Latest / Your Enriched Self / 154. Gratitude with Purpose

Transcript

154. Gratitude with Purpose · Your Enriched Self

0:00
It's that time of year again. It's Christmas in July, and that only
0:04
reminds us that there are only a few short months before the very busy Christmas
0:09
season. But before we get too busy and we start doing our Amazon Prime
0:14
Day shopping, which is also coming up, I want us to take a
0:17
moment this week to be grateful. If you know me, you know that
0:22
I am all about gratitude. And I heard a quote many years ago that
0:27
forever changed the way I see and experience my day, and that is that
0:32
nothing new comes into your life unless you are grateful for what you have.
0:38
Now. When I heard that quote from Michael Beckw, it helped me to
0:43
realize and reshape how I would appreciate the moments that I would have. And
0:49
so that's why I come on this podcast once and again to remind you the
0:54
importance of gratitude and taking moments, making moments to be great. So I
1:00
want you to be intentional the remainder of this month, really the remainder of
1:06
this year, to make room for gratitude. Think about the moments this year
1:11
alone that have brought you joy, even those moments that have brought you pause,
1:17
those moments where you had to kind of go off and be alone by
1:22
yourself. Those are moments of gratitude. Those are moments that you were learning
1:27
something, that you were living through something, moments that now you can share
1:33
as a testimony to someone else. Those moments aren't lost. And that's what
1:38
gratitude allows you to do, is to look at those moments, as raw
1:41
as gritty as they were, and recognize there's beauty, there's goodness, and
1:46
there are gifts in that. And that's what this is all about. Hello,
2:07
my friends from all across the globe, and welcome to the your Self
2:13
Content. I am your host, Maleine Noir. I am an emotional wellness
2:17
and empowerment coach, and here on this podcast we talk about mindset fusion topics
2:24
because everything that you do today, everything that you will ever do, starts
2:30
with your thoughts. Your thoughts then inspire your words. Those words spoken lead
2:38
to your action and the activity that you're going to take and make out in
2:42
this world. And so I want you to be more of your enriched self.
2:47
And in order to do that, it starts with enriching your thoughts.
2:53
And so that's what we do each and every week on a podcast. So
2:55
I want to welcome you. If you are new here, I know that
2:59
you are brought here on purpose, for a purpose. And if you're a
3:04
repeat listener, I want to thank you for being on this journey of enriching
3:07
yourself, enriching your lives and sharing this journey and the wealth of what we
3:14
do here on the podcast with your friends and family. Now, before we
3:16
get into the episode, each and every week, I make a deposit into
3:23
the bank of you, and I do that by way of affirmations. Affirmations
3:30
are a great way to start your day and to command your mourning. And
3:39
this week's affirmation is I am grateful for the good people in my life.
3:51
I am grateful for the good people in my life. I am grateful for
4:00
the good people in my life. Now, let's get ready for this week's
4:08
episode of Your Enriched Self podcast. This week, I'm excited to bring you
4:16
a timeless classic from the archives on guess what gratitude and Yes, gratitude has
4:26
a purpose yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever. Okay, people,
4:40
before we get into the podcast, you know me. I want to make
4:44
it practical. I want to break it down. I want to help you
4:47
take a moment. It is time for you to take a breath. When
4:54
was the last time you just did some deep breathing on purpose? So that's
5:00
what we're gonna do. We're gonna start off by taking some time to mellow
5:04
it out. I know what weak this is. I know what's ahead.
5:09
It is tiss the season for all of the things to happen. But we're
5:13
gonna tiss this moment, okay, and take a moment to breathe. So
5:18
we're gonna take a deep breath in an exhale, do it one more time,
5:30
deep breath in, exhale, And let's just do it one last time,
5:39
a deep breath in. Take it really really deep this time, go
5:43
deep an exhale. I don't know about you, but that made me feel
5:57
a ton better. That is a moment of gratitude. That is a moment
6:00
of thanksgiving. And I wanted to gift you with that because we don't take
6:05
and make these moments enough. And that's why this week's episode is so timely.
6:11
It's so relevant, it's so important, and I want you to make
6:15
gratitude part of your daily experience and take those breaths and take a moment to
6:23
be grateful for the fact that you can take a breath. I mean,
6:27
statistically, we know that there are people dying every day, certainly all throughout
6:33
the day. People are leaving this realm of reality and going somewhere else.
6:40
And so it's so important that we take the moments that we get and we
6:44
get this moment we get to be here. So if it's not enough to
6:47
be grateful, if it's not enough to be thankful, there's science behind it,
6:51
and I want you to get behind those statistics. I want you to
6:55
get the scientific benefits of gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, all those things.
7:00
And that's what we're gonna get into this in this week's episode. You're probably
7:04
listening to this episode on your way to work, on your way home from
7:10
work, on your way to the grocery store, on your way to something,
7:15
or maybe you're at home. That might be the best case scenario to
7:16
just be at home chilling or just relaxing and not giving yourself a moment not
7:23
to do anything. Whatever it is that you're doing. Here's the thing about
7:27
it. I want you to think about it like this. This is the
7:30
first little mindset hack of the episode. I want you to think, I
7:36
get to do this, I get to put my feet up while I listen
7:42
to this podcast. I get to sit here and listen to this podcast.
7:46
I get to drive in my car going to the store listening to this podcast.
7:55
I get to there's so many people right now who don't have their own
8:00
place, that are struggling in life one way, shape or another. We
8:09
get to do this, and I want you to start finding those moments every
8:13
day to be grateful, things to be grateful for, scenarios to be grateful
8:20
for. Yeah, you're driving into work, but you have a job,
8:24
you have a career, you have an opportunity, you're able to provide for
8:28
your family. All in that I get to be here. I get to
8:35
go to work. And I know that's hard when there's traffic and there's all
8:39
the different elements of the morning or the afternoon when you have to get home,
8:43
but you still get to do it. And we need to get into
8:46
the mindset of living for thankfulness. We need to get into this mindset of
8:54
gratitude. So my question for you today is are you living a life of
8:58
thankfulness? Your work this week, while on the podcast and most definitely when
9:05
you leave the podcast, is to have intentional thankfulness. And what that simply
9:11
means is look for reasons to be thankful. We live in a culture where
9:16
we look for reasons to be offended. Oftentimes we find those reasons, and
9:24
quite frequently we act on those reasons when we find them. What if we
9:28
did the same with thankfulness. What if we were intentional about finding moments,
9:35
reasons, opportunities to be thankful and expressing them as such. For example,
9:43
when you wake up each day, what are the thoughts that you have about
9:46
the things that you are thankful for? I know for me, one of
9:50
the first things I think about is I can get up and move. A
9:54
few years ago, a family member of mine had a tragic insect that forever
10:01
changed how she would have to deal with mobility. And it was in a
10:07
crucial time of her life. There was a lot of family life events happening,
10:11
and it slowed down her ability to move and navigate through her life,
10:16
something that she was used to. And I know she's not the only person.
10:20
There are many people that are dealing with or have dealt with mobility issues.
10:26
And so I remember once I was walking up Stone Mountain and I started
10:30
thinking about her, and quite frankly, a coworker of mine had a similar
10:35
injury. Believe it or not, she was in a position that compromised her
10:39
mobility so she could move around the way she was used to. And so
10:45
when I was taking that walk up Stone Mountain, which for me, I
10:48
don't know about you, but it's always a challenge for me to go up
10:52
the mountain, And every time I wanted to complain or thought about complaining,
10:58
or looked at the challenge, I thought about the people like her, like
11:03
this coworker, like this family member, and maybe even like you right now,
11:07
where mobility is a challenge, was a challenge, and so we get
11:11
to it's all about recognizing those moments. And I don't know if you've ever
11:20
done this. I tried this before and it works. This is another mindset
11:24
hack. I'm just gonna be throwing out these mindset hacks throughout the episode.
11:30
This is another mindset hack. Count your blessings. And I know people say
11:35
it, they say counter blessings, you should count your blessings. I'm talking
11:39
about literally counting your blessings, getting a piece of paper, a pen,
11:43
and writing out all the things that you were blessed with. You don't have
11:48
to do it over the course of your life, or the last ten years,
11:50
or this last year. But do it for this week. Do counter
11:56
blessings of this day. I was able to get up, I was able
12:01
to get to work, My family is doing well. You're not rushing to
12:05
the er. Listen. I had to do that a few weeks back at
12:09
a family member that I had to be in the er with. And I'm
12:13
still counting my blessings because what I thought was an emergent situation or could have
12:18
been life threatening, turns out it wasn't. Thankful, grateful, And I
12:24
think we don't take a moment to count our blessings. We tend to look
12:30
at the things that we don't have or the things that didn't go well.
12:35
But keep in mind there are many avenues in this life where things can go.
12:41
Yes, I ended up in the er, but the reality is my
12:43
family member was okay. I was able to take them home with me.
12:46
They are people that don't get to do that. They go for what they
12:52
think is a routine and then there's some surgery or some requirement, or some
12:56
ailment or some disease that no one accounted for. That's how quickly life can
13:01
change for us, and so that's why we need to spend time in this
13:05
space. That's why this episode is so important. It's a heartfelt episode for
13:09
me. So if I go down the road to passion, it's because I've
13:13
been there, done that, and I recognize the beauty. And now I
13:18
want to show you the science behind gratitude. So there was a study in
13:24
two thoy and twelve about the benefits of gratitude and physical health. It talked
13:33
about the things that people who are grateful experience. Number One, less aches
13:41
and pains. Who's gonna sign up for that? Me. They have a
13:46
better health report about feeling healthier. They also are intentional about taking care of
13:54
their health, and they exercise more often. It's almost like the more great
14:00
you are, the more you take care of these paces in your life.
14:03
So these people are more prone to do more exercise, they do more regular
14:09
doctor check ins, there's a greater sense of self awareness. These are all
14:16
the benefits of gratitude. They care about their bodies, and big one,
14:24
it contributes to enhanced life longevity. I mean, let's just stop and pause
14:33
right there. That's just the physical benefits of gratitude. Let's talk about the
14:37
psychological and the mental benefits. Number One, it reduces a multitude of toxic
14:48
feelings, reduces toxic feelings, increases happiness, reduces this depression. So this
15:00
person is absorbed by putting themselves in opportunities to challenge themselves with fulfilling activities and
15:09
finding ways to meet set and meet new goals, and in general, this
15:16
person learns how to be more grateful. These are all great reasons and benefits
15:26
around gratitude, and I want you to hold on to that. I mean,
15:33
who's not going to show up to get the benefits of their physical,
15:37
mental health, and psychological health just from practicing gratitude. Now, I know
15:46
we talked about the benefits, but let's talk about the practical things that you
15:50
can do to help get those benefits, to reap those benefits. So let's
15:56
talk about three ways to express gratitude. And we're gonna break it down into
16:00
past, present, and future, and we're gonna take it from a positive
16:06
perspective. I know when we think about for many of us, when we
16:08
think about the past, we always go back to the negative things, right,
16:11
We go back to the negative moments in time. Even when you think
16:15
about history, right, we always go back to the negative things. When
16:18
you think about the present. Again, you're looking at how bad your current
16:22
situation is. And when we think about the future, we have so much
16:25
uncertainty, so many unknowns, and it makes us so increases our anxiety.
16:30
But let's take a pause, just like we did at the top of the
16:34
episode, from a past perspective, recall some of the positive memories, some
16:41
of the things that you can be thankful for, some of your past blessings.
16:48
Maybe it's the relationship you are in right now. And I'm not talking
16:52
about your physical relationship or your sexual relationship. It could be the relationship you
16:57
have with yourself. As we evolve and get better at being in relation with
17:03
others, I think it starts with us being in relation with ourselves. And
17:07
I know for me, my relationship with my spouse got better when I started
17:14
getting into better relationship with myself. And so again it starts with looking back
17:19
at where was I in that past situation and what were some of those past
17:26
blessings that got me to this point now. And speaking of this point now
17:30
meaning the present, express gratitude for looking at those moments in time right now
17:38
that you don't take for granted. I remember a couple years ago, actually
17:45
last year, my whole family was down during COVID, and I know families
17:48
right now that are dealing with the flu and all these different trifecta of pandemics
17:56
that are happening in the community, in the world, and in your own
17:59
house. And right now, if you are breathing and you don't have a
18:03
stuffy nose, a runny nose, watery eyes dealing with COVID or some other
18:08
respiratory something that's going on right now in this moment, be grateful for that.
18:15
So be grateful, express gratitude for the moment you're in now. And
18:19
then finally the future. And again, so many people get anxiety about the
18:23
future, like what's gonna happen to me? Like what's gonna go on with
18:26
my job opportunities or my business or you know, my career, all the
18:32
things that are happening my family, my relationships, my finances, my health.
18:37
Everybody's thinking so far ahead. What if you just had a positive thought
18:41
process about your future. Pause for the cause, and the cause is gratitude.
18:48
Have a moment of reflection to know that, Listen, I started something
18:53
and I'm so optimistic and I'm so excited to keep that going. This next,
19:00
forget about twenty twenty three. Let's keep this thing going til the end
19:03
of the year. Let's finish strong. And so again I just want you
19:07
to think about just practical things you can do, past, present, and
19:11
future to improve and increase your attitude of gratitude. As we're wrapping up this
19:23
episode, I want to leave you with a few ways that you can cultivate
19:30
an environment of gratitude. And number one is, and we talked about this
19:34
earlier, count your blessings. So take out a sheet of paper, get
19:40
a pen, and number at one to ten. Maybe just start with ten
19:42
blessings, five blessings. Write them out, because again, we get so
19:48
trapped in this world, especially when you look around and it looks like everybody's
19:52
blessed with more things. Focus on your blessings. Count your blessings. Count
19:59
the blessings of this day, Count the blessings of this week, Count the
20:03
blessings of this month. However you need to do it, spend some time
20:06
counting your blessings. I promise you when you emerge from that exercise, you
20:10
are going to feel immensely better about what you have going on in your life
20:15
right now, not past, not future, but you're present. The other
20:21
thing to do is, and this is a wonderful exercise, there has got
20:27
to be one person that you can write a thank you note to. And
20:32
I'm not talking about sending them a text message or doing some digital thank you,
20:37
which I know is the way our world works. But you will brighten
20:42
someone's day if you go to the dollar tree, which is now a dollar
20:48
twenty five, or you pull out one of the thank you cards that I
20:52
know you bought a little box up because I know I have several of those,
20:56
and you handwrite someone the mailbox, the mail carrier, the person at
21:03
your Starbucks that happens to take your order that day, somebody at the grocery
21:10
line the grocery store, which, by the way, this time of year,
21:12
these people get no love. No one ever talks to them. They
21:15
just check their stuff and go any person. It can be somebody like that,
21:22
or it can be someone that had a significant impact on you with you,
21:26
a friend that stood by you, a person that picked up the phone,
21:30
a person that checked in. I don't know. There are multitude of
21:34
ways and reasons for you to create a thank you note. Why not do
21:38
it? Not only will you feel good to pour into that cup. But
21:45
you will be a giver. And in this world of takers, we need
21:52
more givers, So please please be the giver. But I know there's someone
21:57
is what I'm saying. There's someone in your life, a coworker, a
22:02
friend, a neighbor that you can write and pen a thank you card for.
22:07
And what a beautiful gesture to do that in this wonderful week of thanks
22:11
and giving. And then one last thing is to pray or meditate. Prayer
22:25
is such an intimate time and a great moment to express that gratitude to source,
22:33
to God. And it has been a wonderful strategy for me to incorporate
22:38
prayer, not just you know, the way we learned it, you know,
22:42
at the start of the day, at the end of the day,
22:45
but throughout the day. You know, you don't have to wait for you
22:48
know, now I lay me down to sleep, or I'm so grateful for
22:52
the start of the day. But you can pray and meditate throughout the day
22:56
on things and on opportunities for you to be grateful for. So that's what
23:04
this week's episode is all about. I wanted you to get the science behind
23:08
gratitude. I wanted you to appreciate this process of thankfulness and gratitude because we
23:15
often miss it, and then when we get to this week, we get
23:18
so busy that we miss it again. The week where it's the most intentional
23:23
to be grateful and to be thankful, we often miss it because we get
23:27
the busyness, we get the busy work, and we get all the tasks
23:32
that we need to work on and less of the internal things that we need
23:36
to spend time with. So take some time this week with yourself before you
23:41
get into the mix of family and friends. Find reasons to be grateful,
23:45
be intentional about it, and keep that consistency going and finally, happy Thanksgiving.
23:56
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of the UK and Ritsa podcast.
24:00
And the only way I'm gonna know this is if you leave me some feedback.
24:03
Feedback is a gift and it is free to give, and I would
24:07
like to hear from you. I would like to know what resonated with you
24:11
regarding this week's episode. Now here's how you leave feedback on the platform in
24:15
which you listen to this podcast. Follow the stars when you get there,
24:19
leave a five star rating. But in all seriousness, when you get there.
24:23
You can share your feedback on this podcast and that helps us. And
24:30
when you share your feedback on this podcast, it helps others find us in
24:34
these podcast streets. So we would definitely appreciate that you can also share this
24:41
episode with your friends and family right from the podcast, So right from the
24:45
podcast platform and which you're listening to this episode, hit the share button and
24:48
send it to the last three to five people that you spoke with today.
24:53
Also, you can share this on your socials. You can find me primarily
24:59
on Instagram because that's my jam, that's where I am. You can find
25:03
me at my Enriched Self that's m y E N R C h E D
25:07
s E l F. And you can hashtag this episode. You can tag
25:11
me. I would love to hear from you, so you can showcase through
25:15
your friends and families and those in the social streets what you're listening to and
25:18
what's feeding you mind, body and spirit. I also want you to check
25:22
out the show notes. In the show notes, we have the affirmation of
25:26
the week, the quote of the week, and there you can also find
25:30
my Amazon shop. The Your Rich Self shop has two items right now,
25:36
a journal, which is the show up everyday journal as well as the show
25:41
Up Everyday notebook, so check those out in my Amazon shops, and finally,
25:47
take what you can from this episode and do what you must in the
25:51
next one hundred and sixty eight hours so that you can become more of your
25:56
enriched self. Will we meet again,