Nov. 28, 2025
60. Gratitude and Thank You Note Habits That Calm Your Nervous System and Make a Difference, with Jennifer Richwine
Have you ever noticed how fast your brain can spiral into worst-case-scenario mode, focused on the worries, the fears, the what-ifs? And yes, you’ve heard that gratitude can help you shift out of that… but maybe it’s felt a little too simple to be real.
In this episode, I’m breaking down why gratitude isn’t a personality trait — it’s a practice — and how it can literally calm your nervous system and pull you out of fear. I’m also joined by my longtime friend Jennifer Richwine, Executive Director of the Wake Washington Center of WFU and author of With Gratitude: The Power of a Thank You Note, to talk about the kind of outward gratitude that strengthens relationships, boosts confidence, and makes people feel seen.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:
✔ Simple ways to build an internal gratitude habit, even if you are not a gratitude-journal person
✔ Why expressing gratitude out loud (and especially in a handwritten note) has a bigger impact than you think
✔ The truth about thank-you timing — including why it’s never too late to tell someone they mattered
✔ How anonymous gratitude and giving can be surprisingly powerful for both you and the person receiving it
🎯 OMG Moment: You have the power to positively impact someone’s life — and your own — simply by saying thank you and naming what you appreciated.
Take Action
Pick one tiny gratitude habit you’ll actually do.
- At night: write down one thing you’re grateful for and one small win from the day.
- During the day: pause when you see a “glimmer” and think, wow, that was good.
- This week: send one thank-you note to someone who made your day easier or brighter.
- Get the book!
Don’t overthink it. Just start.
Why This Episode Matters
Midlife comes with real challenges — changing bodies, shifting roles, aging parents, career pivots, and days that feel heavy. Gratitude doesn’t erase any of that. But it does train your brain to notice the good alongside the hard, which changes your baseline state over time... hello success mindset! And when you express g
Text me to ask a question - I'll answer on the podcast!
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💡Want menopause support, mindset shifts, or support with midlife transitions?
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Let’s talk midlife body positivity, self-talk, and redefining aging for women — without the “midlife crisis” narrative. Every week I'm adding new success strategies for midlife women.
Connect with Cheryl, Midlife Coach: Instagram | LinkedIn | Website
01:46 - Why Gratitude Beats Fear
02:19 - Our Midlife Approach To Confidence
02:54 - Gratitude Is A Practice
03:57 - Meet Jennifer And Her Gratitude Lens
04:50 - Feeling Thanks Vs Expressing It
07:01 - How Gratitude Rewires Safety And Calm
08:28 - Build An Internal Gratitude Habit
10:47 - Outward Thanks And Why Notes Matter
13:53 - Handwritten Notes That Stand Out
15:57 - Gratitude Without Settling
18:07 - It’s Never Too Late To Thank
18:45 - Presence, Mindfulness, And Everyday Heroes
21:26 - The Magic Of Anonymous Gratitude
24:03 - Make Gratitude A Year-Round Habit
26:22 - Resources, Next Steps, And Series Tease
WEBVTT
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Have you ever noticed how fast your brain can spiral into worst-case scenario mode?
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The worries, the fears, all of that.
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And you've probably heard that practicing gratitude is a way to shift out of that, but maybe it seems overly simplified.
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So by the end of this episode, you're gonna have a few simple ways to practice gratitude internally and out towards others that actually stick, even if you're not a gratitude journal person.
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So let's talk about it.
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Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time.
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Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body.
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Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife.
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This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast.
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Now, the first thing that I will say is that gratitude is a practice.
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It's not a personality trait.
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You know how sometimes we say, I'm a warrior, that's me, that's my personality.
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Well, nobody's personality is I'm a gratituder.
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Not that that's a word.
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It's something that we practice to get better at, and we do it on purpose so that we can shift the way that we're thinking, which shifts the results we're getting in our lives.
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So if it feels hard sometimes to be grateful for anything, that doesn't mean you're an ungrateful, snarky, difficult person.
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It means you're human.
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So we just need to practice.
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It's like strength training for your attention and your focus.
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And midlife isn't simple, right?
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So this is going to be really powerful for you to learn to practice gratitude.
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And also there are going to be challenging days.
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Now, I'm joined today by a very good friend of mine, Jennifer Richwine.
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We met in college many years ago, and she is now the executive director of the Wake Washington Center for Wake Forest.
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She is also the author of the book With Gratitude: The Power of a Thank You Note, which was the number one new release in business etiquette when she released the book.
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So I'm gonna bring her in a few times during this episode to share with us some thoughts about outbound, let's say, outward gratitude, because it's not just about saying it all inside our heads.
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I love the quote from GB Stern that you include at the beginning of the book, which is silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
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And I completely agree.
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Expressing gratitude is really powerful.
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What does that quote mean to you?
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Well, obviously, that quote is very important to me.
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And, you know, I think it's great to feel gratitude.
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I think there are lots of studies out there that talk about the more gratitude you feel, the healthier you are, the better your mental health, the more productive you are.
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And so just feeling gratitude is great.
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But that's only a small piece of the puzzle.
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So expressing gratitude is actually the larger piece of that in terms of mental health and friendships and relationships.
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So if you feel gratitude, but you're not expressing it to somebody, why does it really matter?
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So there are lots of times where you'll hear people talk about something they're really grateful for or somebody they're really grateful for, but they're not telling that person.
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And so part of my goal with the book is to really encourage people to express that gratitude to other people because that changes lives.
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And so someone simply expressing gratitude can really make a difference, not just in their day, but in their outlook, how they see themselves, how meaningful they feel like their lives are.
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So I think if you you feel gratitude, that's great, but expressing it is really sort of the power punch.
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Okay, so that means we want to be doing both, right?
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We want the internal gratitude that is healthy and powerful for your brain.
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We're gonna talk about how and why, and the external, where we send this out to others and as Jennifer said, potentially change lives.
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You've heard me say before that our subconscious brains are basically running the show.
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And what does the subconscious brain mean?
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Well, it's the part of your brain where all the things you believe about the world, about your faith, about what you can and can't do, about results that will happen when you take any particular action, and how your body runs, your heartbeat and blood pumping and all of that.
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It's all saved in there.
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And you can visualize that by thinking about the last time that you got in the car and drove somewhere and you arrived there and you can't remember how you got there.
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It's because your brain was in control, handling it.
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Now, maybe that's not the safest way to go, but that's what happens when we do these repetitive things.
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Now, that brain also is in charge of keeping you safe, keeping you alive.
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And that is its most important job.
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And so oftentimes keeping you alive, keeping you safe, means hanging back from things, worrying about things, focusing on anxiety or fear.
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And so sometimes we get stuck in that loop with your brain just trying to keep you safe.
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Now, the cool part of gratitude is that your brain can't respond to gratitude and fear at the same time.
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So if we can figure out a way to switch into being thankful, being grateful, the fear will recede.
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Our brains just cannot focus on both of those at the same time.
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So that's exciting.
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That's really good.
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And as we mentioned a minute ago, it's really healthy for us to get out of that fear state because it's gonna calm your nervous system.
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You're gonna get back in the parasympathetic nervous system, and your body is gonna be able to run all its processes as it is supposed to do, all good things.
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And how do we do it?
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Creating a practice of what I'm gonna call internal gratitude, which is the thinking about it part and feeling it part.
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What we need is to create a habit.
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And maybe what you need is a little trigger where you get into bed at night and you have a little notebook sitting next to your bed and you write down one or two or three things you're grateful for.
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Even better, write down one thing you're grateful for and a win from that day, something that went well.
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You're practicing focusing on that before you go to sleep.
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Or maybe it's something that you like to do in the morning, kind of a miracle morning type thing.
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Or maybe you have a sticky note on your computer that says thank you or grateful.
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And that reminds you to pause and think about it and think, wow, my coffee tasted really good today.
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Wow, my husband unloaded the dishwasher, my daughter laughed this morning at breakfast.
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Such tiny, simple things.
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And it's just picking a time of day where it feels good to do that and then creating a habit.
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Because you've heard me talk about glimmers before.
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It's very similar.
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Concept.
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We're training our brains to notice these things that we can be grateful for.
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And the noticing is what we want to get better at because then we're gonna notice more, we're gonna notice more, and we're gonna notice more.
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Now let's switch back to external gratitude.
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It's really about your intention when you are thanking someone and expressing gratitude.
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I'm a little bit of a stickler on the handwritten thanking note.
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That is why I wrote the book.
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I do feel strongly about a handwritten note, which I'll go into in a minute as to why.
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But I will just say expressing gratitude of any kind is better than not.
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So verbalizing it to someone face to face is important.
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If you must send an email, that is also a way to express gratitude.
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And it's better than not expressing gratitude.
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I'll tell you why I like the handwritten thank you.
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Number one, it is not very common right now.
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And from a actual, from a professional standpoint, you would not believe the number of people who comment on the fact that our students that are here in this program write handwritten thank you notes to their mentors and their uh people that manage them while they're here for the semester when they're interning.
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It is something that stands out in today's world because very few people are doing it.
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And we actually hear stories of people getting a job offer because when all things were equal, our students are the ones writing thank you notes.
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So I do think it stands out.
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So for professional reasons, I think it's great.
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But part of it is just me, think about it, Cheryl.
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If you open up an email, you probably read it pretty quickly.
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There you know that someone could have written it very quickly.
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You may not think much about the fact you probably are gonna be like, oh, that's really nice that they wrote me a note of gratitude in an email.
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You're not gonna get upset by that.
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But if they take the time to have note cards, to handwrite a note, have a stamp, put it in the mail, they're going to have put more thought into it.
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So it's probably gonna be a better note no matter what.
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There are probably not gonna be as many errors in it because in emails, people use short language, they don't use complete sentences.
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It's just a more thoughtful thing.
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And I don't know that anybody sits down and says, oh, they sat down and wrote me a handwritten note, but it is instinctual that you are feeling that gratitude more because someone took the time to handwrite it.
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It's also great because if I get a really nice thank you note on an email, I will print it out and save it.
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But most people don't do that, and so it's it's ephemeral, it's gone.
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Whereas handwritten thank you notes, I go into people's offices all the time and they have handwritten notes taped to their boards.
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I have people who have framed handwritten notes.
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My mother keeps her favorite thank you notes in her Bible.
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So I do think it needs more.
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So we're we're aware that we want to create a habit and we want to create this internal habit of noticing, maybe jotting down, thinking through these items that we're grateful for, and an external habit.
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And you heard Jennifer say that taking a minute and handwriting is even better.
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That intention is really recognized by the recipient of the note, and it means you're spending a little more time with gratitude as you do it.
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So, what if life is not going super perfect for you right now?
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And we're in midlife.
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So there are challenges, there are changes, there are tough days, and I get it because I have that too.
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And so we sometimes worry that if we start to be grateful for all the things and tell everyone thank you and write notes and everything, then it's almost like we're accepting things as they are now, and maybe we're okay with it not changing.
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That's not that's not true at all.
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I used to think that being grateful for something meant that I was saying, this is fine, I don't need more.
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That's not what we're saying.
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Gratitude is about learning to continue to appreciate things, learning to notice the good things, and learning to share those good things with other people when we're doing this external outward gratitude as well.
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So if you are struggling, maybe your gratitude sounds a little different.
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Maybe you're doing a career pivot and you're thinking to yourself, I'm grateful for the skills I have and I'm ready for what's next.
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Or if you're having some body struggles, I mean, goodness, aren't we?
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You can be grateful for what your body does for you every day.
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And you can say, I'm caring for my body well now in a relationship.
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You can be grateful for what's going well and you can be looking forward to it getting better.
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So think of this as a way to notice the good, calm your body, share with other people so that they can have that same experience.
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And and it doesn't have to be that life is perfect.
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And sometimes gratitude can reach across the years.
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If you are remembering something that really meant something to you, express it.
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I think for some of us, once we decide to do something like this, we say, okay, she's right, she makes great points, we're gonna start doing thank you notes, we're gonna get in the habit.
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Now we start to make a bunch of rules for ourselves.
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And you actually touched on this earlier a little bit.
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If we don't send the note by this date, it's not worth it, it's too late, we have to do it this certain way, things like that.
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The question is then, what is the best time to write a thank you note?
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Well, I love that question because it comes up quite a bit.
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And I do think people often, if they procrastinate, then they feel like, well, it's just too late.
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So the example that I sort of alluded to earlier was with a student who was coming in as a freshman.
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And she said, you know, when I was looking at Wake Forest several years ago, a friend of my mother's invited me to come stay with her in Winston-Salem while I looked at Wake Forest.
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And while I was there, she had gone by herself to her mother's friends.
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And that person gave her a lot of great advice as she was thinking about colleges and how to think about which college she should attend and just was very helpful for her.
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And she said, I never thanked her.
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And now it's three years later, and it just feels like it's too late.
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And I said, Well, actually, it's perfect timing because here you are at Wake Forest.
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And I bet a lot of what she told you is what led you here.
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So now that you're here in your first week of freshman year, now's a great time to write her and tell her that you're here on campus and how much you enjoyed the conversation and how meaningful it was and how you still considered her advice as you were applying to colleges.
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And I think it's perfect timing.
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So now look, if someone gave you a gift, it really is nice to get it out as quick as you can, in part because they may not know that you've got it.
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I'm not being critical when I'm thinking, okay, they haven't written me a thank you note, I'm more just wanting to make sure they got it.
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But but I know it, I know if I ask if they got it, they're gonna think I'm asking because I want a thank you note, and that that actually isn't it.
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So if someone gave you something or did something, and you need to write it as soon as you can just so they know that they received it.
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But but it's never too late.
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And in fact, I think some of the best thank you notes are the ones that come way, way, way down the road.
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And really, because um, one of the things I talk about in the book is that writing a thank you note as perfunctory action is good and better than not, but really thank you notes are more most powerful when you're writing about the impact of a kindness or a gift or just the impact someone's had on your life.
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So I love having people do the little exercise of think of someone or a few someones in your life, maybe way back in your life, who did something that still resonates with you and has had an impact on you.
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And just see what happens when you write them a thank you note.
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What it tells people is they really did have a lasting impact, that they have a legacy that lives on 10 years, 15 years, 20 years down the road.
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You still think about something they did for you, or you still think about something they said to you, or you still think about a way that they positively impacted your life.
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That's powerful that you get those notes.
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So I say it's never too late.
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The other thing about gratitude, whether it's internal or whether it's external, outward to someone else, is that it's helping us to be more present.
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Because when you are focused on appreciating what is happening to you right at that moment or what someone has done for you, it brings you back to the present moment.
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And that's what we mean, really.
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That's all we mean when we say mindfulness.
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It's getting, it's slowing down all the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah going on in your head and focusing on right now.
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And sometimes you can do that with meditation, you can do it with a five senses, you know, notice what do I hear, see, smell, taste right now, all of that.
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And you can just do it by looking for something that you're grateful for right now, in this moment.
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And it teaches your body that you're safe.
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And when we express this gratitude, we express what we appreciate.
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It just lands so deeply with other people.
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So what if you are thanking someone for simply doing ordinary good stuff?
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There are a lot of people on our campus, and a lot of people and many jobs that have sort of behind the scenes work, but their work is critical.
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And it is astounding what happens when you express gratitude to people for doing their jobs and how much meaning it gives to them and does make them feel like they're making everybody, everybody wants to feel like they're making a difference.
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And yet there are a lot of jobs where people only hear from other people when something goes wrong, especially customer service jobs.
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They only hear the bad stuff, they never hear the good stuff.
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So I love taking notes with me when I travel.
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I'll write thank you notes to people who just got me extra soap in a hotel room or um were just really pleasant to me when I checked in at the airport counter because a lot of times those people are not as pleasant as we would want them to be.
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When people do that kind of stuff, I just love to say thank you.
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And I think it just makes a big difference for them and knowing that the work they do matters.
00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:51.360
I think that's such a great point.
00:19:51.360 --> 00:19:59.360
Why aren't we more focused on thanking people for just being great on an everyday basis?
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Maybe that's something for you and for me to focus on after listening to this episode.
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Because there are a lot of people out there that are, I'm gonna say, unsung heroes, right?
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They're doing their thing, it's making a difference, but they never hear.
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And what if you really want to express gratitude?
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:25.519
You know it'll make a difference, but you're thinking about doing it anonymously.
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What about that?
00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:27.920
Worth it?
00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:29.120
Good idea?
00:20:29.120 --> 00:20:30.160
Let's see.
00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:32.559
So I do talk about this in the book.
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I think anonymous thank you notes are absolute magic.
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And people are reluctant to do it, and then maybe it's because they think they need to be recognized or they need the person to know it was them that wrote it.
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But it is such a gift when you get an anonymous thank you note.
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So one that's in the book and one that's not one.
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I I gotta note it was high event season where I was literally working around the clock.
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I do not think I think it was dark when I got to work and dark when I left to go home for multiple days on end, and and I actually was exhausted and not feeling like I was making much of an impact and wasn't sure why I was in the job I was in.
00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:17.920
And I came in one morning and there was a piece of white eight and a half by 11 copy paper shoved under my door.
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And on it was a handwritten note for my students who did not put their name.
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They said they were writing on behalf of other students.
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They said they knew that I did not get a lot of recognition for the work I did, but that the events that I worked on and the speakers I brought made such a difference in their experience at Wake Forest and how grateful they were that I was doing the job I was doing.
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That was incredible.
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I mean, that was I have no to this day, I still don't know who it was.
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But what I did was I walked around campus for the next week and a half, thinking every student could have been that person that wrote me that note.
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It's amazing how powerful that is.
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And really, just maybe two months ago, I received a note in the mail at the office from again, someone I do not know who it is.
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The return address was from a state I don't recognize.
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Some, I mean, I recognize the date.
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I didn't recognize anybody from the state.
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I was hoping.
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I mean, we did go to college.
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So maybe somebody put it in the mail somewhere they don't live.
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I don't know.
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Maybe it was someone who read my book and decided to write it.
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I honestly don't know.
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But they wrote the nicest note saying that I had a positive impact on the people around me and they just wanted me to know that.
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And they were expressing gratitude for it.
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And it's just powerful.
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I mean, that could be anybody.
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So imagine just knowing that someone out in the world thinks you're making a difference.
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You don't need to know who it is.
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It was enough to just really give me a great boost.
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And I just I love those kinds of notes.
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:43.519
Now, it doesn't work in every situation, but there are lots of situations where anonymous notes are powerful, and I and I think it's I think it's really good.
00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:45.120
Jennifer, you're right.
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It wouldn't work in every situation.
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But if you're listening to this right now, think about what you could do with anonymous notes.
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And in fact, something even more cool is anonymous giving.
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I've heard of people ordering pizzas and having them sent to school secretaries to share or to the fire station.
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I've heard of people leaving five or $10 on in an envelope on the windshield of somebody's car.
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I've heard of people sticking cash in diaper box at the store, and then whoever buys it happens upon it.
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And I've of course paying for someone behind you in the drive-thru, which I have done.
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And I don't go to drive-throughs that much, but I do try to do it when I go to a drive-thru, and it's such a great feeling for me, for the giver of the gift and the giver of the gratitude.
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:45.759
That's sort of monetary gratitude in a way.
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So that's anonymous.
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It feels fantastic for the giver, and I'm sure the writer of those anonymous thank you notes felt fantastic as well.
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