Gratitude, Grace & Grief - How to Hold Opposing Things at the Same Time

With the conclusion of Thanksgiving weekend — and all the travel, conversation, food, emotions, and family dynamics it can bring — we have officially entered the holiday season. This time of year often stirs up excitement and connection, but it can just as easily awaken pressure, comparison, old family patterns, grief, and sensory overload.

There’s also an undercurrent of expectations — the ones we put on ourselves and the ones placed upon us — to feel a certain way, show up a certain way, or keep traditions alive even if life feels different now. The holidays can quietly push the nervous system into constant “go mode” - rushing, planning, socializing, reacting, holding, doing. Practicing gratitude and yoga together offers a counterbalance. They can calm the nervous system, support the heart, widen perspective, and create pockets of steadiness during a season when so many of us feel pulled in multiple directions.

This holiday season feels especially raw and uncomfortable for me. While I am deeply grateful for so many people and moments in my life, I am also walking alongside my mom as she continues a fierce two-year battle with cancer. She has approached this stage of unknowns, fear, and planning with a quiet strength that I am in awe of. Only recently have the effects of her treatments — the rotating medicines, side effects, and perhaps the disease itself — started to shift how she lives her life. Her weekly pickleball games and line dancing classes, once grounding joys for her, have been replaced with fatigue, physical weakness, and the unpredictable nature of illness.

It's strange to be both grateful and heartbroken at the same time — to hold deep appreciation for her presence while grieving the changes in her energy, mobility, and independence. But the truth is: life rarely gives us just one feeling at a time. Often we are invited to hold gratitude and grief, joy and sorrow, grace and discomfort together — letting them coexist without forcing one to overpower the other. 

How Gratitude Helps Us Stay Steady

Gratitude acts like a reset button for the body. Even a quiet acknowledgment — that first sip of morning coffee, sitting next to someone you love, a moment of stillness, the softness of a blanket — can bring you back to the present moment and signal safety. Physiologically, gratitude activates the vagus nerve, which helps shift the body out of stress and into a calmer, more grounded state. It softens the edges of overwhelm and widens your capacity to hold complex emotions without feeling swallowed by them.

How Yoga Helps Us Process What We’re Carrying

Yoga complements gratitude in a tangible way. Breathwork, mindful movement, and restorative shapes help settle the nervous system and gently release the stress that accumulates in the shoulders, hips, jaw, and back. The combination of slow movement and intentional breathing helps regulate the body’s stress response and supports steadier energy through the season and creates a safe space to notice what you’re feeling — without judgment, without pressure, without having to “fix” anything. On the mat, you can let both gratitude and grief exist in the same breath.

Grace in the In-Between

If you’re moving through this season carrying multiple truths, know that you don’t have to choose one feeling over another. You don’t have to minimize what’s hard just because something else is beautiful. You can hold it, honor it and move through it - just like I am trying to do every day.