Growth, Gratitude, and Grace: How to Honor Your Past Self This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving tends to come with a strange combination of feelings. Warmth and pressure. Joy and exhaustion. The comfort of tradition paired with the quiet hum of reflection. You might find yourself setting the table with one hand while your mind flips through a highlight reel of the past year—or the past ten.

At some point during the holiday season (usually somewhere between the second helping of mashed potatoes and the late-night pie), we realize we’ve made it further than we think. We’ve grown, even if it hasn’t always been graceful. And yet, most of us don’t take the time to actually honor that.

This piece is an invitation—not to overanalyze or over-romanticize, but to reconnect with the version of yourself that got you here. The one who started things before they were perfect. The one who kept showing up. The one who navigated hard seasons and still made space for hope.

So if you’ve ever felt unsure of how to celebrate your own growth—or if you’ve rushed past the part where you acknowledge your progress—this is your permission slip to slow down and stay awhile.

Grace: The Foundation of Honest Reflection

It’s easy to look back at your past self with judgment. The version of you who stayed too long, trusted the wrong person, didn’t set that boundary, or let fear make a decision. We’ve all been there. But what if the point of looking back isn’t to correct—but to understand?

Grace is the permission to meet your past self where they were—with context and compassion.

When I think about the person I was five years ago, I can’t help but smile a little. She was trying so hard. She was tired but hopeful. She didn’t have all the tools yet, but she still found ways to try. And that effort? That counts. That deserves recognition.

You don’t have to love every decision you’ve made. But you can still honor the effort you brought to the version of life you knew then.

Gratitude: Beyond the Bullet List

Gratitude gets a lot of airtime in November—but often in a rushed, surface-level kind of way. We’re told to write it down, say it out loud, post it online. But true gratitude is slower, deeper. It happens when you acknowledge the richness of life in all its complexity, not just when you count your blessings.

Honoring your past self with gratitude isn’t about only remembering the good things. It’s about appreciating your capacity to grow through the hard things. That’s a much richer flavor of thankfulness.

Here are a few gentle ways to practice it:

• Reflect on what past-you survived—not just what they achieved
• Identify something you learned the hard way, and find the wisdom in it
• Thank yourself (out loud or in writing) for a risk you took, a line you drew, or a belief you updated

This kind of gratitude strengthens emotional continuity. It helps you see that you’re not a fixed identity, but a dynamic person who’s evolving with time.

Growth: The Invisible Milestones

Growth doesn’t always look like a new job, a degree, or a photo-worthy transformation. Often, it looks like subtle inner shifts:

• The conversation you handled with softness instead of defensiveness
• The morning you got out of bed when you really didn’t want to
• The way you’re learning to rest without guilt

These moments are easy to miss because they don’t come with applause or announcements. But they are growth. In fact, researchers studying post-traumatic growth and resilience have found that internal changes (like a shift in values, deeper relationships, or a new appreciation for life) are just as significant as external markers.

A review published in The Journal of Positive Psychology found that people who had experienced personal adversity reported long-term increases in life purpose, relationship depth, and self-perception—even in the absence of major life changes.

So if your past year didn’t come with big wins—but did come with perspective? That counts. A lot.

How to Actually Honor Your Past Self This Thanksgiving

This doesn’t require a ceremony. You don’t need candles or a journal (though those are lovely). What you need is intentional attention. A few minutes to step out of autopilot and into reflection.

Here’s what that might look like:

• Pause before the holiday starts. Before the rush of Thanksgiving dinner or travel kicks in, take 10 minutes to sit with yourself. No phone, no agenda. Just you.
• Ask “What have I lived through?” not “What did I accomplish?” This shifts the focus from output to resilience.
• Write a note to your past self. You don’t have to keep it. Just let the words come. Thank them for trying, for staying, for choosing.
• Share one lesson. If you’re gathered with close people, consider sharing one thing you’ve learned this year. Vulnerability invites depth.
• Be the person past-you needed. Whether that’s resting, saying no, asking for help, or celebrating a win—honor them by showing up for yourself now.

And remember: the most powerful way to honor your past self is to not abandon yourself now.

The Quiet, Unexpected Gifts of Looking Back

When we give ourselves the space to look back with grace, something softens. We stop trying to edit the past and start integrating it. We begin to see that our younger self wasn’t weak—they were building strength. That the version of us that stumbled was still moving.

This mindset shift can impact your relationships, too. The more compassion you practice toward your own past, the more you tend to extend that to others. You begin to recognize that growth isn’t linear. That people can change. That we’re all doing the best we can with what we know at the time.

Sometimes, the real gratitude isn’t just for the big stuff—it’s for the quiet persistence of the self who kept going.

Path to Vibrancy

1. Name a version of yourself you’re proud of. Maybe it’s who you were at 23. Or last month. Let that pride land.
2. Acknowledge one lesson that cost you something—but taught you more. Give that experience meaning, even if it still stings a little.
3. Write down a value that feels more solid in you now than it did a year ago. Growth often lives in clarity.
4. Let go of one “should” you’ve outgrown. Maybe your past self needed it, but your present self doesn’t.
5. Plan one act of self-respect this season. That could be a boundary, a break, or a brave choice. Root it in grace, not guilt.

A Different Kind of Thanks:

Thanksgiving doesn’t have to be all gratitude platitudes and curated family photos. It can also be a moment of quiet revolution. A season where you turn inward—not to dwell, but to acknowledge. Where you honor not just what you have, but who you’ve become in the process of getting here.

You don’t have to be a finished product to be proud of your path. You don’t have to have all the answers to recognize your effort. You just have to pause long enough to see the through-line—the strength, the stretch, the becoming.

So this year, between the dishes and the laughter and the stillness that always finds its way in: say thank you. To your past self. To your current self. To the journey that continues to unfold.

You’re not behind. You’re becoming.