When Gratitude Doesn’t Feel Like Enough

It’s been my first week back at work after six weeks of parental leave.

I’m grateful, I really am. Grateful to have had that time with my family. Grateful for a supportive employer. Grateful for a loving partner and a job I love. But if I’m honest, I was also longing to get back to work, to routine, purpose, and the sense of making a difference beyond my own four walls.

That feeling caught me off guard at first. There was a part of me that thought, “You should just be grateful. You’re lucky, don’t ruin it by wanting more.”

And yet, that inner tension, between gratitude and honesty, is something I think many of us feel.

I often see it come up in counselling too. People silence parts of their experience because they think they shouldn’t feel that way.

We tell ourselves things like:

“I should be happy, I’ve got a good job, a family, a roof over my head.”

“I can’t complain, other people have it so much worse.”

“I should be over it by now.”

“I shouldn’t feel lonely, I’ve got friends.”

Or even,

“I wanted this, so why do I feel anxious/sad/flat?”

Sound familiar?

The truth is, emotions don’t work on logic or comparison. You can be grateful and still feel low. You can love your life and still feel lost in it. You can look like you’ve got everything together and still feel like something’s missing.

We don’t get to choose which feelings show up, but we do get to choose whether to listen to them.

As I reflect on this first week back, I’m reminded that gratitude and discomfort can exist side by side. One doesn’t cancel out the other. In fact, acknowledging both might be the most honest form of self-awareness there is.

And if any of this resonates with you, if you’ve been feeling something you can’t quite put into words, counselling can be a space to explore that without judgement. Sometimes, giving those quiet feelings a voice is the first step towards real clarity.

If you’d like to explore whether counselling could support you, I’d be glad to hear from you.

Hit the free consultation button at the top of the screen there to book a free, no-obligation call with me. A chance to talk things through and see what might help.