When Gratitude Becomes a Disguise for Settling: The Difference Between Being Thankful and Being Stuck

For most of my life, gratitude was the steady ground beneath me. 

It helped me stay centered in the middle of chaos. In moments that would make no sense to an ordinary, predictable life. In moments the mind couldn’t comprehend yet the soul quietly led me through.

It reminded me of what I had when life felt uncertain and when I was rebuilding myself after endings I never expected. 

Gratitude softened my heart. 

It kept me connected to presence instead of fear.

And I want to stay here for a moment, because gratitude has truly been one of my greatest companions since childhood. 

I was the girl who whispered thank you to the sky after making it through another day. I was the young woman who found one small, sacred thing to appreciate even when everything around me was falling apart. 

Gratitude was never just a practice. It was a way of breathing, a way of staying connected to grace when life felt anything but graceful.

But there’s a quieter, more uncomfortable truth we almost never talk about, and I’m probably one of the rare ones willing to say it:

Sometimes gratitude becomes a cage.

Sometimes ‘being grateful’ becomes the excuse we use to tolerate what we’ve outgrown.

Please read that again. 

I know it took me quite some time to process this until I inhaled the truth and accepted it as truth. 

I can look back at so many moments when I whispered to myself:

Just be grateful. You should be thankful for this.

Grateful for the job, even though it drained me.

Grateful for the relationship, even though I felt unseen.

Grateful for ‘security’, even when my soul was begging for freedom.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I wasn’t practicing gratitude. I was practicing self-abandonment and calling it maturity.

And that’s when gratitude asks you to shrink instead of expand.

And yes, it’s always helpful to look for things to be grateful for when you’re in a situation you don’t like. But when gratitude becomes the thing you default to because that’s what everyone says you should do, it can actually keep you stuck. Stuck in a loop where you keep soothing yourself instead of listening to yourself.

When I was working in a job I despised, I used gratitude like a bandage. Every morning, before stepping into a toxic environment, I forced myself to find one thing to be grateful for. And yet, my body kept whispering, Leave. You were meant for more. Create something of your own. 

The signs were everywhere. Exhaustion, dread, the quiet ache of misalignment. But I kept telling myself that gratitude was enough. That I should stay and tolerate. This is how gratitude turns into a trap—when it quiets your intuition instead of amplifying it.

And then, something shifted in me. 

A few years ago, I joined a spiritual money program taught by a coach I had admired for years. I loved her work, her connection to the divine, her sense of purpose. I trusted her deeply.

Then one day, she said something that shook me to my core.

She claimed that money wasn’t spiritual.

That healers should be satisfied simply with the ‘gift’ of serving others.

That asking for money in return was against the divine.

I remember sitting there, completely stunned. 

My jaw literally dropped.

Something inside me rebelled.

And I knew instantly this wasn’t my ego talking. It was my intuition. My inner knowing.

In that moment, I recognized the pattern: I’d been trained to use gratitude in ways that kept me small.

This was the turning point.

I realized gratitude and desire are not opposites.

Gratitude and expansion are not enemies.

You can be deeply grateful for what is and still reach for what could be.

You can honor the chapter you're in and still choose to outgrow it.

Gratitude should never be the ceiling.

It is the soil that your next chapter grows from.

Most of us are taught gratitude in a way that unintentionally freezes our lives in place. This kind of gratitude trains your nervous system to expect more of the same. It's like telling the Universe to keep everything exactly as it is. Your gratitude becomes a maintenance signal, not a growth signal.

During an extremely difficult period in my life, my regular gratitude practice suddenly felt forced.

I couldn’t feel grateful for what was happening. 

So I tried something different.

Instead of saying, Thank you for this challenge, I started saying, Thank you for the breakthrough that’s coming from this.

And that changed everything.

My whole body shifted. My heart moved from resignation to anticipation. My energy shifted from surviving to receiving.

This is the practice of appreciating what is already on its way, even before it arrives.

And yes, it is grounded in the present moment, but instead of forcing yourself to be grateful for the struggle itself, you begin acknowledging the transformation that is already in motion. 

You shift from I’m grateful for this pain to I’m grateful for what this hardship is clearing the path for.

This is gratitude that doesn’t deny your reality. It expands it.

When you genuinely feel grateful for something that hasn’t manifested yet, your brain registers it as inevitable.

Your nervous system starts preparing for it. Your energy begins aligning with it. You stop hoping. You start expecting.

And expectation is magnetic.

Please remember that you are allowed to be grateful and still outgrow things. You are allowed to be grateful and still want more. You are allowed to be grateful and still walk away.

Gratitude is not the end point. It’s the quiet signal that you’re ready for more.