I Spent Years Focused on Who Hurt Me — Here’s What Finally Set Me Free

We’ve all heard it before: Gratitude is the gateway to peace. It’s supposed to be a powerful instrument in the healing process. I nodded along when people said it. But inside, I doubted.

When you’ve survived tremendous trauma (the kind that shatters your trust in the world) it’s hard to feel grateful when you’re still picking up life’s pieces. Survival feels like a victory on its own. Gratitude almost feels like a betrayal of everything you endured. But something shifted for me one day in the most unexpected way.

One afternoon, I was comforting a friend who was struggling, overwhelmed by everything that seemed to be going wrong in her life. As I listened, I found myself gently guiding her toward a new perspective, encouraging her to notice the small things that were going right, the people who were still showing up, the resources she still had. To focus, even briefly, on the ways life was still offering her hope. I let her know that she wasn’t alone, I was here and so were others who wanted to help.

But it was also in that moment, I realized I needed to take my own advice.

I had been laser-focused on everything I had lost: the people who had failed me, the love that wasn’t given, the betrayals that left scars. I was constantly replaying the scenes of abandonment in my mind, so much so that I had stopped seeing what was still standing. I was living in the shadow of what was missing. But I wasn’t looking at the ones who had shown up — the friends, the family, the strangers even, who had been there, time and time again. I wasn’t seeing the resources and provisions that had appeared exactly when I needed them most. I wasn’t seeing the resilience inside myself that refused to give up.

Gratitude, I learned, isn’t about pretending your pain didn’t happen.It’s about making the choice to see what else is true.

It was a slow transformation. There were no fireworks, no magical moments where everything instantly healed. But every time I chose to focus on what had gone right (even if it was something small) a little more light crept in. A little more hope, a little more space to breathe.

Gratitude didn’t erase my pain, but it gave me the strength to carry it differently. It softened the sharp edges and it reminded me that even in brokenness, beauty remains.

Now, whenever I find myself spiraling into old patterns of grief or anger, I remember that afternoon with my friend. I remember that advice I accidentally gave myself.

Gratitude isn’t naïve. Gratitude is courageous. And sometimes, it’s the very thing that saves us. Gratitude became the doorway I had once thought was closed to me. And once I walked through it, everything began to change.