11/26/2025
As we move through this season, I keep returning to words from writer Kristin Lin:
“A practice of gratitude is not about dismissing sadness, anger, fear, or confusion. Rather, it offers us the opportunity to see that we often experience multiple feelings at once; to welcome joy into the same places where we hold grief; to turn our attention to what is quietly growing and breathing day by day, which, to our possible surprise, includes ourselves.”
Gratitude is often presented as a tidy, joyful emotion — something we access when things are going well. But real gratitude, the kind many of us are learning to cultivate as leaders, parents, partners, and whole human beings, is much more layered than that.
Gratitude sits alongside our other truths.
It does not ask us to erase hardship or pretend away the things that ache.
It does not require us to be cheerful or composed.
Instead, it invites us to widen our field of vision, to broaden the aperture.
To notice that even in a season of challenge, something in us is still growing.
That even on days when the world feels heavy, we may find quiet pockets of joy.
That our capacity to expand — to hold grief and gratitude in the same breath — is its own kind of strength.
This month, I’m leaning into a practice of noticing:
What is steadying me?
What is shifting or softening, even slightly?
What is emerging in me that I didn’t see a year ago?
And where can gratitude help me see the both/and inside my own story?
I invite you to take a moment to reflect on what is “quietly growing and breathing” in your own life — especially the parts of yourself that may be asking to be acknowledged, appreciated, or welcomed back in.
Wishing you a season filled with honesty, tenderness, and just enough light to remind you of who you’re becoming.
Happy Thanksgiving - I'm grateful for you.
