Episode #28— Transcript
The EASIEST Gratitude Practice You'll Ever Do
INTRO: This is the Decision Masters Podcast. I'm Kirsten Parker, the Decision Coach for Overthinkers. When you feel good about your decisions, life feels good. You get to be present in your days and excited about where you're going. I'm gonna help you build your decision mastery. So it's easy to know what you want, navigate uncertainty and handle any feelings that happen. Whether you're in the middle of some overthinking angst right now or you simply love feeling in charge of your choices, you're in the right place. Clear confident, decisions are right around the corner. Let's get into it.
KIRSTEN: Happy Thursday, friend. Okay, you're going to have to give me a little bit of a pass on this terrible cliché rhyme, but we gotta say it: We're gonna make gratitude not a platitude. Alright? I know, it's so eyeroll, but we gotta do it.
We have to make gratitude easy, and we have to talk about why we care. Because gratitude has gotten a little worn out. Are you feeling me on this? We have mindfulness culture now. We have, like, 17 mindfulness magazines to choose from. There are one thousand million mindfulness podcasts, there are gratitude journals, there are research studies on all of the health benefits, and it can be very overwhelming. And that can make it easy to just gloss over this whole gratitude thing.
For me, it started feeling like it was just another one of those things that other people were doing right and I was failing at, like flossing or taking probiotics. Whatever you might be judging yourself for not doing perfectly or not being more disciplined about. All that stuff. So I want to help you de-platitude gratitude so it can be useful and legitimately life enriching. Because this is the truth, okay? It is a powerful force if used at all.
Gratitude helps with anxiety, and depression, and perspective, and sleep. And holy moly, what do over thinkers struggle with what makes all of our daily decisions more complicated? Anxiety, and emotional fluctuation, and reactivity, and a lack of perspective, and scarcity thinking, and not frickin sleeping, right?
So let's just all get on board with a little bit more gratitude. But let's make it so ridiculously easy that we don't have to buy an entire book and then, like, write in it for 10 minutes every single day for 365 days before we get to give ourselves an A+ in gratitude. So the best, fastest way to do this, to make gratitude easy enough for you to do, is to just do it.
We're going to stop talking about it and we're going to have an experience. Together. Right now. I don't care if you're driving or you're doing dishes. You can do it while you're driving, you can do it while you're doing dishes, and that means you can do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. We're gonna to make it so simple.
So go ahead and take a breath. And actually, while I'm talking, just keep doing that. I regularly have to do this whole slow-down-your-breathing thing, because as I like to say to my coaching clients in the Decision Masters program, my brain has a tendency to leave my body. Like physically I will be in one place, but my brain will be in 47,000 other places. And I just have to bring it back every once in a while. Just be like, Oh wait a minute, where did I go? Let's bring my brain back into my body. And the best way to do that, surprisingly—especially for people who love using their brains for everything—is not to use your brain, it’s to use your body.
So you just can keep on breathing. Just keep on inhaling and exhaling. I know it's like, wacky how much we forget about this, right? And then I even want you to start concentrating on your exhales. Just make your exhale a little bit longer.
Every exhale, just make it a little bit long. See, I told you this is easy to do. Dishes or driving. This might feel especially delicious if you've had a bit of “a day.” So what you're doing right now by elongating your exhale is you're engaging your parasympathetic nerve system, which is the other branch of your autonomic nervous system besides the sympathetic one.
And by engaging this parasympathetic nervous system, your brain is telling your body, “We are safe. We do not need to be ready to fight or flee. We can rest, we can feel calm. We can use all the parts of our brain that shut down when we're super stressed.”
And now that you've grounded your nervous system a little bit, I want you to do one of two things, okay? Dealer's choice. I want you to just take a look around you, like physically look around your environment right now and see what's good. Or I want you to bring something good to mind.
So you might not be in a particularly lovely or inspiring place. You don't have to be surrounded by fairies in the forest. But if you're looking around, notice what there is to appreciate. If something doesn't come to you easily, just do the next thing. I'll explain it in a second. So for me, when I use my environmental triggers to activate gratitude, it's really, really simple. It's just taking a moment to notice, Oh my gosh, the sky looks really pretty. Or feel how the air feels.
I have to pay particular attention to this kind of stuff because I work alone inside a lot. So when I'm on a dog walk, it’s easy for my brain to not be on that dog walk with my body. Maybe you're listening to this podcast on a dog walk right now and maybe you're wrapped up in your head like, “Oh, I'm concentrating, I love the Decision Master's podcast, it's my favorite time of day.” And yeah, samesies.
But just notice, like, “Oh, this air feels so nice and refreshing.” Maybe it's super fall vibes right now. Or maybe you're inside and you see a piece of art in your home that always makes you smile. Maybe you have holiday decorations up and that's delightful, right?
And if nothing around you is doing it for you, then bring something to mind that is good that is appreciation worthy. For me, I'll be real personal here. This would be my husband, Kenny, dancing when he was getting ready this morning. Because for some reason this dude is always in a good mood in the mornings. Like, it doesn't matter how long his day was yesterday, how well he slept, or how long his day is about to be. He's just always in this jolly, dancey mood in the mornings. And it's baffling, but I absolutely adore it. It makes my whole day.
And you might think of something equally delightful from your last 24 hours. Or something amazing you did at work. Or something good you found out about your health. Or something super cool that your kid did, that you witnessed. So whatever it is, make it specific and make it the only thing you're thinking about.
Clouds, dancing husband—just pick one thing. And now I just want you to keep your mind there, okay? Don't forget to keep breathing. But just keep your mind on this one thing and just appreciate it. Let your mind stay there. You don't have to write a mental dissertation about why you are grateful for it. You do not have to create a bullet list of 20 other things you are grateful for. You just need to stay with this one thing that you're thinking about or looking at right now and just appreciate it.
And then I want you to let that feeling fill you up. Let any other thoughts fade down that might have you pull away from feeling good for too long, or going back to your to do list, or thinking of something to criticize. Just give yourself a little permission to be filled up. Pay attention to how your body feels. This is the sensation of gratitude. And take one more deep breath.
And there it is. You did it. You are excellent at gratitude, my friend. This is one of those practices that we can so overcomplicate, right? It can become really daunting in our mind. Sometimes we think it's going to be really hard. We think we're not going to do it right. I promise, what you just did is so enough. This is you doing a good job at gratitude. Just this taking a minute to let yourself physically and mentally focus on what you appreciate and fill up with that feeling.
You don't have to stay there 24/7. You don't have to do this at the same time for 20 minutes every single day this week. But now that you know how easy it is and hopefully how good it feels, you will do it again soon, maybe on purpose, but eventually by habit. And that one tiny experience at a time will absolutely change your life.
Happy National Gratitude Month buddy. See you soon.
OUTRO: Hey, wanna know the number one thing you need to kickstart your momentum right now? (Obviously.) I know! That's why I created the Momentum Quiz. Head to kirstenparker.com/quiz to find out your number one momentum killer and get your personalized action plan to boost your momentum and get back on track. That’s kirstenparker.com/quiz. Have fun!
