#119 - Hiding Behind Gratitude

This episode  explores the concept of 'hiding behind gratitude' and its implications on personal growth and relationships. I delve into the danger of using gratitude as a means to avoid addressing real issues, utilizing a metaphor of a hole in the roof to illustrate how neglecting problems, while being superficially grateful, can be detrimental. I  share examples from marital conflicts to demonstrate how deflecting issues with gratitude can invalidate feelings and hinder resolution. I also emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and working through problems, even while maintaining gratitude, to foster healthier relationships and personal well-being.

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Transcript

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I'm jamielynn Stephan and this is what to want at episode number 119 hiding behind gratitude. Welcome to want to want it a podcast for women of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints who are ready to ignite not only their sexual desire, but all of their desires to create a more fulfilling life and marriage. I'm jamielynn Stephan. I'm a certified life coach, a wife, and a mother of seven children. I'm excited to share my personal journey to desire with you and teach you how to desire more as well Hey everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. Today, I actually just have a short podcast because I don't have a lot to say about my topic, but I really wanted to talk about it. So. I want you to imagine that you're in your house and suddenly a massive hole is ripped through your roof. I don't know why that would happen, but. Suddenly you have this massive hole. In your roof and when it snows, your living room fills with snow. And when it rains, it fills with water and birds have come into your house and are building their nests and on windy days, the whole house fills with a breeze that sends papers and other things flying around your house. What would happen if you just decided to be so grateful for your house, instead of worrying about the whole, like, I'm just so grateful I have this house. So thankful I have hot water and a furnace, and I'm just so thankful for these walls that I have. And I'm so just so grateful for my house. What if you decided you were just going to focus on being grateful and that was at. I know, it sounds kind of absurd, but this is sometimes what I think. I've done to myself. I think this is something I've pushed other people to do. And I see many of you do this. It's deciding to just be grateful and essentially turn a blind eye to issues that you are having. Kind of hoping that gratitude's going to make the issue no longer an issue. Now. I don't want to say that gratitude can't solve problems because I think there are times when we turn to gratitude and it genuinely put things into perspective in a way that helps us release our anger or frustration or our disappointment in certain situations. And I always think that gratitude is essential to our mental health and our happiness, but going back to the hole in the roof. Even though you can be so grateful for your amazing house. It doesn't erase the fact that you have an issue that needs to be addressed. You need to find a way to fix that whole. You are probably going to have to hire someone. They're going to need materials. It's going to cost money and it might take awhile to actually fix it so that it looks good and right. And the idea that feeling gratitude should negate all of that is totally absurd. And I think most of you would agree with that. Being grateful for your home. Doesn't take away the fact that there is something that needs attending to. So, let me give you a few real life examples about this. A woman shared with me the deep feelings of hurt that she was experiencing, because if she ever said no to her husband, when he approached her to have sex, he would pout, he would give her the cold shoulder. And sometimes he would even say cutting mean things about her. And so, as we were talking about this together, she said to me, Do you know what I know, I just need to be so grateful that my husband's attracted to me. No, don't get me wrong. It's a great thing to be thankful that your husband finds you attractive. That's awesome. I think she should keep that thought. If it really fills her with gratitude. But there are still a hole in the roof that needs to be dealt with here. The way her husband reacts when he doesn't get what he wants. And the impact that she allows that to have on her that has got to be attended to. There is a problem here and no amount of gratitude's going to change that they're both going to have to do some work showing up better in their interactions around sex. And that may take some quote unquote reconstruction of their relationship. It may take help from other professionals. It's certainly going to take dedicated work from them and the entire time she can keep feeling gratitude for all the amazing qualities her husband has. And she can still address the problem that these interactions are having on her and on their marriage. So when we use gratitude to hide from the problem that needs to be faced, the problem is never going to be solved. Nothing's ever going to change. And I would say that oftentimes the gratitude starts to sour as the problem continues to go unresolved. And the other problem that arises when we hide behind gratitude is that we are essentially telling ourselves that our feelings don't matter. Just like this woman that I was just talking about. It is painful for her. When her husband acts like their sexual relationships, all about him and has nothing to do with how she feels that hurts. But instead of validating that for herself and vocalizing that she stuffs it all down, tells herself she's being ungrateful. And then tries to get to some feelings of gratitude for her husband. Again, the gratitude's not bad, but using it to invalidate her experience here is a bad idea. That is not the intended use of gratitude. It's not meant to be used that way. You can actually hold both things at once. You can have gratitude and be disappointed. You can have gratitude and feel frustrated and feel hurt. But when you tell yourself it has to be either or, and you want to be a good person. You're going to push those emotions away and strive for gratitude, but it's going to feel hollow. It's not going to feel authentic at least most of the time. I think about all the things that happened over COVID that had to be canceled or modified, right. To meet the new laws that happened around gathering. And that was tough. And this is another way that I kind of see my optimistic friends and me, myself. I've done this. Try to hide behind gratitude. All right. I'm just so thankful that we're able to do this big celebration of life later. At least we got that after not being able to have a proper funeral for their loved one, when they passed away. And they've may very well have been so grateful for that celebration of life. But they were disappointed about how the original funeral had to happen. Deepen the heart of COVID. And both of those things can be true at the same time and they don't need to feel like they're ungrateful to be disappointed by what they lost. It's okay. To feel grief about the fact that they didn't get to have the proper funeral. At the time that their loved one died. And be so grateful that they still have the opportunity to celebrate them now. My daughter failed her first driver's test. And of course, I'm just like, aren't you just so grateful. You can come back tomorrow and try again. I'm trying to make her feel better, right? And she was grateful. She didn't have to wait a month or even a week to come back, but she was so disappointed that she had to come back at all. And that's okay. But we kind of do this to each other. And again, I don't think it's bad to point out to other people's the blessings or the silver linings that are there, but we need to stop pressuring them to feel better and to push their emotions away and hide them behind gratitude. It's so invalidating. I really had to stop myself in that moment and tell her that. Of course you're disappointed. Of course you feel embarrassed. Of course you wish this was different. Thank goodness we can get on the website right now and book you in for tomorrow. But of course, you're going to feel so sad today. It's just so easy to push people to get to gratitude right away. So they don't have to feel disappointed or sad anymore so that we don't have to feel awkward or feel like it's so hard on us to watch you suffer. Almost every one of my kids has done this to me at some point, but more for their own good. Not for mine. They'll be getting in trouble about coming home late or skipping school, or maybe getting caught in a lie. And they will say to me, you should just be so grateful that I'm not out drinking and smoking and doing drugs. Like those are the only things a parent ever has the right to be disappointed in and don't get me wrong. I am so grateful. They are not doing drugs. And we have an issue that we need to take care of. There's a hole in the roof that needs attending to. I have seen both men and women go to their spouse about an issue that they're having and their spouse comes back with. You just don't appreciate all that I do for you. Now, maybe that's true. But it becomes a deflection from the problem. It's kind of the idea that, because I do mostly good things, you shouldn't complain about the bad things, but that is not real life. Uh, husband can be deeply grateful for how his wife organizes their life and folds his socks and finds the keys that he's lost again. And he can be hurt when she brings up his faults in front of their friends. Uh, wife can be so grateful for her. Husband's hard work that provides for their family and she can be frustrated when he comes home and sits on his phone all night. Instead of engaging with her and the kids. But when we don't want to face ourselves in our marriages, we can deflect the criticism. And escape. The discomfort of what's probably true about us. By accusing our spouse of being ungrateful. And this is actually really manipulative in my opinion. And I know. I've done this before. Many of us do this, but it's essentially a way of telling your spouse to be quiet and it turns the problem back onto them. In kind of a cruel way, right. By saying, how dare you point out this problem. You are so ungrateful. You are really the monster here. Do you know what I mean? Now again, I want to be careful here because you know, if you've listened to me for a while, that I am a big believer in gratitude, I believe. Completely that our peace, our mental health, our happiness, all depends on our level of gratitude. I also believe that gratitude is healing and that it can heal hearts and put things into better perspective. I believe it can truly change our relationships. I do. And I think that more gratitude will decrease the amount of contention in our lives and in our relationships, it is so essential. But we cannot use gratitude as some morally superior shield that we hide behind to get away from the issues in our lives. And we can't pressure other people to use gratitude as almost blinders that they put on to ignore our bad behavior. And neither should we voluntarily put gratitude blinders on to ignore what needs attending to. If you have a hole in the roof of your house, it needs your attention. It doesn't make your house terrible. It doesn't make it hopeless. It just has to be acknowledged and dealt with. So. There, you have it. Everyone stop hiding behind gratitude. Have a lot of it, practice it, but don't let it be your excuse for ignoring the things in your relationship that need to be addressed. There is room for all of it. Gratitude and grief, gratitude, and frustration. Gratitude and hurt. Gratitude and disappointment can have it all. Have a great week, everyone. Bye. Thanks for listening today. If you like what you hear on the podcast, and you'd like to learn more, feel free to head over to my website. Jamilin Stephan coaching.com or find me on Instagram or Facebook at Jamileh. step in coaching.