Latest / Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40 / 9. How Gratitude Transforms Your Health, Habits & Mindset in Midlife

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9. How Gratitude Transforms Your Health, Habits & Mindset in Midlife · Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Most women think they'll feel happier or calmer or more motivated once life finally slows down, or once the stress passes, or once this chaos eases up, or once things at work slow down, and once everybody else's needs settle, right?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what if the key to hitting your health goals in midlife isn't found in your circumstances at all?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what if it was found in your focus instead?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you look for, you will find, and what you focus on grows.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude isn't just a feeling, it's actually a powerful strategy that shapes your mindset, your habits, and ultimately your health.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Midlife Flow Up Podcast, where we simplify fitness, nutrition, and healthy habits for women over 40.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Joan Dandano, your midlife health and wellness coach.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're ready to feel strong, consistent, and confident in this season of life, you're in the right place.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is airing on Thanksgiving Day, and I want to take a slightly different angle on gratitude today.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're not here to share all the things we're thankful for in this episode.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go deeper than that.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about gratitude as a strategy, a practice, because it's honestly one of the most powerful mindset tools that you can build in midlife.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So before we go any further, I want to ground us in this truth before we begin.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: What you choose to focus on becomes the direction of your life.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And for many midlife women, that focus could be the difference between feeling grounded or overwhelmed, between feeling calm or chaotic, or feeling empowered or defeated.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot control everything in your life.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you absolutely can control the lens through which you see the world.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that lens shapes everything.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea was reinforced for me just a couple of days ago.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: My bestie texted me and she said, gosh, my family is driving me crazy and work is total chaos, but I'm choosing to focus on gratitude.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then she listed out three things that she was super grateful for that day.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I was grateful to be able to sneak in a nail appointment so I can feel put together.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The sun is shining, and I have fun things on my calendar to look forward to.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized in that moment that's why we're best friends.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because we cannot control our family and we can't control our coworkers' moods or our and or their energy.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what we can control is what we focus on.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And how we spend our time and our thoughts and our energy is what shapes our reality.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what we're talking about today.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is not fluff.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not pretending everything is fine when it's not.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not toxic positivity, and it's definitely not ignoring the hard things.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: But gratitude is a shift, it's a redirect.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way of saying, I'm not going to let the things that I can't control steal the joy from the things that I can.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you focus on what's working, what's going well, you'll notice more of what's working and what's going well.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: When you focus on what you appreciate, you start to find more things to appreciate.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: When you focus on things within your control, your choices, your habits, your routines, your whole life begins to feel more grounded.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Our brains, our human brains, are wired for survival.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they scan for danger.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They look for problems.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is how our human brain is wired.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: But when we focus on practicing gratitude as a life skill, that begins to rewire our system.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it shifts us from this fight or flight into intention.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: It brings you back home to yourself.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I will never forget this Brene Brown, I'm probably not going to quote it exactly right, and I don't even remember which book it was in.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But she said, and I will never forget, she said, I have never interviewed a single person who describes themselves as joyful who does not actively practice gratitude.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: How cool is that?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: In order to be joyful, we must practice gratitude.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say practice, that's actually the word I want you to focus on here.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes we think of gratitude and it's like, oh, a feeling or an emotion.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: But no, it's actually like a practice.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's something we have to intentionally do, it's an action.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let me show you what I mean.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I want you to look around where you are right now and notice everything brown around you.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, take a moment, notice the brown things, and then now, if you're driving, keep your eyes on the road.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not, and you can close your eyes, please close your eyes.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And with your eyes closed, tell me what in the room was red.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can open your eyes.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: You probably couldn't think of one red thing because your brain filters out what it's not looking for.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is how your mind works all the time.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You will always find what you're searching for.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look for proof that there is stress all around you, you will find more stress.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you focus on how overwhelmed you are, you will find more of that overwhelmation.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's a made-up word that I use.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you focus on failure, you will continue to find proof that you are failing.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if you choose to focus on gratitude, you will notice more blessings, you will notice the progress that you're making, you will notice how strong you are, and you will start to notice the good, even in the messy and the chaotic and the imperfect moments of our life.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Midlife brings a lot of things you cannot control.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hormones being at the very top, family drama, your partner's stress, your kids' mood, the weather, plans shifting, unexpected chaos, other people's negative energy.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like literally, there are so many things that we cannot control in midlife.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: But here is what you can control.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: How you choose to show up, what you choose to focus on, how you fuel your body, whether you move your body or you stay still, the stories that you tell yourself, the habits that you keep, the energy that you allow in, that is all in your control.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: In midlife, a lot of us begin to realize that trying to control everything around us, our circumstances, our environment, is futile.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of us start to realize that in order to stay grounded, we must shift to stewarding what matters most.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of trying to manage the world, we start to manage ourselves.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when you shift your focus to what is within your control, the coolest thing is your nervous system starts to calm down and your habits become easier to stick with.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be real.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you're overwhelmed, you're irritated, you're stressed, that is usually when your habits and your choices take a nosedive.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But gratitude, an actual practice of gratitude, has the power to bring you back from that.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It has the power to center you and reconnect you with the woman that you want to be in the future.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you can start acting like her today.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is way more than just a feeling, it is actually a tool to help us with our health.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So when you feel gratitude for your body, you are more likely to take care of your body.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: When you appreciate how strong your body is, you're more likely to want to continue to strengthen your body through strength training.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you're thankful for your health, you're way more likely to fuel yourself well with protein and vegetables and complex carbohydrates.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as a reminder, your thoughts help to shape your actions.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if your thoughts are coming from a place of gratitude, you are way more likely to take the next best action towards creating your best life.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is why gratitude isn't a soft skill, it's actually like the foundation of what we are building here for the second part of our life.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say that this isn't just, again, like fluffy or feel good or spiritual.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's actual science to back this up.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are multiple, multiple studies that show people who consistently practice gratitude.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that word practice, right?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just a feeling, like it's an actual intentional, I am grateful for blank, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: If we do that, we will sleep better, we will have lower blood pressure, we will experience less stress, we will show reduced inflammation, we'll have a stronger immune system, we will report fewer physical symptoms, we will get injured less often.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not because gratitude magically fixes these things, but because gratitude calms your nervous system and a calm woman makes better choices.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is how gratitude helps you hit your health goals.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot create consistency from a stressed-out, overwhelmed state of being, but you can create consistency from a grounded, grateful state of being.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I want to take a moment and do a little exercise with you.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to get inside of your mind and your body and demonstrate to you the miracle that is your body.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I want you to take a deep breath.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Inhale, hold at the top, one more sip of air, and then exhale fully.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do that one more time.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this time, when you exhale, I want you to actually make an audible H A sound.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, again, deep breath.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hold at the top, one more sip of air, and then release your breath with sound.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to show you what just happened inside of your body.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your diaphragm contracted, your rib cage expanded, your lungs opened up like giant wings, oxygen rushed in, carbon dioxide flowed out, your parasympathetic nervous system, the one that is your rest and digest mode, it activated.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your heart rate slowed down, your blood pressure lowered, and all of that happened without you having to think about it or do anything.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: All you did was do what you normally do on autopilot, which is breathe.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your body orchestrates this miracle constantly throughout the day, and we don't even realize it.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: We don't even pause to be grateful for it, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your body is your one wild and precious, irreplaceable home that we get while we live here on Earth.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about what your body has actually done for you, I mean, we can't even really conceptualize life without a body.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, most of us don't appreciate our body.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about what your body has done for you so far, likely your body has walked you down an aisle, it has carried babies, it has hugged loved ones, it has walked miles, it has gone in planes and trains and automobiles to see the world.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It has grieved, it has celebrated, it has healed, your body lets you experience this visible world.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's your way of participating in life, and yet often we are so quick to criticize our body, to judge our body, to try to hide our body.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: We shame our body.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the truth: you cannot shame yourself into a healthier life.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can only love yourself into a healthier life.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what opens the door to that love is gratitude.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It softens the inner critic and it reconnects you with what matters most.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: It shifts your relationship with your body from punishment to partnership.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, we are doing this together, whether we like it or not.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share with you some simple gratitude practices that might help you if you're not currently in a good gratitude practice routine.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And let me just say, we are we all have room for improvement here.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many different ways to practice gratitude.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not an opportunity for you to feel guilty if you're not in a good practice or to feel like you have to do it any of the ways I'm about to mention.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Really, it just matters that you figure out a way to incorporate this into your life.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, one thing that I do right before I fall asleep, I mean, my head hits the pillow, and as I'm drifting off into sleep, I just think about what am I grateful for right now?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I am grateful for this man I'm snuggling with.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's amazing.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I am so grateful for this comfy bed.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have one of those eight sleep mattresses.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, every night I'm grateful for that thing.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: My side is on icy cold while my husband's side is on so hot.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just so grateful that um that we can afford that and that it helps me sleep well.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think about these things.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I go through like a little Rolodex in my brain, like, yep, grateful for that, grateful for that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And often when I'm practicing this gratitude, the negative stuff creeps in and I'm like, oh yep, that's stressful.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yep, that's stressful.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, I'm able to be like, okay, amidst the stress, amidst the chaos, amidst the tough conversations.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: What about that can I be grateful for right now?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: What about gratitude in motion?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So often when I'm walking or exercising, that is a perfect time for me to think about gratitude for my physical body, my legs that are strong that carry me, right?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: My arms that are strong that lift weights over my head so I can practice carrying my heavy suitcase and lifting it into the overhead bin, right?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Being grateful while my body is moving for this vehicle, this vessel that I get to experience life.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then one more daily practice that I would recommend is shifting from I have to to I get to.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of I have to eat healthy, it's like I get to fuel my body with lean proteins and complex carbs and colorful vegetables because I matter and because my health matters.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I get to do that instead of oh, I have to do that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: These are simple and these are powerful, and I really encourage you to find a place to plug these in with something you're already doing.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Think about think of it as a habit stack.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you're habit stacking your gratitude practice into your life with something that you're already currently doing.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Midlife is full of transitions.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So kids growing up, leaving the house, empty nesting, we've got aging parents.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our roles are shifting, our friend circles a lot of times are shifting.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Our hormones are going crazy.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Our schedules, you know, once they used to revolve all around our kids, and now it's like, wait, I got all this extra time.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do I do?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times our identity is shifting.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who am I now?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And gratitude within those shifts helps you to realize what you still have inside of that.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not removing the chaos.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not magic, but it helps you strengthen inside the chaos.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't silence the hard things.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things are hard.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it gives you the resilience to walk through the hard things.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude does not just automatically make everything better, but it does make you better.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: It roots you so that you can move through these seasons with grace.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share a couple of ways that gratitude has significantly shifted my experience of some tough times.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when my daughter turned 16, my eldest, she gave me a run for my money.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: She was rebelling in ways that I was not prepared for.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody tells you, like, all of a sudden you just wake up and you're like, Where'd where'd my sweet little baby go?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it happened.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, literally, she turned 16 and she got her driver's license and she got a job, and all of a sudden she was gone.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And she was pushing boundaries and making choices that scared the heck out of me.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she was pulling away from me emotionally.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I responded by trying to control her.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's all I felt like I knew how to do.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I tightened control, she would push back harder.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And every consequence I made made her grow even more distant.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so every like all of our attempts were pushing each other away.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was terrified.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I really didn't know if our relationship would survive that season.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: There were nights that I would just cry myself to sleep.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: There were days that I felt so helpless.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then there were times that I questioned everything I thought I knew about parenting.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you that inside of that, I mean, that was really like looking back, she's amazing now.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have a wonderful relationship, but I honestly did not know.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I was so grateful that I had women who have been there, done that, who are a little bit further along in the journey than I was, who spoke life into me and who consoled me and who made me feel like, okay, this is normal.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is part of parenting and this is part of letting go.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I believed them when they told me that it would be okay and that she would come back to me someday, and that someday this would be a distant memory.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But when I was in it, honestly, I really couldn't imagine that it would be okay.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I realized now I have such gratitude for that experience.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, I have gratitude that my daughter lived through that experience, but I also have extreme gratitude that there were women who were willing to pour into me and to hug me and let me know it was going to be okay.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: The next one I want to share is moving from Jacksonville to Seattle, literally moving my entire family from one bottom rightmost corner of the US to the topmost left corner of the US.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew one person when I moved here, and I barely knew her.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say that I was so scared and I felt so alone.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you move and you have a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old, and where you moved from sunshine and everybody being up in your business, because that's what Florida people do, to a place where it was literally raining and dreary for just days and weeks and even months on end.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we lived in a dense neighborhood, and yet I would not see anybody out.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when people came home, their garage doors immediately went down.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, what in the world?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And why do I feel so alone?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And now looking back, I am so grateful for that experience because it taught me resilience.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I grew closer to God, I grew much stronger in my faith.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a couple of key players I'm still friends with today who made a huge difference to me.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I am so grateful for that.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: One was my one friend that I knew when I moved here.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: She was a past client.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So she used to work out with us at Sunshine Park in Jacksonville.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she had moved with her family to Seattle just about six months prior.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And she was a go-getter.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: She had three kids as well, right around the same ages.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I called her up and I would be like, What are you doing today?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Well, today we're gonna go to the zoo and tomorrow to the Pacific Science Center, and the next day we're gonna go see the IMAX theater movie, and then we're gonna go to a bubble fest downtown.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yes, yes, yes, I will do all of that.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm desperate.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I need, I need friends, I need things to do.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: My kids need friends.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta get out of this house.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know anybody, I don't know where to go.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, so much gratitude for that friend and the and for the memories that we made in that precious, precious time.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Super grateful for that friend.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, and this one's more recent, um, so I'm still in it, but we've got some family drama and it is pretty challenging.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm further along in my gratitude practice, and so even though it has been gut-wrenching at times and frustrating a lot of the time, and there's so many unknowns, I am so grateful that I have a community, I have people who are checking on me, who are comforting me, supporting me, letting me vent.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: It means the world to me.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've also reconnected with two friends from long ago over my favorite app.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not familiar with Marco Polo, it is a wonderful, wonderful way to stay connected with your friends near and far.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have local friends I keep in touch with on that app, but it is like having a conversation, but you don't have to schedule a time to connect.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so with all of us and our busy schedules and our oftentimes different time zones from the people we're trying to connect with, it is a way to truly have a deep, heartfelt conversation face to face.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's little videos that you send back and forth.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And because of the family drama that I'm experiencing right now, I needed help, I needed support.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I needed to feel like I was not alone in this.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I reached out to two of my very close friends.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And over the course of the past year and a half or so, we have connected every day, every other day, through this.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, now we're all caught up on all the other parts of life as well.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: But there are definite silver linings in the good, the bad, and the ugly.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when we shift from gratitude as just a fluffy feeling and into a strategy, a practice to ground us in our health, in our habits, in our body, like looking for the things that we are grateful for.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: It not only shifts our mindset to find more proof of the things that are good, but it also becomes that anchor that brings us back to ourselves.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us focus on what matters and release what we cannot control.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was really interesting for me.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: As I was sharing those three different examples of finding gratitude inside of the chaos and the messiness, it occurred to me that one of the examples was 14 years ago when we first moved to this new place that we now call home.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was definitely a brand new baby at this whole idea of practicing gratitude.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely did not come naturally back then.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't automatic.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember my fear and loneliness screaming way louder than anything else.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: But because I'm still in the messy right now and I'm still practicing gratitude and learning right now intentionally, and I'm trying to be consistent with my gratitude practice, I can see how much stronger my gratitude muscle has become.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it occurs to me that it's just like any other habit that we're trying to establish.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: The more you practice it, the more natural it becomes.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that for me today, gratitude shows up much more quickly than it did many years ago.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's more instinctive, it's more automatic.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can redirect my thoughts so much faster now than I could 14 years ago.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if this gratitude practice feels hard for you right now, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: It just means you're beginning to build that muscle.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I share all of this is because gratitude has not taken away the pain or the chaos or the messiness, but it has changed me inside of those situations, those circumstances.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So before we wrap up today, I want to just reiterate everything that we have talked about.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, Thessalonians 5, 18, it says, give thanks in all circumstances, not for all circumstances, but in them.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that distinction really matters because gratitude is not saying everything's fine, it's all fine, we're just not going to talk about the hard stuff.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: What it does is it actually redirects your attention.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of drowning in what you can't control, you're focusing, you're shining a light on what you can.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And by focusing on gratitude, you are pulling out the silver lining of the messy and the imperfect.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And as Brene Brown says, joy isn't the result of a perfect life.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's the result of practicing gratitude in the messy middle of an imperfect one.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And science, as a reminder, tells us the same thing.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude shifts your neural networks.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: It trains your brain to scan for what's good instead of what's wrong.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: It moves you out of overwhelm and into possibility.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: It regulates your emotions and it lowers stress and it puts your whole body in a state where healthy choices are actually doable because you're not in fight or flight.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're actually in rest and digest more often than not.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly why gratitude supports your health journey in midlife.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because when your mind is grounded, your habits are able to follow.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: When your focus shifts, your identity starts to shift.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when your identity starts to shift, your whole life begins to change.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are listening and thinking, I want to feel grounded, I want to feel in control of my habits, I want to feel consistent, even in the chaos, then that is exactly the foundation that I build with my one-on-one coaching clients.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: We simplify the plan, we focus on what you can control, we create habits that actually fit into your real life, and we build a system that you can rely on in every season.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have a few openings right now, and if this is resonating with you and you're just curious, I would love to invite you to click the link in the show notes to learn more and apply.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to support you in this season.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, friend, for spending this time with me today.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I am super grateful for you.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, progress over perfection and consistency over intensity every time.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep growing, keep glowing, and bye for now.