Be Grateful

Be grateful.

That’s literally the branded imprint so many little girls are given.

Be grateful you’re here.

Be grateful for the opportunity to serve.

Be grateful for the opportunity to live.

Be grateful you’re taken care of.

Be grateful you’re protected.

Be grateful for what you have.

Don’t focus on what you don’t have.

Don’t let it take you away from the present.

Don’t get too lost in the moment.

And maybe gratitude is beautiful…

But sometimes, in the moment we are experiencing it, it isn’t gratitude we need to be pulled toward.

It’s feeling.

Because so many women are already fucking grateful.

Trust me. Gratitude is the wiring. It’s what we’ve been asked to return to again and again.

And maybe that’s why it can end the conversation so quickly.

Because the blanket of gratitude gets pulled over everything that is uncomfortable underneath it.

But I’m grateful.

But look at what you do have.

But this is an opportunity.

But you’re so lucky.

And suddenly the feeling that was alive in the room has nowhere to go.

Because what happens if we fall into something other than gratitude?

It’s chaos.

It’s too much.

Too wild.

Too free.

Too big to hold inside the spirit of what we have been taught a “good” woman should be.

But what if every emotion that moves through us is part of being alive?

What if anger gives us information…

What if grief needs somewhere to go?

What if longing is allowed to exist?

What if disappointment doesn’t need to be corrected?

What if desire doesn’t need to be made smaller?

We are the portal.

Things move through us.

And sometimes what moves through us feels like a tsunami.

But is it?

Or is it just a river flowing?

And someone is standing on the bank, screaming:

“Why can’t you come up the street?”

“Why can’t you look over here?”

“Why can’t you see this?”

“Why can’t you feel grateful for that?”

Because I’m in flow.

Because I am feeling what I am currently feeling.

Because this is where the water is moving.

And maybe the question isn’t:

How do I stop the water?

Or maybe it’s:

How do I hold water?

But how do you hold an element that was never meant to be held?

Freeze it, and it becomes something else.

Heat it, and it burns.

Try to contain it, and it finds another way through.

Sooo… maybe it isn’t a tsunami.

Maybe it only feels like one when we’ve spent our entire lives being taught to dam the river.

Maybe she isn’t too much.

Maybe she isn’t drowning.

Maybe she is simply moving through something.

And maybe, for once, she doesn’t need someone standing at the bank telling her where the water should go.

- Tiffany Hudson

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