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What Happens When Gratitude Is Spoken Aloud? · Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 37.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when gratitude is spoken aloud?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: A
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: few days ago, my friends Eli and Joseph invited me to form a gratitude group.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: They have one themselves.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Four people meet on Zoom once a week for two hours.
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  SPEAKER_00: And for those two hours, they do one thing.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: They take turns saying what they're grateful for.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
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  SPEAKER_00: When I first heard that, I thought, two hours?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Two whole hours of gratitude?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: But Eli and Joseph say, the practice has changed their lives.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that caught my attention.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a difference between occasionally feeling grateful and creating
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  SPEAKER_00: a space in your life where week after week you deliberately turn your attention
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: toward gratitude.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I started mentioning the idea to a few people.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a day.
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a time.
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really have a format.
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  SPEAKER_00: I still don't.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yet, five people have said yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, something about the idea touched a hunger that was already there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I've been wondering why.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like to sit in a circle and hear people name what they're grateful for.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And in one of my women's circles,
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  SPEAKER_00: we've gone around the room,
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  SPEAKER_00: each of us offering a word There's something different
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: about hearing gratitude spoken aloud.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: When I sit alone and think about what I'm grateful for,
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  SPEAKER_00: or I'm writing in my journal, I'm inside my own life.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when I tell you what I'm grateful for,
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  SPEAKER_00: and you tell me what you're grateful for,
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  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly I get to see a light through your eyes.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You might say you're grateful for the rain, and I realized I hadn't even listened to it.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You might be grateful for the phone call you received from your daughter,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I remember somebody I've been meaning to call.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: You might be grateful that your body carried you through a difficult day,
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  SPEAKER_00: and suddenly I noticed my own body.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not for what hurts or what it can't do, but for everything it has done for me today.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your gratitude can awaken mine and mine can awaken yours.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's part of the power of practicing gratitude in community.
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  SPEAKER_00: We help one another notice.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you know how much that word means to me, notice.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So much of life passes unnoticed because we're so busy moving on to the next thing,
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  SPEAKER_00: the next appointment,
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  SPEAKER_00: the next problem,
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  SPEAKER_00: the next thing that needs fixing,
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  SPEAKER_00: the next piece of news that tells us what's wrong with the world.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And plenty is wrong with the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: But gratitude It doesn't require us to deny any of it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important to me.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want a gratitude practice that tells me to paste a smile over grief.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want gratitude that asks me to pretend that pain isn't painful,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: loss isn't loss, or fear isn't fear.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's not gratitude.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's avoidance.
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  SPEAKER_00: I am interested, however, in something much more spacious.
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  SPEAKER_00: The ability to say, this is hard, and yet I am grateful.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that this is beautiful, this hurts, and something is sustaining me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what happens next.
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  SPEAKER_00: And right here, right now, there is something I can love.
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  SPEAKER_00: And all of these things can be true.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why the idea
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  SPEAKER_00: of spending two hours naming gratitude is Doesn't seem quite so strange
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: to me anymore.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine what happens when we practice looking for what is sustaining us.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not once, not because somebody posted an inspirational note, but every week.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then we come back and we do it again and again.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: What would we begin to notice between meetings?
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  SPEAKER_00: Would I move through Tuesday differently?
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  SPEAKER_00: Because somewhere in the back of my mind,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know that when our group meets, I'm going to say what I'm grateful for.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Would I begin to notice differently?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Would I notice the woman who smiled at me in the Mercado?
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  SPEAKER_00: Would I linger over the taste of something delicious instead of gobbling it down
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: while doing three other things at the same time?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Would I notice someone else's music?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Would I be grateful for the beautiful sounds that come from my flute or my Chora?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say mosquitoes, but let's not get carried away.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: They drove me out of my hammock yesterday while I was trying to play my flute.
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  SPEAKER_00: Apparently they were grateful for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: So gratitude may have its limits.
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  SPEAKER_00: But you see what I mean.
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  SPEAKER_00: What we practice noticing may begin to change what we notice.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that brings me to Ageless Living.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because Ageless Living has never meant pretending we're not getting older.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Of course we're getting older.
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  SPEAKER_00: It means remaining awake to the life that is still here, still unfolding, still surprising us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Still inviting us.
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  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps gratitude is one way of staying awake and alive.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not gratitude for some imaginary, perfect life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude for this one.
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  SPEAKER_00: This messy one.
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  SPEAKER_00: This unfinished one.
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  SPEAKER_00: This sometimes heartbreaking,
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  SPEAKER_00: sometimes hilarious, constantly changing life we are actually living.
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  SPEAKER_00: And now I keep imagining something.
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  SPEAKER_00: What if little gratitude circles begin popping up everywhere?
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  SPEAKER_00: Four people on Zoom,
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  SPEAKER_00: five people around the kitchen table,
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  SPEAKER_00: a family gathering after dinner,
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  SPEAKER_00: a handful of neighbors, people in different countries meeting online.
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  SPEAKER_00: No teacher, no expert, no curriculum, just an agreement.
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  SPEAKER_00: Show up, listen,
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  SPEAKER_00: Notice and we'll speak aloud what we're grateful for.
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  SPEAKER_00: Imagine thousands of these little circles like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Imagine people leaving those circles and carrying that quality of attention
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  SPEAKER_00: into their homes, their friendships, their workplaces, their communities.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would it change the world?
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  SPEAKER_00: I have absolutely no idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: My own group hasn't even had its first meeting, so I'm not offering you a conclusion.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm offering you an invitation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Find a few people.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ask them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Would you like to practice gratitude together?
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  SPEAKER_00: Don't make it complicated.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to know exactly what you're doing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Apparently I don't, and five people have already signed up.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Begin somewhere, gather, speak, listen, notice, come back, and do it again.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then pay attention to what happens.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not only during the time you spend together, but in the hours and days between.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe nothing dramatic will happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe everything won't suddenly become wonderful.
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  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps,
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  SPEAKER_00: You begin noticing something that was there all along your life,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: waiting to be noticed, waiting to be appreciated, waiting to be lived.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And today, I'm grateful that you're here
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be here again next Monday.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.