two co-exist. They are not mutually exclusive.
You can still look at the sunshine, even if you’re standing in the rain.
And while knowing that doesn’t make life any easier when you’re going through a painful experience, it does make each day a little softer on your soul.