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44. The Impact of Living a Grateful Life · A Heart That Beats for Home

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart that Beats for Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still untangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, welcome back to another week here at the podcast.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being with us.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Hard to believe that we are in November.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I have to admit that I have caved over the years.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Typically, I was a hardcore no Christmas tree until after Thanksgiving, and I don't know if it's just as I've gotten older, as the Christmas decorations feel more overwhelming year after year.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: But I caved this year and my Christmas tree is already up.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I am so excited to be sitting in my living room where I can be looking at that Christmas tree and the fireplace is on.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: It's gloomy and dark outside and everything about having my tree up feels right Having it up.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I still refuse to skip over this super important month of November, and I think part of my stubbornness and not wanting to put a tree up before Thanksgiving in the past was I didn't want to feel like I wasn't taking the Thanksgiving holiday seriously, because I do think that it's one of the most important, just celebrating all that we have to be thankful for in all areas of our life.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: But I know in my heart that Thanksgiving is more a spirit of gratitude and a posture that we present ourselves in, more than the decorations in our house, obviously.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So I am so glad that I've come to this compromise of being able to fully immerse myself into Thanksgiving and also have my Christmas tree up now for hopefully about seven or eight weeks.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So here we are in the fall and we had a crazy week this week.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Today, as I'm recording this, it's election day.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: We had a time change this week and so all of the things are coming at us and I just thought what a great opportunity to just take the chance to talk today about a heart of gratitude and really, as mamas, I believe that the heart of a mama is the heart of her family, and we've all heard the saying over and over that the mom controls the thermostat of the home.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And how we show up often is how others in our house show up, and is that fair, I don't know, but it does just show that we have a great impact on just the temperature in our home, the way that people communicate with one another.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that everybody doesn't need to own their own part, but I do think that we really kind of control the tone.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And you know, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy is for a reason.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And I know in my own life just watching how my attitude impacts that of my family and how it does kind of change the just the overall feel in the four walls that we call home.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And so today just really want to kind of just talk authentically about what that looks like as a mom and asking ourselves the question of is gratitude my default behavior?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Question of is gratitude my default behavior?
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And I know for me, if I'm being totally honest, a lot of times the answer is no.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: It's very easy to get caught into a trap of always being in a rush, being in a hurry, trying to manage everything for everybody.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Way too many things happening at the same time, with multitasking, everyday issues of car breakdowns, missed appointments, running late, somebody getting sick.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: There is just so much that comes into my day that I have to honestly say my automatic default is not always gratitude and it's something that I really, really want to be working on.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I want that to be the case.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I do feel, as my kids are getting older, I have a little bit more control of kind of keeping that tone, one of gratitude.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: You know, I think when my kids were really little, a state of exhaustion, I do believe, makes it really hard to operate from a place of gratitude, and it's a skill that you really have to work on and something that I wish I would have worked on a little bit more than I did, but I would say that we were in, sometimes we were in survival mode, but really just wanting to have a word of encouragement for all mamas, no matter where you're at in your stages of parenting, just for us, especially this month.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's such a great month for us to be practicing on purpose, having a heart of gratitude and we'll talk about a lot of different ways that you can have some practical things that you're doing in your home as a family to work on a heart posture of gratitude, things that we can do ourselves, and then just some of the positive benefits that come from being grateful.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: And I think grateful is very different than just being, you know, poly positive.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And I think grateful is very different than just being polypositive.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I think positivity is you can smile and grin and have a high-pitched voice and make anything seem like it's all hunky-dory.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: But gratitude is this state of awareness that I am so blessed, I am so fortunate.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I have laundry lists of things that I could write down and journal about that God has done in my life, where he's protected me, where he's provided for me, where he's blessed me, where he's kept me out of harm's way, when he's healed me.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: And you take that out into all the different members of your family and over the course of your life.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And gratitude is it's a state of being that you are just aware of the source of all good things in your life, a lot of those things that we take for granted on the daily and just really getting good at that I'm super excited for you guys next week to meet a friend who's gonna share with us and probably somebody who is the most joyful, grateful person that I've ever come across I would put her in the top five of joyful people that I've ever met and just learning from her about how you just make this a state of being really, how you make gratitude a part of your DNA, how, when you practice this and you become so aware of all of the things that the Lord has blessed us with, how that just becomes part of who you are, and that is my prayer that my kids would continue to see this more and more in how I show up, more and more in how I communicate, how from the time my feet hit the ground to the time I go to bed doesn't mean we're going to do it perfect Absolutely not, but it's taking the little mundane parts of our day and being able to turn our focus towards that of gratitude, as opposed to grumbling and complaining and assuming that everything is always going to go against us.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Nothing works in our favor, everybody's out to get us, nothing is fair, everything is unjust and really just switching that to a heart of gratitude.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: And so a couple of things that I think come to mind, and then some crazy studies too that show what happens when kids are around.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Gratitude and when children have their own posture of gratitude is pretty remarkable.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: But one thing right off the bat that I just want to ask are some of these questions that you can start by asking yourself and there's a bunch of gratitude tests and things that you can do online.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I think we all pretty well can self-assess if we feel like we work from a place of gratitude or if we're more bent towards negativity and cynicism.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: But really just some basic questions of do I, do I on a regular basis give thanks and appreciate a handful of these things in my life?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Number one my physical health.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: You don't know how grateful we should be for physical health until you don't feel good, right, until you wake up and you have the horrible cold, or you have the flu and you can't keep food down.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Or you know you break an arm or a leg and you can't use that part of your body for a while.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: You don't realize how grateful we should be for waking up and getting out of bed, being able to breathe, having two arms and two legs that work, a heart that beats blood, that pumps all of the basic things that are so easy to take for granted is just am I grateful for my physical health?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Do I talk to my kids about how grateful we should be for our physical health?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Do we make that a part of how we communicate?
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: When we're able to take a walk, do we just say something as simple as when we're walking back into the driveway?
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It's as simple.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that we all have legs that are able to carry us around the block to have this time to exercise together, or when we're going off to school.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that we all have the ability to be able to participate in things outside of our home because we have health enough to do it.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: There are just so many ways that we take for granted our physical health.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Do I count my blessings for what I have?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: In this world?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: It doesn't take very long to watch the news or to watch documentaries or to go on a missions trip, even just to drive into different areas in our communities, to know just how much we have to be grateful for.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And in a day and age where we can get so sucked into, my house isn't big enough, or, as Andy Stanley calls it the land of er, where we want everything to be bigger, better, glitzier.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Everything is this land of er, and when I reach that, then I'll be happy.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't take long for us to just look around and recognize I have so much to be grateful for in the fact that we have food in our pantry in excess, that we have free-flowing water that's clean and not contaminated, that we have enough clothing to probably go a month without having to do laundry in our home, that we have shelter and we have heat and we have a fireplace and we have gas in our car and we have a car and we have books to read and we have technology to be able to access resources and learning and knowledge just these very basic things that we can so take for granted that a lot of those people around the world don't even have access to.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Another one is do I remind myself how fortunate I am and do I recognize the privileges and opportunities that I have, the fact that I was able to go to college, the fact that I do have access to things like the internet and able to have this broad reach, the fact that I have an ability to have a job and to be able to have savings accounts and retirement accounts and the ability today to be able to vote, that we live in a free country as much as division, and we can flippantly say you know so many things about how awful our country is.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: The reality is, we have opportunities and privileges here as American citizens that so many people do not have, and how quickly we can forget just how grateful we should be for those things.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: One motto that I have as a mom not just as a mom, but as a human being is when I think it, I need to say it, and for so often, right, we can think things about I'm so grateful for that, or I'm so grateful for that person or that was so kind of them when they did that or that really blessed me.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And we think those things in our head and so often we're not good at putting it out there and actually acknowledging it, saying it out loud, telling your spouse Maybe you think during the day when your spouse is off working for me.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I know my husband has stresses that I'll never understand in his job that I don't experience because I work from home and I have a lot of my own stresses that he won't understand, but for me just to be able to, when I think about man I'm so grateful that he goes out of our house, that he does leave and he's disciplined and he gets up early and he's such a great provider Do I ever take the time to not just think it but then to communicate it, to say it, to send the text, to write the letter, to tuck the card into the briefcase or into the computer or put the post-it note on the computer in the office?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: When I think things about my kids, when I see that they behave in a certain way, or I see them helping somebody, am I good at saying that to them?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Hey, I saw how you interacted with your teacher and I'm really proud of the way that you offered to help in that situation.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Or I saw the way you interacted with the other student or the person who was alone on the playground and that you left your friends to go help them.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Do we do a good job of the things that we are grateful for, that we see in our everyday life the girlfriends, the siblings, the friendships?
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Do we do a good job of when we think, gosh, I'm so grateful for that?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Do we do a good job at communicating that to people that we love.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: That is just something that I think has helped me as well in my journey of trying to be a grateful person is just taking the time to recognize, taking the time to say it out loud, to write the letter, to send the text, whatever it might be, just to get in that practice of what we think about, what we focus on.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: It becomes more and more a part of who we are.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about real quick a couple of things that have been proven that children who are raised in grateful homes, how it impacts their health, and this was just a couple that I thought were really interesting.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I took this off of a list of about 10 that came off of a study and these four I thought were just really interesting and ones that just this alone, just this alone is reason for me as a mom to really dig into.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Am I a grateful person and am I creating an environment and an atmosphere for my family that is one of gratitude?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: The first thing was just children who were raised in environments where gratitude was a focus had more positive emotions.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: This is so obvious that this would be the case, because any of us that have been in situations where you're in a room where there's negative energy and it's everything is.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It's all their fault, nothing's my fault.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Everything is doom and gloom.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: You know, the roof is caving in versus and I'm not talking about toxic positivity or somebody who can't recognize that there's an issue but being able to find gratitude no matter what.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Being able to find gratitude no matter what is happening, no matter what the circumstance is, because there is something to always be grateful for.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: If you are sicker than a dog and it would be very easy just to be negative, negative, negative the reality is there is a place to be grateful for the fact that we have medicine to help us, that we have doctors that we have access to, that we have a home that we can recover in and that we have a bed to sleep in and a couch to lay on and blankets to cover us and ice packs to bring our fevers down and all these different things.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: No matter how doom and gloom, there is always something that we can find gratitude in, and so number one was that children who are raised in grateful homes have more positive emotions.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: The second one is they build healthier relationships Anywhere where you tend to be around somebody who is just a person of gratitude.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I think there's a safety that's built in to move towards that person.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: It creates this sense of.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: This is something I want to move towards.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: This feels like a safe person, this feels like a good investment.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: This feels like it's going to benefit me and then, in return, you always you know that saying you become like the five people you hang out with the most.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Who am I hanging out with?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And if they're grateful people, I am going to become more grateful, and grateful people build healthier relationships, and so the second thing that I think is worth us really taking inventory of is gratitude.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: My default is I want to have healthy, good relationships with my kids.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Think about just interactions, whether this is a little child or it's an adult child, when kids come to you and they have issues or there's tension in a relationship.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: If you can come from that, from a place of gratitude of hey, I'm so grateful that you were able to come to me with that.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I'm grateful that you felt comfortable.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I'm grateful that you wanted to seek resolution as opposed to.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I can't believe you would think that about me.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that you said that.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: That is absolutely not true.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: You don't even have a clue.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: You know what you did to make me mad.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Just the difference in posture and how that pulls us closer to relationship when we use gratitude, versus the opposite.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Another one is that children who are raised in grateful homes they become more resilient than those that are not.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And again, I think it's just.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Gratitude is like it's a strength, it's an armor that we're putting on it's perspective and it does make us more resilient when we are very aware of all that we have to be grateful for.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: It does make us more resilient to hardship, to opposition, to disappointment, to all of these different things that, when we don't come from a place of gratitude, are much harder to navigate through.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And then, lastly, children who grow up in homes where gratitude is practiced they have more empathy towards others and they're more kind.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And again, isn't this something that we would all want for our children and for ourselves?
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Again, the four they have more positive emotions, they build healthier relationships, they become more resilient and they have empathy towards others and are more kind.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: And I just think, man, if those are not reasons enough, then just the pure fact that I should be grateful it's a biblical mandate, right to rejoice and be grateful, but just awesome reasons for us as parents to really practice this.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And then an interesting fact is that it is shown in scientific studies that those that live in a place of gratitude can expect to have increased lifespan.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And again, we think about just anxiety and stress and how that impacts our bodies, how it impacts all of the systems, our nervous system, all of it and how it contributes to so much illness.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I remember when I was really really sick at one point and I reached out to a friend who I just really respect and I was really really sick at one point and I reached out to a friend who I just really respect and I was asking her some questions.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: She's been in the medical field and I was telling her all my symptoms and the things that I was doing and she said, hey, I think you're doing all the medical things right, but she said now it's up to you to control the number one thing that is going to impact whether or not you have a good recovery.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And I said what's that?
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And she said now you have to mind your mind, now you have to go to a place of gratitude and you have to believe that your body was made to fight this, that your body is going to do exactly what it's supposed to do.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And if you let your mind take you down to all of these horrible scenarios and you read and you research all of the bad things that could happen, it is going to be a slower process for you.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: She said this is proven over and over in hospital cases that those that have attitudes of gratitude and positivity have a much better recovery rate.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And she said put the internet away, get out your Bible, start reading, start praying truth over yourself, be grateful for your body and how it works and watch yourself get better.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: And I thought man is that so powerful that one of the most powerful tools that we have towards health is a mind of gratitude and of just not allowing negativity to overtake us and of just not allowing negativity to overtake us.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And so, as we come into this month of November, as we are focusing specifically this month, it's an obvious way to be pointing ourself towards just being grateful.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Right, we go around the table on Thanksgiving day and we say what are you thankful for?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: What are you grateful for?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: There are so many things that we can start doing this month to become habits that then take us in to every other month of the year.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: This should not be something that we're just focusing on in November.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It should be something that is a core value of who we are in our homes, in our parenting, in our marriages, in our friendships is being grateful people.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: So start with some little things by appreciating little things, going back to and again, I say little things, but they're huge things because if we didn't have them, our lives would be completely turned upside down and we would very quickly realize how grateful we are.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: But start with the little things.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Start with thank you for the clothing, thank you for the food, thank you for this meal.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: If you don't pray at meals, start there.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Thank God for the fact that you have food on your table and water in your glass.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And be somebody that, when you are filling up the car with gas and you get back in the car to be able to say to your kids gosh, I'm so grateful that we have the resources to be able to fill up our car with gas.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that we have a vehicle that gets us where we need to go.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that we have the health to go do this.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that we have a little bit of savings account that we can give to these people, or that we can skip that fast food meal so that we can help that family in need.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: What are the little things that you can start appreciating out loud, that you can start talking to your kids about, that you can start bringing to mind.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: That's a super easy place to start Practicing with a gratitude journal.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: A gratitude journal is such a great way to just again remember all that we have.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I remember when I started doing this, I would write down three to five things a night.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Just super simple, just real quick.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Two, three words per line of three to five things that I was grateful for.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And after doing this, even just a couple of weeks, sometimes you have to start to really think about it, because you've put down all of the obvious.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You've put down your family members, your friends, the food, the car, the house, the things that come very naturally when we try to be grateful.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And then you start thinking about other things and I remember getting to the point where I was like I am so grateful for the most random things, this pen that I have, because I have found pens that I absolutely love, that just write so awesome and I love to journal with them and I love to have them when I'm studying my Bible they're actually on my favorite things in last week's episode.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: But something as silly as I'm so grateful for this awesome pen.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: That sounds almost comical to put down on a piece of paper as something I'm thankful for, but it is so true.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I'm thankful for apples that are in season, because an apple from the apple orchard tastes so different than an apple from the grocery store in an off season.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it can be such crazy things that almost feel silly to be putting down, be such crazy things that almost feel silly to be putting down.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: But when you start to get into this habit, it's so crazy how you just start to appreciate the things that we have and it just becomes a habit of being grateful and people hear that in you and the more you practice it, the more it becomes a part of who you are, part of the fabric of your being.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Then little things don't take you off course as much as they used to and you're able to quickly go.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: That's really unfortunate that that happened, but I'm not going to let it derail me because we're so centered in the fact that we have so much to be grateful for.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: So here are six little things that you can do with your family if you really want to start, as a family, working on being grateful as a family, working on talking out loud or being able to write down and recognize some of the things not just things, but things and people and activities and music and books and nature that we can be grateful for.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Number one is have a gratitude jar.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: This month of November, go get a mason jar out of your cabinet, cut up a bunch of pieces of scrap paper, put it on a counter somewhere, put it on your dining room table, put a bunch of colored pencils in another mason jar next to it and just have people every day ask everybody in your family to write down one thing they're grateful for, fold it up and put it in that jar and maybe, maybe twice a week, three times a week, you pull all those out at a dinner or at breakfast when you're getting ready for school, and you just have somebody read through them and it just is a reminder as a family, the things that each of us are grateful for.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: There's the good old thankfulness chain.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Remember back in the day where we made the construction paper chains and we'd hang them or we'd put them on our trees or in our classrooms for countdowns, a thankful chain.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: And again, you could start this now and you just have those strips of paper and as somebody writes down something they're grateful for, you feed that through the chain, you staple it and the next person puts theirs on until you have maybe an entire window or a glass doorway or maybe an archway in your home, somewhere where you have created a thankfulness chain that you just have to go back and look at and to read and to see what your kids are putting, to see what your spouse is putting, and just a great reminder of all the things that we have to be grateful for.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: There's a very similar concept with a leaf tree.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: A lot of people will go get a twig of some sort out of your backyard, put it into a planter or a small pot and just have a bunch of leaf cutouts of paper and punch a hole in those, put a little piece of twine or ribbon and, as people are thinking of things they're grateful for, maybe this is even just something you do if you host Thanksgiving, as people are coming in, you just ask everybody to write a couple things on the Thanksgiving tree and fill those little leaves up with things that you're grateful for, tie those onto that branch and be able to go back and read and reflect on those.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Another one I love that a girlfriend does is she gets a big old pumpkin and she gets a white one and she gets a bunch of Sharpie markers and her family does a graffiti pumpkin of just every night when they sit down at the table.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Their pumpkin is right there in the middle and they're taking that black Sharpie marker and everybody is just adding one thing every day that they're thankful for.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And by the time Thanksgiving comes around that pumpkin is just packed full of words and sentences and things that the family is grateful for and it's such a reminder just to have it right there in the center of the dining room table to be able to look at.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And then we talked about a gratitude journal.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's everybody in your family is going to be just taking inventory and maybe it's a family gratitude journal that you pass around.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe everybody does it in their own room.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe you get cute little journals for the whole family and just make it a practice to start writing those things down, whether you keep them private or you share them.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: There are so many great things online.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I came across a 30-day gratitude challenge.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I will link it in the show notes, but it just walks through Again.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: This would be a great thing.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: As you sit at dinner or in the morning, depending upon the age of your children, pick the time of day that it works.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: But it's 30 days of gratitude challenge and it's celebrating what you are grateful for, corresponding to the theme of each day.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Things like an ability that I have, someone in my family, an item that I treasure the most, something about my body that I'm grateful for, something out in nature, a freedom that I'm grateful for, something that makes me laugh, something that I look forward to, an opportunity that I've grateful for, something out in nature, a freedom that I'm grateful for, something that makes me laugh, something that I look forward to, an opportunity that I've been given, something about where I live, and it would just be a great thing.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: There's 30 different prompts here that you could work through with your family as you sit together and you just take inventory on all that we have blessed with.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I know that a lot of times it can feel overwhelming as a mom when we say things like the temperature of the home is my responsibility, and it feels like I have this pressure to create and to perform in a way that seems supernatural or that carries too much pressure or that makes me feel like I have to be perfect, and that is so not what this is about.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: This is about being able to be a guiding force for our families to make these choices, when we know that these things are gonna impact our home, when we know that these things are gonna make our environment seem more loving and a place where people want to come.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I think any of us would say my goal is that my people want to come.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I think any of us would say my goal is that my people want to come home.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: They want to come into the community, in our four walls.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: They want to sit on the couch as a family.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: They want to go do things together as a family.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: They want to sit around a table and have a meal together, and it is.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: It does feel like a lot of pressure, but also what an honor and what a privilege that, as moms, we have the ability to be able to so greatly impact the experience that the people that are most important to us, our spouse, our children, our friends, our immediate family, our extended family that they get to have when they come into our home.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Recently I heard the quote that said I realized that my children's childhood is also my motherhood and, yes, that seems obvious, but when you really stop and think about that, our kids only get one childhood.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: We only get one round at motherhood.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Now, motherhood never ends, unlike childhood, right, childhood is a snapshot in time.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Motherhood we take with us from the time our children are born until the time we are in the grave.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But the reality of this precious block of time that we have to nurture the souls and the spirits of our kids when they do live under our roof, when they are our responsibility here at home, as we're training them up to be able to go out into society and be amazing, law-abiding, grateful, contributing humans, when I think about the way that I show up, I want my kids to look back and think my mom was grateful.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: My mom was joyful when she made our lunch and she sang praise songs and laughed with us as she did the dishes and when she folded laundry.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: She would laugh and she would have fun, and I don't want it to be that of.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: She was always slamming drawers and she was always on edge and it was like walking on eggshells.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I only get one run at how I show up as a mom, one life to do it well and one opportunity to make my kids' childhood something to come back home to.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: They are grateful for time with me and with my husband, and it was just a really good challenge to me when I read that that I am in complete control of that.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Nobody else has control over the childhood that I provide for my kids or the motherhood that I create in this home, by the choices I make, by the way I show up, by the way I interact, by the countenance I have, by the demeanor that I show up with, with the way that I come down the stairs in the morning to greet my family and the way that I tuck them into bed at night.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: The way that I greet them when they get in the car after a long day or after a sporting event, how I show up for them when they're not being grateful, how I am able to just be a steady force of joy and gratefulness and just having a heart that wants my family to look inward and to never forget how fortunate we are to live where we live, to be with who we're with.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I just want to take very seriously the role that I get to play in helping my kids become grateful people as they get to watch me navigate, struggling through it and working through it and trying to become more and more of a grateful person over the years.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I pray that that is something that will be so embedded into their childhood and their growing up that they always take that with them and that because of that, because of me making it a priority that they do have more positive emotions, that they can build healthy relationships, that they are more resilient and they are empathetic and, lord willing, that they have an increased lifespan, because they have learned how to navigate life with gratitude.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: So something to think about this Thanksgiving, as we more naturally do some of these things.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: But what are ways that we can continue this way beyond November, into the crazy hustle and bustle of December, but then making it a natural rhythm of our homes?
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: So a lot to kind of mull through, a lot to think about, maybe some self-assessment that needs to be done I know that's the case for me and just making the commitment that I am going to choose to become a person of gratitude.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: So, friends, let me know what you're doing in your home to kind of make some of these shifts, to make this a priority, and let us know what you're grateful for.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Let those around you know how much you appreciate them, how grateful you are for them and what a joy it is for you to be their wife, their spouse, their mama.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: And while we're talking about gratitude, I just want to thank all of you for being here.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: It's been 47, 48 episodes.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: It's hard to believe that we're coming into the end of our first year here on the podcast at A Heart that Beats for Home.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I am so grateful for all of you that show up, that share the podcast, that rate, that review.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: All of those things mean so much to us and excited to let you guys in a little bit more on what plans are for the second year here on the podcast.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: We'll talk more about that in the next couple of weeks, but until next week, friends, take care.