Is it even right to feel grateful when so many lives have been lost?

If you haven't felt right lately, it means you are human and you feel.

The world has been a difficult place regardless of political leanings. (This is not a political post and at the same time, I am happy to state all of mine anytime.) This is a note about humanity, loss, and feeling scared, sad, rage-filled or powerless.

Today, I am referring specifically to the loss of human life in Buffalo, Southern California, Ulvade, Texas and beyond.

I am devastated by hate, by fear, by all of it. I feel angry, no not anger, I feel rage. I feel endless tears and powerlessness. And I feel the need to take action. All at once but not all at the same time. Whatever you feel is valid.

So I wanted to repeat some words I posted yesterday in my Facebook Gratitude Community on the inevitable question of what the point of gratitude is anyway, especially when you can even feel guilty about expressing gratitude or Joy at a time like this.

Gratitude is not about making things right when they aren't. They aren't right. Many coffins are are being prepared, many of them too small. Nothing about that is right.

Gratitude is about looking at life, instead of away, and finding the sliver of this moment that feels like something worth living and fighting for.

Gratitude is what keeps you open to this life.

Whether that's a moment of Joy or a moment of just knowing that feeling what you feel means you are thoroughly alive. Even the inability to feel grateful is a human vulnerability others need to hear. Because without all or any of that, we cannot go on.

And we do not move on to move away, we move on to remember, to fight, to make change, to grieve, to honor and to love.

So when you ask me what could be useful about a gratitude practice right now, I would say it might be the most important time to find something to be grateful for, in yourself or each other. Gratitude cannot excuse injustice. (nothing can) But while we seek justice in larger forms, we can find moments of justice right here in our own body.

Our bodies feel and remember everything. We must tend to them so that we can tend to this world and each other.

This week, I just want to let you know to use whatever you can to move what is moving in your body, give it love and permission.

And please, feel free to reach out to me. I am human like you and we need each other to make sense of the senseless.

Holding all of you from afar, Tanmeet