There Is Room for More Than One Feeling

As the holiday season approaches, navigating mixed emotions can remind us that gratitude, sadness, joy, and longing can all exist together.

November has a way of bringing us closer to certain feelings.

The days grow shorter.

The air becomes colder.

Homes begin to fill with the familiar signs of the approaching holidays.

There are invitations, plans, family gatherings, and conversations about what everyone will be doing this year.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, we are reminded to be grateful.

To appreciate what we have.

To celebrate the people in our lives.

To recognize the good.

And there is something beautiful about gratitude.

But I wonder if we sometimes forget that gratitude and other feelings can exist alongside one another.

You can be grateful for your family and still find certain family gatherings difficult.

You can appreciate the life you've built and still feel a longing for something that is missing.

You can look forward to the holidays and feel a quiet sadness about someone who is no longer here.

You can love the people around you and still need a little space from them.

These feelings do not cancel one another out.

And yet, many of us have learned to believe that they do.

Perhaps we've felt guilty for being unhappy when there is so much to appreciate.

Perhaps we've learned to minimize our disappointments because someone else has it harder.

Maybe we've become accustomed to putting on a happy face, especially when the people around us expect the holidays to be joyful.

Sometimes, without even realizing it, we begin editing our own emotional experiences.

We share the feelings that seem acceptable.

And quietly tuck away the ones that might make others uncomfortable.

Dear one...

You do not have to choose between being grateful and being honest about what you feel.

There is room for both.

There is room for the happiness of being together and the sadness of remembering who is missing.

There is room for wanting connection and recognizing that some relationships remain complicated.

There is room for enjoying the traditions we have while acknowledging that some of them no longer feel the same.

And there is room for discovering that what once brought comfort may feel different as we move through different seasons of our lives.

Our feelings are not always simple.

Neither are our relationships.

Sometimes the people we love are also the people who know how to hurt us.

Sometimes the traditions we cherish carry memories we would rather not revisit.

Sometimes we find ourselves longing for a kind of closeness that has never quite been available to us.

These experiences can be difficult to hold, especially when the world around us seems to be celebrating togetherness.

But perhaps part of caring for ourselves is allowing our inner lives to be more complicated than what we show the outside world.

To stop questioning whether we are entitled to feel what we feel.

To recognize that an emotion does not need to be justified before it can be acknowledged.

We don't have to turn every difficult feeling into a lesson.

We don't have to find the silver lining in every disappointment.

And we don't have to force ourselves to feel grateful before we have allowed ourselves to feel anything else.

Sometimes, it is enough to simply be honest.

To say, This is joyful for me.

And perhaps, This is difficult, too.

Both can be true.

As November unfolds, I hope you allow yourself that kind of honesty.

Perhaps you can approach this season with a little less pressure to feel a certain way.

A little more compassion for the feelings that surface.

And a little more understanding for the parts of yourself that may be carrying memories, hopes, or disappointments that others cannot see.

Because being emotionally well does not mean feeling happy all the time.

It means allowing ourselves to experience the fullness of being human.

And perhaps, in making room for all that we feel, we create a little more room for ourselves.

Not just during the holidays.

But in our relationships, in our everyday lives, and in the quiet moments when we are simply being who we are.

A Gentle Wish

May you give yourself permission to feel all that this season brings, and may you meet each feeling with a little more kindness and understanding.

With warmth,

Luz Cotto-Charneski, LCSW
Founder, New Light Psychotherapy

‍