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The Glad Game: What Else Is True? · The Seed Project

• 0:01
  Hey, friend.
• 0:02
  Welcome to Sunday Seed.
• 0:03
  I'm Charlotte Edwards, and I believe small seeds create big impact.
• 0:08
  Each week, we'll plant one.
• 0:10
  Let's dig in Growing up, one of my favorite movies was Pollyanna, the old one with Hayley Mills.
• 0:20
  And if you've seen it, you probably remember the glad game.
• 0:23
  Pollyanna's father taught her to play it.
• 0:26
  Whenever something happened that she didn't like, she would try to find something in the situation that she could be glad about.
• 0:33
  My mom got my sister and I to play the glad game too.
• 0:38
  I remember coming home from school one day upset because I'd been left out by some friends, and my mom would remind me to play the glad game.
• 0:47
  I might have been left out at school, and that did hurt, but I also had friends in the neighborhood who wanted to play with me.
• 0:55
  I could be disappointed about one thing and grateful for another.
• 1:00
  At the time, I didn't think much about it.
• 1:02
  It was just something that we did And now, I believe somewhere along the way, Pollyanna got a bad rap.
• 1:13
  Calling someone a Pollyanna became an insult.
• 1:17
  Means you're naive or you're looking through the world through rose-colored glasses or ignoring reality.
• 1:24
  But if you remember the movie, Pollyanna's life wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows.
• 1:30
  She was an orphan.
• 1:31
  She lost both her parents and was sent to live with her wealthy aunt, who really wasn't exactly known for being warm and affectionate.
• 1:40
  And yet, here was this little girl looking for things to be glad about.
• 1:45
  She wasn't playing the glad game because her life was easy.
• 1:49
  She was playing it in the middle of a life that had already handed her some pretty hard things.
• 1:56
  And I think that's what we've confused looking for the good with pretending that the bad doesn't exist.
• 2:02
  Those are two very different things I get why people can be skeptical of positivity.
• 2:09
  We've all heard someone try to put a positive spin on something that genuinely hurts.
• 2:14
  Nobody wants to be told to look on the bright side when they're going through something awful.
• 2:20
  But the GLAD game was never about denying what was happening.
• 2:24
  It was about finding something worth appreciating in the middle of it When my son was in the NICU, I certainly wasn't glad he was there.
• 2:34
  He'd been born at 25 weeks, and we were facing things no parent ever wanted to face.
• 2:41
  But I remember how much joy there could be in the smallest moments.
• 2:46
  He'd gain a couple grams, or he'd wrap his tiny hand around my finger, and those were things worth celebrating.
• 2:55
  I didn't have to choose between being scared and being grateful.
• 2:59
  Both were part of the situation that we were living.
• 3:05
  And I think that's something that we can easily forget.
• 3:07
  We can get so focused on one part of an experience that we stop noticing anything else There's actually something interesting about how our brains pay attention.
• 3:18
  We can't consciously notice everything around us, so our brains are constantly filtering information.
• 3:25
  What becomes important to us tends to stand out more.
• 3:29
  Think about when you buy a new car and suddenly you start seeing the same car everywhere.
• 3:34
  Those cars were probably there all along, but now you're actually noticing them I think the glad game works a little like that.
• 3:43
  When we make a habit of looking for things to be glad about, we give those things more of our attention.
• 3:49
  And let's face it, the things that can go wrong are usually pretty good at getting our attention without any help from us I know how easily one frustrating conversation or email can consume my thoughts.
• 4:02
  I can replay it over and over, thinking about what was said, what should I have said, what do I actually wish that I would have said?
• 4:11
  And before I know it, I've allowed that one thing to take over my entire day.
• 4:16
  Meanwhile, I've practically forgotten what a great morning I had, enjoying my coffee, taking a walk with Petey and George, enjoying the cooler mornings, and that's my favorite way to start the day.
• 4:30
  Both things happened that day, but I can look back at how much attention I'd given to one compared to the other.
• 4:37
  And that's why I love the question, what else is true?
• 4:42
  It doesn't ask us to change what happened or pretend we feel differently about it.
• 4:46
  It just simply reminds us that there might be more to the picture that gets our attention right now.
• 4:54
  I don't believe every difficult experience needs a positive spin.
• 4:58
  There are things in life that are just plain hard, and we don't have to find some purpose behind everything that happens.
• 5:05
  But I also don't want the hard things in my life to become all I see.
• 5:10
  There's an awful lot of life happening around us, and I hate to miss the good parts because I'm so focused on what isn't going the way I planned.
• 5:19
  So perhaps Pollyanna deserves a little more credit than we've given her.
• 5:24
  She wasn't naive because she looked for something to be glad about.
• 5:28
  She just understood that what was wrong didn't have to be the only thing that she noticed, and that's a pretty good way to look at life.
• 5:37
  So the next time something has your attention, especially something difficult, there's a question worth remembering.
• 5:44
  What else is true?
• 5:46
  Because the hard thing may be true, but it doesn't have to be the only thing that you see.
• 5:53
  That's your seed.
• 5:55
  Now go plant something good