Ep. 4: The Secret to Living in Gratitude (Gratitude Part 2)

It's a loop of fear and worry, and it happens when we leave our brains unsupervised and let them run amok. Now, the cool part of this is that the brain can't respond to gratitude and fear at the same time. Are you ready to live your best life, make healthy choices, have success, have fun, and still have time for everything else? I'm here to teach you how to do that, and we'll all learn together from guests along the way as well. Follow along for some powerful tips on cultivating gratitude, making healthy choices for mind and body, and having fun doing it. What if all the angst and worry actually don't help? Oh my goodness, let's keep learning how to do this differently. OMG, hello my friends. It's a new week, and here we are in episode four. Did you notice that this is a part two episode? Last week I chatted with Jennifer Richwine in episode three about her book with gratitude and about how powerful it is to express gratitude and to write thank you notes. If you miss that, make sure to listen after this. This week, we're talking about living in gratitude. I'm gonna focus on this in two different ways. First, if we can switch to gratitude, we can crowd out the fear and worry that often is spinning through our heads all day. The two do not play well together. You know that it's a powerful concept that the thoughts we choose create the feelings we have, which affect the actions we take and the way we interact with the world. Have another listen to episode one for all the background on that relationship. Our brains, however, are somewhat hardwired to be in what I would call protection mode or safety mode. It helps me to understand this by thinking about thousands of years ago when humans faced real danger in their daily lives. Whether it was wild animals or other humans, there was actual danger around every corner. They needed to be alert and they needed to use their intuition and all their senses to be able to predict a problem and defend themselves against it. In modern times, however, we are usually not defending ourselves against a saber-toothed tiger on a regular basis. I suppose there are exceptions to that, but not usually. There is danger in the world. I fully agree. But most of us, thank goodness, are lucky that our typical days do not involve extreme physical risk or danger. So because our brains are looking for risk and looking to keep us safe during that risk, what has happened is that the subconscious brain, which runs most of our daily tasks, now looks to avoid change. Safety is in sameness. We know the routine, we do the routine. If you're not sure what I mean by the subconscious brain, this is where your habits and your self-image are stored. Have you ever driven somewhere, for example, arrived there, and wondered how in the world you just got there? You have no recollection of the drive at all, and you hope you even drove appropriately. I'm pretty sure we've all done that. Or maybe if I ask you now to think back to brushing your teeth this morning, maybe you hardly even remember. This is the subconscious brain running the show. You already know how to do those things. You don't have to do any conscious thinking and evaluating. You just brush, you just drive, especially if it's something you do all the time. So that means that to the brain, sameness feels good and safe. Now, change, on the other hand, feels risky and scary. Even if you're starting something new that you really want to do and believe you can do, your brain will often put out dire warnings. Imagine this in all caps. Worry. Hide on the couch with a snuggie. We're not ready. Are you sure? What if? That's what your brain is doing. And so here we are then, caught in a loop of worry and angst. And our feelings are becoming focused on some combination of sad, scared, dejected, all those kind of negative, low power emotions. I'm exaggerating maybe a little bit, but I'm not exaggerating that much. This happens all the time in our daily lives. Most of the time, it's about small things. If you're on social media for your business, for example, and you're posting something that you hope catches people's attention, your brain may cause you to worry over the wording. Second guess how you organized it, wonder if a different picture would be better, and on and on and on. Questioning, questioning, questioning. It's a loop of fear and worry, and it happens when we leave our brains unsupervised and let them run amuck. Now, the cool part of this is that the brain can't respond to gratitude and fear at the same time. If we can figure out a way to switch to feeling grateful, thankful, the fear will recede. Our brains simply can't focus on both at the same time. So if you remember anything from this episode, remember that. That's exciting stuff. We're feeling good about this. But you're probably asking, well, that sounds great, but how? How do I switch to gratitude when I'm knee deep in fear about something new, the next step, what they said, what's going to happen, all that stuff. Henry Ward Beecher said that the art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. I'm not going to tell you that this is always easy, and I'm not going to tell you that you'll be perfect at it right away. And that's okay. If you start creating some gratitude habits in your life, you will gradually train your brain to be able to switch into this mode when the fear and worry creep in. Okay then, here are a few ways to start creating a gratitude habit. First, maybe you'd like to have a token or a reminder that when you see it or you feel it in your pocket, you remember to find a few things right then that you're grateful for. If you can find a stone or a coin or some kind of small item that already has some positive association with it, start carrying it with you or keeping it in a prominent place at home. When you see it or feel it, pause and think about a few things you're grateful for. It can be as simple as the sun on your face, the person you're talking to, the food you had for lunch, or as big and meaningful as your relationship or your success or your new job or whatever. The exact things you're being grateful for in that moment don't actually matter, interestingly. The feelings matter. Start practicing feeling this gratitude. Smile to yourself. You could even add in Mel Robin's technique of high-fiving yourself in the mirror and feel how wonderful all these things are. Feel the happiness. It's the feeling that has the power. And if you heard me say in one of the early episodes, this was the struggle for me. I am so analytical, I want the right answer, and I want to reason through it with logic that learning how to just feel took quite a bit of practice. And that's okay too. Practice is kind of the point. I eventually learned that. Okay, second thing you can do as a gratitude habit, whether or not that first method fits your personality, that's fine. Here's another to try. Grab a notebook or a journal or open a note on your phone or device or laptop, whatever, and start writing down gratitude each day. You can do this first thing in the morning so that your mood gets a boost immediately when you wake up, or you can do it midday for a reset, or you could do it before bed as you look back over your day. In one of my favorite books called The Gap and the Gain, the authors recommend writing down three wins from your day every evening. So that's kind of the same thing as gratitude. Three things that you are so happy about from that day. Guess what's more likely to be running around in your mind while you sleep? The good stuff. Again, these do not have to be big things. If you're just struggling to think of anything that day, be grateful for your morning coffee or fizz stick. Be grateful for the weather. Be grateful for your cozy socks. Whatever you can think of in the moment. Again, the feeling is the power. Make sure you're not simply writing a list to check that off of your to-do list. You're feeling gratitude as you make the list. Part of healthy living is gut health. So much of our hormones, digestion, and nutrition centers around a healthy gut. Every morning I use a green gut glow drink to make sure that my brain, skin, nails, hair, and gut are at their best and to make sure that I get more veggies than I would eat otherwise. I felt a difference for sure. Grab yours or have a look at www.vit.ly forward slash green gut glow plus or just find it in the show notes. I'm gonna add a third thing here, also, that's a little different. So Sandy Gallagher from the Proctor Gallagher Institute talks about sending out gratitude and good feeling to those that you know mentally, especially to those with whom you might not have the best relationship at the moment. This is not the same thing as what we talked about in episode three with thank you notes. This is a feeling. Imagine the person. Think about what you can be grateful for related to them. Imagine healing the relationship and wishing them well. Picture yourself sending them really good feeling, sending them those vibes. This can be a major mental shift for you. And there's power in these thoughts too. So the key to all of those, whatever option you take, the symbol, the writing, the mental shift, the key to all of that is to feel the gratitude. Gratitude feels like happiness, appreciation, thankfulness, joy, all wrapped into one. Just feeling lucky. It's the feeling that creates a different vibration for you and changes your mood as well as then your actions and how others interact with you. So crowd out the fear and worry with gratitude as often as you can. Again, this won't always be easy. I get that. It's true. It's not always easy for me. And it's the practice that is the power. We'll be practicing this forever, and that is good. There are days when I am just in a mood and I do not feel like being grateful for anything. I am one of the first to rebel against some of the things that I know I should do on some days. And that's okay. I try it a little later that day, or I try it the next day, and that's okay. So we covered the first way that gratitude is powerful, and that's to crowd out the fear and worry. I promised you a second way to look at living in gratitude. The second angle we'll take is that gratitude when emotion is attached. Again, it's about the feeling. That really great feeling is a key way that you can start attracting more of what you want. I used to think that if I decided to be grateful for what I have now, even while not being where I want to be yet, then it would stop me from getting there. So for example, you're playing on a sports team. Forgive me if you heard if you heard my second episode, you know I never played on a sports team, but my kids did. So I understand it. But let's say you're playing on a sports team and you're having just a really rough season. It seems weird at first to think of being grateful for this losing season or the losing game. Why would we be grateful for that? Won't we just get more of it? Or maybe you're job hunting, or you hate your job and you want a new one. Why would you try to be grateful for your situation now? Because wouldn't that mean you couldn't find something new? That's what I thought. And logically, that really makes sense. It feels weird to be grateful when you're clearly not satisfied with where you are. And honestly, every time we start something new, I think we have a little struggle with this. As I start my podcast, I have to keep myself in gratitude for every one of you who listened and every bit of feedback I get and the potential of this becoming as big as I want it to, and at the same time not fall into worry about what if it doesn't? What if it doesn't? What if it doesn't? What if it doesn't? And that's a challenge. It's a challenge for everybody. So we're feeling a little weird about being grateful when we're not yet satisfied with where we are. And I want you to try to think differently about this. So hang in there with me because this is a bit of a brain teaser. So Gabby Bernstein in her book Super Attractor explains that negative thoughts and emotions embody low vibrations that keep us from matching with what we want. In fact, when we focus on really not wanting that whatever it is that we have now, we're becoming a match for what we don't want, a match for the very thing we don't want. So job hunting, income levels, college choices, relationships, all of it, focusing on what we don't want can lead to more of that. As we keep this focus on what we don't want, it changes our energy. We start to seem uncertain about what we're doing. Maybe we think smaller, we act smaller, we've lost trust in ourselves that we're worthy of this big thing that we want. And then we send those vibes out to other people and they feel it from us. So she says to make your good feeling thoughts such a priority, meaning gratitude, that the feeling of well-being becomes natural to you. Allow well-being to come to you all the time and see it coming easily. One of my favorite ways to visualize this comes, I think, from the movie The Secret, where I want to visualize good things coming like turning on a water faucet, flowing out of the faucet. It feels so easy that way. So if your sports team is losing and the season has been frustrating, and I mean a team on which you are a player, deciding to be grateful during every practice and game for the great friends you have on the team and the good plays that happen and the fun activity you're doing and the healthy things you're doing for your body is more likely to bring more good to you in this situation than to get your team stuck where it is. More good is better. It's kind of a fun sentence. More good is better. So let's go a step farther and talk about appreciation. Abraham Hicks talks about this in a lot of different ways. Appreciation means to be present right now in your current situation and to love it, to enjoy it, to see the good things, to bask in it. Now, that might be easier said than done sometimes, I fully agree, and that's totally fair. But when you can do it and feel it, appreciation is magical. You're purely focused on noticing what you like about what's going on now. And you're not so tempted to stray into thinking about if only and what I'll have soon. And I hope this happens. Even interestingly, when we're trying to focus on gratitude, sometimes the thoughts about what we lack still kind of crowd in. Maybe we're really focusing on being grateful that the bad thing that happened yesterday isn't happening today. That's okay, but it's not as powerful as the joy, that joy feeling and vibration that can come from appreciation of right now. And even saying this about appreciation, I can feel myself being happy. There's even a joyful feeling attached to the word. I just love this concept. And I really only learned this part recently. I love to sit in my living room in my house, which has a ton of windows and gets a lot of sun, and just kind of bask in the sunlight like a cat. If the house is quiet, the sun is bright, I just sit and appreciate it. It feels fantastic. And what we're saying is that feeling fantastic attracts more things into our lives that feel fantastic. People read these vibes from us and they respond to us differently. We take different action when we feel this way, and good things can come from that. So I'm not saying you don't have to take action. What I'm saying is if you can come from a place of feeling good, the action you're gonna take is very different. Okay, I can't give you a guarantee that all good things will happen when you start strong habits of gratitude. No one can. You never know what is going to happen. I can say, however, that you will have joyful moments in your day. And if you can grab those feelings, even just for a little while, they will chase away the fear, the angst, the worry, the sadness, even just for that little bit of time, and that is healthy and good and powerful. We could go down a whole nother path with this, which I am not going to do today, about hormone levels and stress. Switching over to gratitude from fear and worry changes your body physically as well. And it doesn't take long for that change to happen. It is amazing how the body functions. So try this. Pick a habit from the three I mentioned, try it daily, or even as often as you remember, be kind to yourself as you try to get into new habits and sit right now and see if there's something you can appreciate about today, about right now, and feel it. And tell me how this gratitude affects you. It's a life changer. I sure hope you enjoyed today's episode. OMG, I would be so honored if you would take a moment, leave a rating, and leave a review. Let's get this message out further into the world. Make sure you've subscribed as well. And why not grab a screenshot and share it on your social media? Now it's time to head down to the show notes and see the resources I mentioned. Go find what you love.