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Cultivating Gratitude at Thanksgiving · Trauma Free Relationship

0:00
I want to open this episode by walking through an exercise
0:04
together. So wherever you find yourself,
0:06
if you're sitting in your car, hopefully not driving, don't
0:10
drive while you do this exercise or you're on the couch or in a
0:15
chair somewhere. I just want you to walk through
0:17
this with me. The first thing I want you to do
0:20
is just try to get comfortable where you are and then I want
0:24
you to close your eyes. I want you to take a quick
0:28
breath in and then through your mouth exhale while you count to
0:32
4. And as you're doing that, what I
0:37
want you to do is bring up an image to your mind.
0:40
I want you to think about something that you are grateful
0:44
for that could be a person either currently or in the past
0:49
in your life. Favorite grandmother,
0:52
grandfather, parent, best friend, best friends, family, or
0:58
your current partner. Or I want you to think about
1:02
something that brings you a lot of gratitude.
1:07
Maybe your job. Maybe you're really good at your
1:10
job and so you're really thankful for your job because
1:14
you feel like you're hitting all cylinders when you're at work.
1:18
It's something you take pride in that you're really good at.
1:23
And so as you're breathing in and exhaling and you bring to
1:27
mind this thing or this person that you are grateful for, I
1:33
want you to just notice what's happening in your body.
1:37
And So what do you feel in your body as you continue to inhale
1:42
through your nose, exhale through your mouth, and you're
1:46
bringing to mind this person or this thing that you're really
1:49
grateful for? What do you feel on the inside?
1:54
What do you notice? What do you notice in your body?
2:00
What sort of sensations come up for you when you bring to mind
2:05
this person or this thing? And then finally, what do those
2:12
sensations tell you? What is the meaning behind those
2:18
sensations? What do they mean to you?
2:22
OK, That's the end of the exercise.
2:24
So I want you to open your eyes and we'll continue with the rest
2:28
of the podcast. Thank you for walking through
2:30
that with me. And so today, obviously, what
2:34
we're going to focus on is cultivating gratitude at
2:38
Thanksgiving. Welcome to Trauma Free
2:41
Relationship, a podcast that provides support and guidance to
2:45
help heal the wounds of attachment trauma, Whether you
2:48
find yourself struggling with unresolved issues in the past.
2:52
Or have experienced trauma in your current relationship.
2:55
Our goal is to provide accurate, scientifically informed
2:58
information as well as the tools to help you create a secure
3:01
connection between you and your partner.
3:03
And here's your host, Tom Philip.
3:06
OK, let's dive in. I really think it's important to
3:11
talk about gratitude, especially for individuals and couples who
3:16
have past trauma. And of course I'm talking about
3:20
relational trauma here. It's really important, I think,
3:25
to be able to find something that we are grateful for on a
3:30
daily basis, something either in with our partner or in our work
3:36
or our best friends. There's lots of research out
3:39
there that actually shows that being thankful for, for people,
3:46
for even aspects of of hard events that we've gone through
3:50
is really healthy for being able to heal trauma.
3:54
And the fact of the matter is, we live in a very negative and
3:59
cynical world and it doesn't take much for us to think more
4:04
negatively about people and events.
4:07
The fact is that we have more negative emotions than we do
4:11
positive emotions, and so it's much easier for us to gravitate
4:18
towards negativity than it is to try to look and focus on and
4:23
cultivate positive things when they're happening.
4:28
And of course, the more negative we become, the more stressful we
4:32
become, the more anxiety we have as a culture.
4:36
And anxiety usually plays out in two different ways.
4:40
One is it pulls us out of the current moment, and IT projects
4:44
us into a future that one, hasn't even happened yet and may
4:50
not even happen at all. And two, it causes us to
4:54
catastrophize our circumstances, meaning we tend to make them
4:58
much worse. Our fears generalize in many
5:03
ways, and so we catastrophize. Or we make our anxiety tell us a
5:08
story that may not even come close to what the reality of
5:13
that looks like. So when we focus on the
5:16
negative, it really pulls us out of the moment and obviously has
5:21
a debilitating effect on us because we resonate that in our
5:26
bodies and we hold a lot of that negativity.
5:28
So I think cultivating gratitude is something that's really
5:32
important, especially in our relationships.
5:36
We often send signals to our partner when they're getting
5:39
things wrong, but we often don't let them know when they're
5:43
getting things right. We might say thank you for
5:45
taking out the trash, but that's not really the same as saying
5:49
thank you for loving me. Even in those hard places and
5:53
those hard times when I might be hard to love.
5:56
That sends a very different message about being grateful for
6:00
that other person. So gratitude in and of itself is
6:04
just being thankful. It's a quality of being thankful
6:09
about a person or an event or something.
6:13
I think about Fred Rogers. If you've ever watched the Mr.
6:17
Rogers show, he would always say on his show.
6:21
My mother told me when something bad happened, to always look for
6:26
the helpers. And I think that is so true,
6:29
that we can have gratefulness and gratitude even in the midst
6:34
of hurt and pain. Maybe not always in that moment,
6:38
but when we reflect back on it, we can see moments of where
6:41
somebody showed up to help or where there was a.
6:45
And I don't mean this in any sort of pedantic way, but there
6:48
was a silver lining. Well, if this had happened, it
6:51
could have been worse. But because this person did
6:54
this, it actually wasn't as bad as it could have been.
6:58
So cultivating gratitude is is a a a mindset as much as it is
7:07
anything else. And I wanted to spell a couple
7:10
of myths here, because one is I think when we're cultivating
7:14
gratitude, it does not mean we're being pollyannish or
7:19
weren't being naive. We're not glossing over the bad
7:23
things. We're not saying that those bad
7:25
things don't exist. We're not minimizing or
7:28
downplaying them only only to highlight the positive things.
7:33
But what we're doing is we're acknowledging that there were
7:37
good aspects and people, there were positive moments that
7:41
occurred. There were Silver Linings and
7:43
and what was an otherwise bad event.
7:48
So that we're able to hold both of those in tandem.
7:51
Both of those together can exist.
7:53
We can be grateful for something or someone that showed up in the
7:59
nick of time or something that someone did for us and still be
8:05
able to acknowledge that there was hurt involved in that
8:10
interaction as well. So I don't think cultivating
8:14
gratitude is being pollyannish or naive or just Oh well, let's
8:19
just look on the bright side of things or trying to convince
8:23
ourselves of something that we really don't feel.
8:26
Because that's not, that's not gratitude, that's just self
8:29
deception. So we don't want to, we don't
8:31
want to get into deceiving ourselves into believing
8:35
something that we really don't believe.
8:37
We want to be able to look and find aspects of events that may
8:42
have been hurtful, harmful, but nonetheless had an element or
8:48
quality that we can also be thankful for.
8:53
And the fact is in in our culture as I've said we get
8:57
negative messages all the time and and so especially this time
9:03
of year as we head into the holidays people are always
9:06
telling us oh be grateful, oh don't feel this way, oh just let
9:11
it go. And that's just I just it just
9:14
goes all over me that just I I don't I have a hard time
9:17
receiving those messages because everybody is at a different
9:21
place in their journey of healing.
9:24
And so telling somebody just to get over it or oh, just be
9:27
grateful this time of year it is dismissing what they're going
9:33
through. The fact of the matter is,
9:35
during Thanksgiving, during Christmas, during Hanukkah,
9:40
during the holidays times, not everybody's in a great place.
9:44
And so we don't want to be dismissive of that.
9:47
But we also want to be able to try to show up in a way that
9:51
they can be grateful for something in their lives during
9:55
this time of year. So understanding those messages
9:59
that we're receiving, and I hear that we're not always in a great
10:02
place. As I said on my last podcast,
10:06
often times we can be in a place this time of year where we're
10:09
grieving, we're missing loved ones that have passed and that
10:12
are no longer around. So I I think it's important to
10:17
be able to cultivate gratitude, cultivate thankfulness for
10:22
things, while also being able to hold simultaneously that there
10:28
can be hurts and pains and that those can exist alongside the
10:34
gratitude that we have as well. So what I want to do is I want
10:39
to walk through in this episode, 10 different ways, cultivate
10:44
gratitude in our lives. And again, I'm using this word,
10:47
cultivate purposely because I don't want us to.
10:52
I don't want us to think that this is like a light switch,
10:55
that OK, I'm going to go to bed tonight and I'm going to think
10:58
positive thoughts and when I get up in the morning I will just
11:01
feel grateful. It doesn't work like that and
11:04
and I'm not naive enough to think that it does.
11:07
The fact is we have to cultivate it on a daily basis.
11:11
As I said earlier, this is just as much about a mindset change
11:17
in us, a lifestyle change as it is just trying to pick out a
11:23
moment or pick out something or someone that we are grateful for
11:28
in our lives. The exercise we did in the
11:30
beginning was really an exercise just to help you get to notice
11:35
What kind of shifts did you feel in your body?
11:38
Did you feel a sense of warmth wash over you when you imagined
11:43
your grandmother in her rocking chair and the smile that she
11:47
used to give you every time you showed up?
11:50
Did you have a warmth feeling in your chest, around your heart
11:55
when you walk in the door in the evening and your two children
11:59
just run to you with absolute delight that you're home,
12:03
whatever it is that you are grateful for, I want you to try
12:08
to notice that shift in your body, because that's a
12:11
significantly different feeling that emerges and the related
12:16
meanings that come with that, the stories we tell ourselves
12:19
about those feelings, then the stress and the anxiety which we
12:24
can often hold in our bodies as well.
12:27
So that was part of that exercise is to get you to notice
12:31
in your body the shift that happens when we focus on
12:35
something that we are grateful for.
12:38
So let's just walk through 10 different ways to cultivate
12:42
gratitude. And again, I think about this
12:44
not so much like a light switch where we're going to just turn
12:48
it on and then turn it off. But I think about it more like a
12:52
dimmer, where sometimes we slowly illuminate and enlighten
12:58
things inside of us. And so some days it's more
13:01
bright and we're heading more in the right direction.
13:05
But we also know that some days it can be dimmed a little bit
13:08
too. And So what we want to do is
13:10
just slowly, over time, try to move that dimmer switch further
13:15
and further and further until we're sort of illuminating the
13:20
room inside of ourselves to be more grateful and to be and to
13:26
cultivate that, those feelings of Thanksgiving more.
13:29
So number one, what can we do to cultivate gratitude in our
13:34
lives? One of the first things you can
13:36
do is you can keep a gratitude journal.
13:40
So you can dedicate a few minutes each day to reflect on
13:44
the things that you are grateful for.
13:47
You can write these down three to five things that you
13:50
appreciate, whether it's your health, your family.
13:54
Maybe it's something so simple as just a nice cup of coffee or
13:59
beautiful sunset that you are able to capture on the way home
14:03
from work. Whatever it is, being able to
14:07
just capture those moments and recognize them is really very
14:12
important. And there's a lot of research
14:15
that says being able to write these things down.
14:17
There's something important that happens when it goes from being
14:22
in our head to then going on to paper that somehow makes it more
14:27
real. And so I encourage you to write
14:30
it down. So maybe, maybe you don't have a
14:32
journal, maybe you keep a folder on your phone or on your
14:36
computer, and so you type it down that way.
14:40
That's OK too, I think. But the idea is that you're
14:43
getting it out. It's now being externalized,
14:45
being being taken from something inside of you and being put out
14:50
into the world in a way that you can look and reflect on it and
14:56
you don't have to try to hold it in your mind all the time.
14:59
So practicing a a gratitude journal is a great way to be
15:04
able to do that. The second thing is practicing
15:08
mindfulness. Now, this is a word that's
15:11
thrown around a lot in culture. Mindfulness, oh, we need to be
15:15
mindful, be mindful. Are you a mindful person?
15:18
Well, we're not always mindful. But the idea behind mindfulness,
15:23
if if you're new to this, is the idea that you're just trying to
15:27
be present in the moment. It was a lot like this exercise
15:32
that we did at the beginning. When I asked you to just focus
15:36
on your body. All I was asking you to do was
15:39
to focus and be present in the moment on what may be happening
15:44
as you brought an image to your mind and what might you be
15:48
feeling in your body as well. So that sort of mindfulness is
15:53
really important, and practicing that on a daily basis, even if
16:00
it's just for three to 5 minutes, I can really create a
16:06
big shift over time for you. So you can engage in activities,
16:10
you can do something formal like meditation or yoga or Tai chi,
16:15
but even just simply taking a few minutes each day and
16:19
noticing your surroundings. And here's the big point about
16:23
mindfulness. When you are focusing on the
16:26
present moment, you are doing it without judgement.
16:31
You are not judging what's happened, you're simply noticing
16:35
and becoming aware. So in that exercise at the
16:39
beginning of this podcast, hopefully you were not judging
16:43
any of those feelings that were coming up.
16:46
Hopefully you were just being aware of them and of the
16:50
sensations that you were feeling.
16:53
And and if we can begin to separate the awareness of a
16:57
present moment from any kind of judgement of what's happening,
17:02
then we can become more responsive to our own feelings
17:07
and more responsive to the feelings of our partner and
17:11
ultimately more present and more engaged to our partner as well.
17:16
So again, this can be something formal that you do on a daily
17:19
basis, like yoga or Tai Chi, or it can just be something you do
17:25
for three to 5 minutes as you're driving to work.
17:27
You turn off the radio, you you turn off whatever it is you
17:32
might be listening to and you just begin to notice the
17:35
surroundings. Or maybe you take 3 to 5 minutes
17:38
and you just sit in your car before you head into work before
17:42
the the busyness and the chaos consumes you, and you just try
17:46
to make yourself present in the moment.
17:50
So that's the 2nd way to try to cultivate gratitude.
17:54
And I might just add too, that you don't have to do all of
17:57
these. I'm just giving you 10 different
17:59
ones that are shown over time to be effective.
18:03
So pick one or two to start with.
18:07
And of these 10, just pick the ones that that might even be
18:10
just the easiest for you to begin with.
18:14
So let's move on to #3. Say thank you.
18:18
Being able to express gratitude to the people who've made a
18:21
positive impact on your life is really important.
18:26
So being able to just say thank you to people, I appreciate you.
18:32
I appreciate what you do. I've made a habit myself of any
18:37
time I meet somebody who served in the military, I want to shake
18:41
their hand and I want to say thank you.
18:44
Thank you for your service. Whether I have agreed with the
18:49
the plans and the tactics and the engagement itself.
18:52
What I absolutely do agree and appreciate and have gratitude
18:57
for is the men and the women that serve that sacrifice and
19:02
the families that sacrifice those men and women that serve
19:06
in uniform. And so I always want to make
19:08
sure that I reach out and I say thank you sometimes.
19:11
It's amazing. Sometimes you'll see people that
19:14
are really shocked by that. I had one gentleman one time say
19:18
that he had never had anybody say thank you for him serving
19:23
before. I was dumbfounded to hear that.
19:26
I was absolutely shocked. Other people brush it off.
19:30
It's hard for them to take in or maybe they don't feel that they
19:34
should receive a thank you for that.
19:35
So people respond in different ways, but I always try to make
19:39
sure that I say thank you. This can also extend to our
19:44
first responders. So firemen, EMT's, ambulance
19:49
drivers, doctors and anybody like that that's serving on the
19:54
front lines of things, even in your own city, deserve a thank
19:59
you because they are sacrificing and so finding, finding little
20:04
ways to say thank you to people. I think is really important.
20:08
Just letting them know that you see them and that you appreciate
20:12
the sacrifice they're making and what they're doing.
20:16
OK #4 engage, engage, and random acts of kindness.
20:22
So this has kind of become a buzzword in the last 1015 years,
20:26
Random acts of kindness, But I like it.
20:29
I think it's a positive thing and essentially it's just doing
20:32
nice things for others that can that can have a really positive
20:37
effect on your own sense of self.
20:39
It can make you feel like you're giving a little something back.
20:44
So another term you hear a lot is to pay it forward.
20:47
So one time I was in line, I I think I was getting a hamburger
20:54
at McDonald's or something like that and and I drove up to the
20:57
window to pay and I was informed that the person in front of me
21:02
had paid for my meal in total. And I was absolutely shocked and
21:07
I was humbled by this, even though it was, you know, 7 or
21:10
$8. But I just never expected
21:12
something like that. And so one of the things I did
21:16
was I made sure that I turned around and I tried to pay that
21:20
forward. And you hear that term a lot
21:22
today to pay it forward. But I think it's really nice.
21:26
It's a random act of kindness. If somebody does something for
21:28
you, try to go and do something for somebody else, hold the door
21:33
open for somebody. Volunteer your time or donate to
21:36
a 'cause that you really care about.
21:39
Being able to engage in paying it forward or those random acts
21:43
of kindness, do something deep and fundamental in us.
21:49
It does something. It changes who we are.
21:53
And when we cultivate that kind of gratitude and Thanksgiving on
21:57
a regular basis, we we find that we move into more of a positive
22:02
place. And I think we find that we
22:05
actually begin to notice more positive things with people and
22:10
in the world than we do negativity over time.
22:14
And again, not because we're just being being naive or
22:18
pollyannish, but because we really can begin to notice in
22:23
the nooks and the crannies of life, the things that show up
22:28
and the people that show up that can do good.
22:31
So engaging and giving to others, paying it forward,
22:37
creating moments of random acts of kindness.
22:40
I think oftentimes do more for us internally than they actually
22:45
do for other people. There's just something profound
22:49
that happens that begins to change us over time.
22:54
All right, #5, Challenge your negative thoughts.
22:58
When you find yourself self dwelling on negative thoughts,
23:02
try to reframe them into something more positive.
23:06
What good might have come from this situation?
23:09
What can I learn from this? This is a podcast about couples
23:14
with past trauma and how that limits their ability to create
23:19
secure connections. But I want to tell you that
23:23
there's always something that couples that sit on my couch are
23:28
able to say about the relationship, a strength that
23:32
they have. And there's usually always
23:35
something, even in the midst of negativity, overwhelming
23:38
negativity with each other when their needs aren't being met.
23:42
I'm always able to find something they can say about
23:45
their partner that is positive, even if it's, well, they're a
23:49
great mom or a great dad, Really.
23:52
You don't worry about leaving the kids with your husband?
23:55
Oh, good Lord, no. He's a wonderful father.
23:58
He's able to care for them in a way that I just.
24:00
I never worry about that When I have to travel out of town.
24:03
That never bothers me. I know the kids were going to be
24:06
safe and they're going to be taken care of and things are
24:09
going to run like they need to run with the children.
24:13
And so there's always something that can come out of this.
24:16
Even people that have past trauma are able to look back on
24:19
certain relationships often times and say, you know, that
24:23
was really, really hard. But looking back on it now, I
24:27
can see in ways that I grew. I can see in places that it
24:32
matured me and it helped me overcome certain obstacles or it
24:39
it created more resilience in me in certain ways.
24:43
So being able to challenge our negative thoughts I think is
24:48
really important. And again, I'll go back to #4
24:52
with random acts of kindness. There is nothing that can pull
24:55
you out of a negative thought pattern then going and doing
24:59
something kind for somebody else.
25:02
So I I really want to challenge all the listeners to be able to,
25:07
even if it's something so simple as I said, like holding a door
25:10
open, it's really important to just get outside of yourselves
25:14
because one thing negativity does is it locks us inside
25:18
ourselves. We become self consumed and and
25:21
sometimes selfish. Not that we want everything's
25:24
for ourselves, but that everything becomes about
25:27
ourselves. And so when we cultivate
25:30
gratitude, what it does is it pushes us outside ourselves,
25:34
really notice and focus on things that are apart from us,
25:39
separate from us. And that can have really
25:42
profound effects on who we are. All right, let's move on to
25:47
number six. Celebrate your accomplishments.
25:51
One of the things that I said on the last podcast was if you're
25:55
going to blame yourself for negative things that you've
26:00
done, then you also have to take credit for the good things that
26:04
you've done. Because nobody, nobody is 1
26:09
sided. We all have aspects of good and
26:13
bad to us, so even the best people make mistakes, even the
26:17
people who might on the surface appear perfect and have it all
26:22
together. And social media is great about
26:25
showing this to us because we all want to project our sense of
26:29
happiness, our sense of love of life, the wonderful vacations
26:33
we've gone on. But so much of that is a facade
26:37
because people are always posting about the negative
26:40
things in their life. And so when we when we want to
26:45
celebrate our accomplishments, we want to be able to take pride
26:49
in the things we do well and put ourselves in position of doing
26:53
things well while also holding simultaneously that, yeah, we've
26:58
got some areas that we need to shore up, we've got some areas
27:02
that we need to dive in and try to fix and make a little bit
27:05
better. But I as a person can hold both
27:08
those together and I can. I can be proud of my
27:12
accomplishments and I can take time to acknowledge my
27:15
achievements, no matter how small they might seem.
27:19
And I will appreciate what I am able to do, because I've got
27:25
gifts that the world's needs, and I put myself in position to
27:29
be able to to provide those gifts to the world.
27:33
Knowing that there's also areas of my life that I don't always
27:36
get right. And I mess up and I make
27:39
mistakes and sometimes I fall down, but I get myself back up.
27:44
And being able to hold those simultaneously, I think is
27:48
really important as well. All right, #7.
27:52
Connect with nature. Spending time in nature has
27:56
shown to increase feelings of gratitude.
27:59
So take a walk in the park, sit by a lake, or simply admire the
28:04
trees in your neighborhood. This is something, and I don't
28:07
do it nearly as often as I should, but I've had the great
28:12
fortune to have a a park near where I live where I can just
28:17
walk out my door and I can go walk around the park a few
28:21
times. And I do this one for for
28:23
exercise. But two, on nice days when the
28:27
sun is hitting my face and there's a gentle breeze just
28:31
getting out and feeling that it really does have a profound
28:35
effect on my attitude for the rest of the day.
28:39
So spending time in nature is really, really important.
28:44
And so if you live near a mountain, if you live near a
28:47
beach, oh, I envy you, that's wonderful.
28:50
I'm, I'm landlocked here in Tulsa.
28:52
OK? So I don't get to those places
28:54
as often as I would like. But if you do take full
28:57
advantage of those, because that is great for you to be able to
29:00
go out and spend time in nature and go camping, even if it's for
29:05
one night and just being able to soak up the outdoors and and it
29:10
really does create important changes inside of us and it
29:15
connects us to our world in a way that we don't always get
29:19
when we're locked inside our our homes or our offices all day and
29:23
all night long. So be sure and try to get out
29:27
and connect with nature. Take walks on nice days.
29:30
Go climb a mountain, go walk along the beach and listen to
29:34
the waves splash in to the shore and then retreat back out into
29:39
the ocean. So really important to spend
29:41
some time and connect with nature #8.
29:46
Practice gratitude with others so this can be as simple as
29:50
joining a gratitude group or an online community where you can
29:54
share your gratitude with others.
29:57
It also helps inspire you and keep you motivated being able to
30:02
do this as well. So when we cultivate gratitude,
30:06
we don't want to do this in secret per SE.
30:09
We want to be able to try to extend that to others.
30:14
We might even have an accountability partner, right?
30:17
So if we're going to journal three things that we're grateful
30:20
for each day. Have a Have a good buddy or a
30:23
dear friend text you for a few weeks in the evening and say,
30:28
hey, did you write three things in your journal?
30:30
I'm your accountability partner and you're like, Oh no, I hadn't
30:33
done that yet. Thanks for the reminder.
30:35
Or maybe you can work in tandem with somebody.
30:38
So you're doing this together. So there's a mom, a sister, a
30:43
brother, a a best friend, somebody in your life that would
30:48
love to be able to cultivate this as well.
30:50
Do it together. There is nothing better than two
30:54
people coordinating and collaborating on something to
30:59
help both of them, one, hold themselves accountable to doing
31:03
it. But two, joining in that
31:05
experience together and processing that experience
31:08
together. So I really encourage you to
31:11
practice gratitude with others, find a way to bring others into
31:16
it, because I think that's really important for one,
31:19
sustainability. Being able to sustain this
31:22
practice over time because like a lot of things, it can fall
31:25
off. We can get busy, we can get
31:27
distracted, and pretty soon we aren't noticing the good things
31:32
and we aren't cultivating gratitude like we wanted to in
31:37
our lives. So having somebody to be held
31:39
accountable to or to do it with is really important in that
31:44
process. OK, #9, make gratitude a habit.
31:49
And so there's actually been a couple of books on habits that
31:54
have sort of exploded. I think on Amazon you can you
31:57
can buy them anywhere. But they really talk about the
32:01
science of habit and how so much of our behavior is habitually
32:07
motivated, meaning it is often unconsciously controlled.
32:12
It's because we we have a cue, then we have a habit or a a a
32:19
performance or a routine that we go through and then we have a
32:23
reward at the end. And these books have shown over
32:26
and over and over how many of our behaviors follow that same
32:31
pattern. We come in in the morning and we
32:34
throw our duffel bag in our chair next to our desk and we
32:39
sit down and the first thing we do is we've been.
32:41
We go through all our emails and we do that because when we hear
32:46
the the bag hit the chair, that's a queue to us to
32:51
immediately go and we know we've got tons of emails waiting for
32:54
us. And so that's our queue.
32:56
And then so our routine is to plow through 8/10/15, a hundred
33:00
different emails, how many ever we have.
33:02
And then when we're done with that, we feel a little
33:05
gratitude. And So what do we find?
33:07
We actually go down the hall and we get ourselves a cup of coffee
33:10
and that's almost like the reward.
33:13
And so we've got this queue, we've got a routine and we've
33:16
got a reward that creates a habit for us each morning.
33:21
And it's something we hardly even think about.
33:24
And so that's just kind of an example of what a habit might
33:28
be. But try to create a a habit of
33:33
cultivating gratitude. So what is a queue for me?
33:37
Can I create a queue every morning when I get up?
33:40
Maybe it's a sticky note on the mirror where I wash my face
33:44
every morning. Or maybe it's something in the
33:46
car I turn on to a certain station.
33:49
Or I have a song preprogrammed to automatically play as soon as
33:53
I get in the car. And that's going to be my queue.
33:57
And then my, my, my routine is going to be I'm going to make
34:01
sure that I find three things today I can point out to myself
34:05
that I'm grateful for. And then the reward is in the
34:09
evening I'm going to make myself my favorite meal.
34:12
Or I'm going to be able to sit and relax and have a nice cup of
34:15
tea or whatever it is that that the is the reward for.
34:19
You try to create a habit of cultivating gratitude, and
34:25
journaling is a good part of that as well.
34:27
So maybe journaling might be part of that.
34:29
Walking in nature could be part of that routine.
34:32
Doing it with a buddy and accountability buddy could be
34:35
part of that routine. Anything could be part of that
34:38
routine. As long as you have a queue and
34:42
you have the routine itself, and then you have a reward at the
34:45
end, what you'll find is that over time, this will then just
34:50
play out automatically. You won't be thinking about this
34:54
this loop anymore, this feedback loop if you will, or this habit,
35:00
this this full string that happens.
35:03
You'll just go on automatic and so cultivating gratitude will be
35:08
much easier because it will be sort of more ingrained into your
35:12
subconscious. So #10, be patient with
35:17
yourself. I use the metaphor earlier of
35:21
it's not a light switch. We don't just get up and we turn
35:24
this on and then we turn it off. Rather, it's really important
35:29
that we are able to to be patient with ourselves.
35:32
Some days we might take a step back, some days might be a great
35:36
day when we noticed 5 things to be grateful for and not just
35:40
three and that's all. OK, so have self compassion.
35:45
Cultivating gratitude. It takes time and effort.
35:48
We don't want to be discouraged if we don't see results
35:52
immediately. Just keep at it and then over
35:56
time you'll eventually reap the benefits of having a more
36:00
grateful life and being able to notice those moments and those
36:05
people that you can be grateful for.
36:08
And I really think what you'll find over time is that you will
36:12
begin to. And again, not in a naive way,
36:16
but you'll begin to really begin to feel and notice more things
36:21
than your life. And you will project and exude
36:25
more positivity and have a greater impact on others because
36:30
you're a person that cultivates gratitude.
36:35
Well, that's all 10 things. And as I've said, I want you to
36:38
just be able to pick out a couple of them to start with,
36:42
pace yourself, be kind to yourself and I'll end with this.
36:46
I am grateful for you, the listener.
36:49
I was not sure about starting a podcast.
36:52
I know that they're really popular right now, but I, as I'm
36:57
I'm continue to grow this and as I'm hopefully getting a little
37:00
bit better at creating a podcast, and I'm always striving
37:04
to figure out how can I create content that's relevant to you,
37:07
that's important to you. Feel free to give me feedback at
37:11
any time, but I do want to say that I'm grateful to you, the
37:14
listener, and I really, really, really hope that you guys are
37:18
getting something positive out of this.
37:22
So thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time.
37:26
Thank you for listening. To Trauma Free Relationship, A
37:29
podcast for the healing of attachment trauma.
37:32
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram or our website at
37:35
traumafreerelationship.com. Be sure to look for our next
37:39
episode on your favorite streaming service.