The Special Needs Mom Podcast

Complex Gratitude

• Kara Ryska • Episode 278

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This Thanksgiving week, I’m keeping it simple and talking about complex gratitude. The kind that feels messy, honest, and actually doable for special needs moms.

I share a story from the early days after Levi’s surgery, when gratitude felt impossible and I fully wanted to shove the whole concept off a cliff. What finally clicked for me was realizing I didn’t have to be grateful for everything to be grateful for something. That little truth opened up room for real, authentic gratitude instead of the forced version that makes you feel worse.

In this episode, I walk through my “sorting buckets” idea. It's a playful way to separate the hard things from the things we genuinely appreciate, without pretending the hard stuff isn’t there. Even a tiny whisper of gratitude can shift something inside us, especially during a season that brings up so many mixed emotions.

If you’re listening with metaphorical crossed arms… I get it. You’re still welcome here.



Speaker:

Hi, I am Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. Fast forward, past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created the Special Needs Mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flare of possibility in your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

Hello and welcome to the Special Needs Mom podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode is gonna be kind of a light episode. I mean, it's the week of Thanksgiving. You might have guessed by the title of the episode. We are talking a little bit about gratitude, and especially if you're a little resistant to the idea, I think this episode will meet you. Right where you're at. We know that the holidays bring up a lot of complex feelings for us, special needs moms. There's the life that is out there that we want, and then there's the life that we're experiencing And then everything in between with the dynamics that are part of our lives as we do life with friends and family, or at least try to. And so I, I've named this episode, or at least the working title at the time I'm recording, is Complex Gratitude, and I came up with a title because I feel like it's helpful to acknowledge. That gratitude for us, special needs moms can feel a little outta reach sometimes, and so by calling it complex, I feel like it's then giving us the opportunity and I'm giving you the invitation to learn to simplify it. And I think it's complex because there's these situations we're in. Like you love your child, you love them. You hate the way you have to mold your life to keep them alive. You love your family, but you hate the way they don't understand or accept your child. And of course, their needs. You love your job, but it makes your life feel way too full. It's, and so you see this complexity, there's these things in our life and we're like, oh, I don't wanna be grateful for that. It's not what I want, or it's not good. And I concur. And I wanna give you just one small concept to think about this week. And my agenda is that you'll experience more gratitude. Why? Because it is scientifically proven. Two, create more happiness and life satisfaction. And that's what I want for you, and that's what I know you want too. And it does not make all things good. And the good news is here we don't need it to. So back to the one small concept, it's just part of the work that we do. I, on purpose, orient myself to create a life that I love. Versus suffering through a life I wish I didn't have. And those are the people I speak to. This is who I serve. If you are like, okay, I want that, Kara, and I'm having a hard time with it. Perfect. You're in the right spot. Complex gratitude. And I have talked about this story or this concept before, and so if you've been around a long time, it might be a refresher. But if you're new, I will bring you back to a time many years ago for me, this is like 14 years ago, and it is a time right after Levi survived his initial, brain surgery, his tumor resection. He was two years old. We spent months in the hospital and in recovery. And then we were handed this life that was altogether unfamiliar and definitely unwelcomed. So this is like October, November. And you know, at this time, Levi is not able to walk. He lost his ability to walk. He lost a significant part of his vision. His his life just looked completely different. And of course, ours did. Our family life did too. I lost my job. I was laid off during this time I was pregnant. With my third son, and just because why not make it a little bit more interesting? My husband had just started, several months ago into a new career that was completely incompatible with the new life that we now had. And so it essentially, what that meant was that, he had zero. So you did the math. I was laid off. My husband had zero income, so things were not looking super bright this fine November of And my honest thoughts were, take your gratitude and shove it. What do I have to be grateful for here? And then I found myself sitting in church. As cynical as ever, and if you can see my inner attitude experience on the outside, you would see, like I picture like a moody teenager with like their hat or beanie, like pulled over their eyes, arms crossed slunched. So far they're practically like falling out of the chair, just like not vibing with the gratitude being presented as an option. And then finally it clicked for me and what I had been thinking where I had gotten off track and like definitely resistant to is thinking that I had to be grateful for everything. And when I look back, I'm like, oh, this actually, I don't. That's interesting. I don't, I, I don't know how I got that idea, but that's the idea that I had. And it doesn't matter how I got it, that was the belief I was living under. I thought I had to be grateful for everything. I thought I was supposed to be thankful for all of the above situations I was in, and that was clouding my ability to find genuine and authentic gratitude for anything that I was thankful for. Or grateful for. So I became aware that I could mourn the things I was mourning. I could hate the things I was hating. And with this new honesty and freedom, I could also, other side of the coin, I could also see and seek the things that I was genuinely grateful for. Because like, pretend gratitude or like thinking you should be grateful. That actually makes you feel worse. Actually generating gratitude and feeling that in your body, that's the life changer. So the things I clung to in those early days because they were so overwhelmingly good, was that friends and family and even strangers came forward to say, we are standing with you. Here's a gift card, or here's cash, or here's a prayer. You're in my thoughts. And no matter how bad things were, I could look at that and say, I'm really grateful for those things. Those are just purely beautiful. Yes, they're happening because of this Terrible, awful, never wanted it, wouldn't wish it on anybody's situation, but that did not cancel out. The fact that I was so grateful that people I hadn't spoken to since high school or people all across the world, it's actually really cool. I had this blog, you know, this is back in the day, so I had a blog and I remember just being like in awe of I don't even remember the number now, but I feel like maybe it was like 50,000 people had read the blog and I was like, I don't know how that's happening. But people shared it and then people reached out and like it was incredible. And I remember just thinking, I am grateful for the fact that some people, strangers, care about our story. So back to this idea of complex gratitude. I wanna give you this nudge to, like I said earlier, it is complex and your job is to decomplex it or to simplify it. So. I have this visual of creating these little buckets. We're gonna think of them like sorting buckets. And yeah, this is a playful, simple way of thinking about it. but I sometimes think, you know what, why not enter a little bit of play or invite a little bit of play when we're doing this heavy lifting or doing work that really matters? So you have these situations in life, right? And your job. Is to find the gratitude. Now, back to the why question. I wanna really reorient us to why this actually matters, is not just like nice to have like, oh, wouldn't that be nice if I felt grateful? No. Research shows that it measurably improves mental wellbeing. So this is stuff like depression and anxiety. Ladies who does not raising my hand over here, who has not danced with depression and anxiety in this life that we are navigating, most of our hands are up. And so if we can do something right here, right now, no cost. No time, really very little time investment to measurably increase our wellbeing, then I'm gonna keep talking about it, ladies. Okay. The other thing I mentioned earlier is it's strongly associated to greater happiness and life satisfaction, which back to what I said earlier, I know most of us want to have. So this is what it takes to get it. Okay. That's just a side note. That's the why. Back to the buckets. You and I have these situations that are complex. And are hard maybe at face value to find the gratitude in. I've recently talked about the incident that we had at our house. I'm leaving it vague on purpose and it involved our home. And of course, some, the impacts of some behaviors of my son Levi. And the thing that happened, I'm gonna put in bucket one, as in this bucket is labeled, not grateful for. In fact, I have a lot of other feelings that I could, you know, if I was gonna title the bucket, there's a lot of other feels about that bucket, but I'm just gonna let that be something that I have other feelings about. But then there's a bucket, it's called gratitude, and what I'm putting in that bucket is that I have homeowner's insurance. Shout out to USAA. I love my insurance company. And, they have taken good care of me, of us, of our family. So I'm gonna put that in my gratitude bucket. Let's take another one. Leva has been sick, which means we have done all the things like the er, like urgent care, like. Missing school, all those things. And you know, that doesn't even cover like the worrying of like, is my son okay? in those moments. So in my bucket does not go him being sick. Well actually that goes in the things I am not grateful for, but into my gratitude bucket goes the idea or the reminder that I can work from home. For the most part and that I have access to medical care. I often, this is kind of a fun side note. We all know our medical system has many to say kindly, opportunities for improvement. And yes, we have a right and I think let's all vent about that and not be grateful for parts of it. I'm on board, but I spent some time in Africa in my. Late twenties, so I can visually remember the homes, the landscapes, the places that people lived that had zero access to medical care like I do. And I often think about that as, wow, like my son would have definitely died if I lived in the places that I had visited. And because I live where I do. My son did not die. So that's a like, again, it's a little bit of a side note, but even when I am not grateful for all of the things with our medical system and insurance system and all that stuff, I am deeply grateful that I can take my son to the doctor, that I can get an x-ray, that I can get antibiotics. All those things that I have a thermometer. And now a pulse oximeter. And I don't have to cancel out the things I'm not grateful for, to be grateful for the things that I am. So that's the key here. We're not trying to like cancel out or Trying to change the things that we are not grateful for, to be grateful for them. We're trying to create space for gratitude, and this is the complexity of it and all the other feelings that are with alongside them. So it's like a party and all of the emotions are there, and gratitude is one that doesn't necessarily come without a little bit of intention. So that's what this conversation is all about. We're simply bringing intention to cultivating gratitude. Okay? So I think that's a good place to leave it. It's short, it's simple. I especially love you if you are the person sitting metaphorically with their arms crossed and pretty skeptical, maybe even like. A little mad about all that is on your plate and the things that you are not grateful for. And so first off, well done for listening to the episode. And second off, even if it's just a whisper of gratitude, my encouragement to you is to whisper it to authentically allow yourself to be right where you're at, but invite yourself to orient yourself. Toward a fulfilled and good life. Okay, we're gonna wrap there. We'll see you all on the next episode.