When Gratitude Meets Dread: Letting Two Emotions Be True
Hello Friends,
Sometimes in life we have two very different emotions at the same time. For example, when I was preparing to chaperone my daughter’s 8th grade Spanish class field trip to Costa Rica, I felt grateful to for the opportunity, and I also felt overwhelmed at the prospect of traveling with 40 middle school students for ten days.
As someone who’s become more of an introvert over the past decade, I had to remind myself: it’s okay to have more than one feeling about this.
Permission to feel more than one emotion simultaneously is one of the most liberating lessons from my parent-child mindful self-compassion class. It’s such a relief to not have to choose between gratitude or dread. We can feel both. We don’t have to gaslight ourselves into being only grateful (that’s repression), and we don’t have to get lost in the challenges either. Life—and parenting—is full of beauty and challenge, often side by side.
Big and Little Feelings
One of the graphics in Volume 1 of the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workbook for Kids brings this idea to life with visuals and examples kids really connect with.
The permission to feel more than one feeling is part of the “Land of Freedom“—one of 16 lands (core ideas) from the workbooks. When kids learn to allow multiple feelings, they often experience a feeling of freedom—not ruled by emotions and not pushing them away either. It can feel like a long exhalation!
More Examples of Side-by-Side Feelings
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This blog highlights cycles of feelings. Here’s an excerpt:
When my daughter made it to State with her cross country team, she was elated and celebrated. But when the weekend ended and the season was over, she felt the natural letdown.
Joy and disappointment—side-by-side.
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During the pandemic, I wrote this blog. Here’s an excerpt:
During these challenging times, I remind myself again and again to create space for AND. AND what? you might ask. By AND, I mean allowing for both sadness and joy. Loneliness and connection. Despair and hope. If we don’t create space for all of it, we run the risk of either anxiously clinging to positivity, or conversely, wallowing in despair.
I feel like it’s still relevant today, right!?
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One more example: we can be jealous (technically envious) of someone else, and also be a little happy for them. Here’s a blog I wrote on being both happy and jealous. Below there’s a video featuring a comic from the workbook on this topic and a conversation between my younger daughter and me on how we can feel these two emotions simultaneously.
Share the Plate
If you’d like to help your child feel free to feel all their feelings, you can share this “share the plate” metaphor with them. You can also begin to share your side-by-side feelings in daily life. Every time you do, you’re helping your children know that it’s human to have a range of emotions, and that you’re a safe person to share those feelings with.
May you and your children feel the freedom of welcoming all your feelings—with joy and compassion!
With love,
Jamie Lynn
P.S. Here are a couple of photos from when I chaperoned my older daughter’s Spanish class trip two years ago. Yes, I’ve done this trip before—so I knew what I was getting into.
I chose pictures from the day Maya got sick and we stayed back from the group outing. It was a day full of side-by-side feelings—and ironically, one of my favorites from the whole trip.
Pictures from my older daughter’s Spanish class field trip to Costa Rica on the day she got sick.