Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome to episode 73 of Working towards our

purpose. In today's episode, we're going to talk about gratitude,

but before we get into that, we're going to do our normal check in with

ourselves. So take a moment and see how you're feeling today,

see what's going on inside your head, and I'm going to do the same.

Yeah, so for me,

I was feeling pretty tired, like when I woke up, but then I went through

my routine, did my run and everything. I was feeling pretty good. And

then, yeah, after I ate, for some reason, kind of just dipped in energy

levels, but feeling pretty good otherwise, you know,

just, just noticing that and, you

know, the cycles of different, you know, higher

energy levels, lower energy levels. But. But, yeah. So we're here

today and we're here to talk about gratitude because

it is, you know, Thanksgiving time and

figure it's the best time to talk about gratitude and

to not just do it like once a year, but to. To think about

gratitude and, you know, more. More often,

more daily, if possible.

And. Yeah, so. So let's talk about gratitude and what it. What it

means to me. And then at the end, we'll get to five

steps that you can do to be more grateful or to

find more gratitude in your days. So. So first of all, it's

define gratitude. I read a definition of

it that is in the book that I'm reading now,

and it is gratitude

means feeling good now and not putting it off to the future.

And I really like that definition because I think a lot of us,

myself included, sort of delay gratification and

tell yourself you'll be happy once you have this or once you have that or

once you get this job or your business becomes

successful. So a lot of us, especially

in American culture, I think, delay gratitude

and don't necessarily feel it until

you accomplish something big. But then even when you do accomplish something big, usually you're

onto the next thing and you never get a chance to really feel

it. So I think it's really important

to notice gratitude and to

make time for it, make space for it. And

also I think that finding gratitude and having

gratitude doesn't mean that you're ignoring the negatives.

And I think for me, I used to think about that,

like, if I'm happy for something or if I'm finding gratitude for something,

then that means I'm ignoring negative things in my life or

negative things that are existing in the world. But it doesn't mean

that there aren't negative things. And gratitude's definitely not

about, like, Silencing the negative things and

not feeling the negative things just to pretend like everything's

happy and fine. That's definitely not what gratitude is. It's more so

finding something to be grateful for in. In spite of the negative

things. And both things can coexist. You can have something negative in your life,

but also find a place for gratitude.

And I think that that's important to be said just to

make that clear. So. Yeah. Why is

gratitude important? I think

gratitude is important to feel and to find. Because

first off, another thing that I've been reading in my book, a thing

called negative bias, which is your brain's

ability to more significantly remember

negative things than positive things. So you could have

lots of positive things happen to you and one negative thing and your

brain is going to remember the negative thing more strongly.

And this is based off survival

techniques, and it kind of makes sense. You don't want to have another

negative thing happen to you, so you remember it more strongly. But in

our world, you have a negative thing happen to you,

and it's not necessarily a survival thing.

It's more just maybe trying to learn the lesson. But it's

not always a positive thing to hold on to just the negative things. So

by having gratitude and finding grace gratitude, you can sort of

remember the positive things and try to remember them more often because.

Whoa, excuse me. Because they do happen

more frequently than we think.

Gratitude is a way to find those

positive moments. And,

you know, I think that gratitude can also be helpful. Like

when we are jealous of other people, we can, like, sort of find

gratitude through that. I think I had a moment last week

and this is maybe veering a little off course, but hopefully

I'll tie it together here, so stay with me. But last week I had a

moment where I was, like, jealous of somebody that, like, was a friend

of, like, the things that they were accomplishing. And for a

moment I sort of felt jealous. And

then I realized that, like, okay, but I'm

not going to do that thing that they're doing. You know, like, maybe one

point in my life I could have, but I'm choosing not to.

And instead of being, like, jealous of their accomplishments, I could be like, well, that's

cool, because I can kind of experience it through them a little bit.

Like, what's that. What's that word? Vicariously.

Like living vicariously through somebody, which is like a thing to be

grateful for, because it's like, maybe I'll never go do that thing, but,

you know, I can kind of sort of side experience it. Through

this person who does get to do that thing.

So I think that you can be grateful for

things through, like, other people almost so. Or

experiencing that. Like. Like, I guess I was envisioning

myself, like, well, what would it feel like if. If that was me? And I

can sort of pretend how that would feel, like, because this person

is doing that. So that may have been a little confusing.

So if you didn't follow me, that's okay. But. But

yeah, the next thing about, like, why.

Why should we be grateful? Is that

so much of what our experience is is,

like, how we're feeling about situations in our own head.

And there's this Einstein quote that I really like that I think Will

basically says what I'm trying to say. And this is

Einstein's quote here. I have it pulled up. It says, there are only two ways

to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle,

and the other is as though everything is a miracle. And

I think that that's really cool. I think that that

is true for me. And your

interpretation of things happening

is how you're feeling about how your life is.

And, you know, something can happen to you, and it could be a bad

thing or a good thing, but the way that you interpret it is how

you take it and how you feel like your life is going

almost. So, like, I'm trying to think of an example, but,

like, you know, like, if

there's.

No. I don't want to bring that story up, but, like, okay, so

something will happen to you. And, like, say there's two people and the same

thing happens to them. And one person is.

Maybe they win, like, 20 bucks on a lottery ticket. Like, one person's, like, pissed

because they wanted to win 1000 or. Or

more than that. And the other person is super happy because they're like, oh, wow,

I didn't expect to win anything. 20 bucks is great, and

the same thing happened to both of those people, but one

person is not happy

of how it came out, and the other person is happy. And, I mean, the

only difference, really, is that one person is

more grateful for something. They're taking the experience as

a positive thing, and the other person is not being grateful for

it and taking it as a negative thing. So having gratitude can make

you basically more happy.

You can interpret your life and be more happy with

how your life is going by having gratitude is kind of what I'm trying to

say. So I think that that is a really

important thing. I think that gratitude can help you feel

that. And, um. And, yeah, so like, you hear it all

the time. Like, people always say, be more grateful. Be more grateful. Practice gratitude.

But how do you actually do that? And that's why I have five

steps now for you to practice gratitude and

to actually try to bring more gratitude into your life. And the

first one is really simple, and it's

basically just getting out a notebook or a journal. You got to

do it by hand. I feel it's. It's more strong if you write

it out by hand. I guess you could type it too, but I prefer.

I think things get a little bit more ingrained in your brain when you

write it by hand. And I think there's actual science to back that

up, although I don't have the resources.

But. So, yeah, so get a list. Get a piece of paper, and

you're gonna make a list of the things that you're grateful for. And so if

you have a notebook, you're just gonna fill the whole page and basically just start

jotting things down. And if you can't

find things to be grateful for, like, start with something super simple.

Like, you know, you're grateful that you woke up this morning. You're grateful that you

can breathe. You're grateful that you have food to

eat. You're grateful that you don't have a ton of

fruit flies in your apartment. Because that's what I'm struggling with right now. And that's

why I keep getting distracted,

you know, just things like that. And then you can. Once you start doing it,

you'll start thinking of more things. And then, like, before you know it, maybe

it'll take you like 10 minutes or something by the end of it, like, notice

how you feel before you started and when you ended.

And usually you'll notice that you feel better about things. You'll feel

calmer. Your nervous system kind of calms down a little bit.

And yeah, it's just. It's again, it's like an.

Changing your interpretation of your life. Cause you could before going

into that, thinking that everything sucks, my job's

bad, this and that, you're complaining about these other things. But once you focus

on gratitude for a whole page, then

you start to think twice about that, and you're like, oh, yeah,

well, I do have these other things to be grateful for.

So that's the number one thing, I think

when you feel like you need some more gratitude, just get out a piece of

paper and write. Fill the whole page. That's the important thing, is to fill

the whole page out, to keep going and not just stop when you feel like

you don't have anything left. So then the second thing,

for me, this is one that's really easy, and it's just going for a walk.

And I know that I always bring up going for walks, and I really like

going for walks, but I noticed myself, I just

sort of naturally become more grateful of things when I do go for a walk.

Because you're taking time to go outside.

You're. I'm usually listening to, like, some music and

sort of being a little bit more calm and

you're moving your body. You're sort of like seeing

all these things that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. If you locked yourself in your

apartment or your work. It, you know, sort of like taking a

dog out for a walk. It's like their most excited part of the day. I

almost feel like a dog sometimes by going on my walks because

I get to go see where the trees are at, and for

some reason there's still leaves on the trees. And that's kind of cool. So

it makes you just appreciate the little smaller things. And that is gratitude. When

you walk by a beautiful tree and fall and think to yourself, like,

oh, wow, that's pretty nice. That's gratitude. And that's like

feeling gratitude in the moment. So I really like

that one. And the third one is something that

I heard, can't remember where from. Um, but I

tried this one a few times and it actually did really help. Um, and

if you can't fall asleep at night, this is. This is where you do this

one. Um, but basically, like, when you get to the end of your day and

you're. You're going to sleep, think of like, at least three

things that you're grateful for that happened during the day. And

for me, this. This has kind of helped. If I'm like, feel like I

can't fall asleep, I'd, like, just try to focus on the things that I

like, like that had happened in the day that I was grateful for. And when

you do that, it sort of again, calms you down and like, takes your

mind off of whatever the worry is and

actually helps you fall asleep. It. It did really did help for me.

But. But this one's cool too, because then it gives you an opportunity

to think about something on, like, a daily practice. Like

to think about finding gratitude on a daily practice. And

there's always something to be grateful for, even if you had a terrible day.

You know, lying down in bed and going to bed is something to be grateful

for. So. So that one's cool. So try that one if you have trouble

sleeping or falling asleep. And then

the fourth one is one that I got from a good friend.

And this one sort of looks like

maybe it's, like, religious, but to me, I don't. I don't really see it religiously,

but it's like when you have a meal that you're ready to eat.

My friend showed me this thing where she'll sort of,

like, rub her hands together and then, like, hold her hands over the food and

just, like, thank the earth for the food that she's going to eat.

And this one has something I've been able to try to incorporate in

my life. And most. Most meals I'll try to do it. It doesn't have to

be long. It could just be like, you know, a sentence or so, but basically

you're just, like, thanking the earth for growing the food that you're about to eat.

And I like this one a lot, too, because it helps you think about, like,

where your food comes from. And, you know, so many of us are

disconnected from our food sources, and if we take

a second to think about it, not only is that, like, a huge source of,

you know, something to be grateful for, that we didn't have to go hunt and

to go farm all year long to have food to eat,

but, you know, maybe it'll help you start thinking a little

bit more about, like, where the food's coming from and being curious about that

also. Um, so. So I really like that one. And

that also gives you, like, a daily practice. You know, usually you eat three meals

a day, so if you can remember to do it once, then

there's one point in the day that you can stop for a second. You know,

it takes 30 seconds not even to just, like,

call a little bit of gratitude into your life. And

that one's really helpful for me. I really do enjoy that one.

And then the last one, number five, is we're going to

all find something to be grateful for right now, because

these things are great, but if you don't remember to do them, then

it didn't really help as much as I'd like it to. So right now we're

going to think about one thing that we're grateful for. So take a moment, think

about what you're grateful for.

For me, I am grateful

that I was thinking about this the other day. I'm grateful that

I've set a challenge for myself to record

a song and release it every month this year, because we are now at the

end of the year and I. Although I haven't released

my. My December one yet, I do have it recorded and

sort of ready to go almost just need to finish some stuff up.

But, yeah, I've basically done that, and I feel grateful that I thought of

doing that challenge and was able to create

12 songs and one of them will come out

Friday. And, yeah, just. Just

appreciative that I get to do that. So hopefully you were

able to find something that you were grateful for, and

if nothing else, you can. I'll give you one you can

be grateful for. Your senses, for being able to listen.

If you're listening to this podcast, you can hear it. If you're watching it,

be grateful for sight. So those are some things that you can be

grateful for. But, yeah, just wanted to

have an episode about gratitude because

it's Thanksgiving time, and usually I've had

Thanksgivings before where people say, like, all right, let's go around and say what

we're grateful for. And I've never really

liked doing that, I guess, because it kind of felt

insincere, or maybe I don't like being

on the spot. That's probably more what it is. I don't like being put on

the spot. But, um. But, you know, this could be

sort of an introduction to bring some more. More gratitude

into our lives, regardless of the time of year.

Because, yeah, again, I think by. By bringing gratitude into your life,

you can take

your life as it is and appreciate it more and find more happiness

and joy with your current life now and not have to wait and put it

off to the future. So. So hopefully this was helpful for you.

I think that's all I got for you today. Thank you for listening. As always.

I appreciate you, and I will see you on another episode real soon. Thank.

You.