The Attitude Of Gratitude

What? life isn't supposed to suck? Get out of here. Life is supposed to be good for me? I don't think so. Truth? Did you know that you have the power to create your own reality? True? Did you know that you can live the life that you've always desired? Holy. That's right. And that's why we're here. Are you ready, unless you're on Joy overload, you've come to the right place, it's time to get out of your own way and start creating more of what you want, and less of what you don't end up with the excuses. I'm your host, Jani Roberts. Let's do this.

Welcome, everyone, so happy to be here. And in case no one has told you recently, I just want to tell you, how grateful I am for you. And gratitude is what we are going to focus on today. And again, I just want to start with what a privilege it is to be able to connect with you through this podcast. And really, we talked about connection last week, and really feel that gratitude for our connection. Gratitude is really quality of being thankful. It's it's that readiness, when you're you're ready to show appreciation for fill in the blank, and return. That that gratitude with kindness. So when when someone expresses, like I am doing right now, my gratitude for you, you naturally feel better, who who doesn't feel better, raise their own personal energy, when they give and receive gratitude. It's just not possible. It moves us toward kindness. When we appreciate something, we really recognize that we enjoy it, we enjoy it, right? It's, it's that good quality. It's a full understanding, all encompassing feeling. And when we're thankful, we feel pleased, we feel relieved, it's really an expression. Thankfulness is an expression of gratitude and a relief. So gratitude really means thank you, and I appreciate you. And you think about the fact that, you know, gratitude rhymes with attitude. It's not a coincidence, right? When you feel gratitude, you are really pleased by what someone did for you, or pleased by the results of that or have a situation of sorts, perhaps feeling gratitude for something you've done for yourself, or to concept. Giving yourself that feeling of I really appreciate me, I feel gratitude toward myself. So how do we experience more gratitude? How do we express more gratitude? Well, first of all, we want to recognize what we have to feel gratitude for. So the first step is recognizing, in my opinion, everything's going to be okay. Everything really is working out even when it feels again, like that shitshow we have to recognize that more things are working than are not working. And I use this analogy a lot. But it's it I know you can you get it immediately. It's when you wake up feeling like a million bucks, and everything's going fine. And then all of a sudden, you're like I'm getting a cold, or you step off that curb and twist your ankle. Are you spending those few moments in the morning in that state of appreciation? Recognizing all that is working? Or are you waking up and instantly focusing on what's not working? So recognition, you want to feel more gratitude, you want to feel more grateful for everything in your life and you want others to feel more gratitude for you, then step into your power and recognize that you're going to be okay, you're doing the best you can and that is enough. So, the second step then is acknowledgement right, acknowledging that you are going to be okay. And that you are doing the best that you can, can do and so are others even I know even when it doesn't appear to be so and then appreciate that. So recognize it acknowledge it and appreciate it, all of it.

Bottom line, when we're in a place of gratitude, we are going to experience more joy. We've, we've looked at the research, and it is strongly and consistently, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with having more joy in one's life. So you're going to feel more of those positive, good feeling feelings and emotions, you're going to bask more in what is working, you're going to feel your body respond to that energy, you're going to find yourself allowing things to just kind of roll off your back. And you're going to find that your relationships are more sound, just, you're not going to be bothered by a lot of the bullshit anymore, when you are sitting in that, that place of gratitude. So we want to recognize that we're choosing this. And we want to recognize that we can look at what's happening around us. And release what we can't control and embrace what is working. Right. So when is the last time that you stopped to think about what you're grateful for? I'm not trying to attach any guilt to this. It's just a question. When's the last time you just sat for five minutes and thought about what you're grateful for? I'll tell you what, do it right now. Pause this set a five minute timer on your phone, Apple, watch, whatever. And do it. Get a pen and paper, type it into your phone, I don't care. But press the buttons. Make the strokes write it down. It's to me way more powerful when you're actually writing. Five minutes, five minutes can be a long time. I want you to get to the point where you're like five minutes, I'll never be able to write it all down in five minutes. Exactly. Yeah. So if you as you do this exercise. If you find yourself struggling, note to self, you're a little out of practice paying attention to what is working, that's okay. Because this little exercise is going to spin that for you. So I'm pausing, you're pausing. Go get it done. And now we're back. How did it go? It should be fun. It should be really fun. So how did you go about it? How did you did you have to dig deep? Was it right on the surface? Did it start out on the surface? And then three minutes? And it was like, what else is there? I'm grateful for pizza? You know, like have fun with this? Yeah. This is one of the most powerful ways to experience more joy. Why wouldn't you do that? Why wouldn't we take the time that we describe in the living and alignment course and spend that 15 minutes every morning? In that state of appreciation? Why wouldn't we do that? Why wouldn't we jot those things down in our journal? It doesn't mean we have to ignore what's not working, we want to do that as well. We want to acknowledge the contrast because there's a lot for us to learn there. But let's start with appreciation. Because then we're going to end there. If we start with what's not working, we're probably going to get stuck. And we're going to end there. That's a choice. So what are the benefits of doing this? If I if I can't just bribe you on my with my own experience of how well it works. What um, what are the benefits? Okay, we talked about the joy. And I'm not making it up. There's a ton of research around this. If you want to increase your joy, and reduce the feelings of depression and anxiety, resentment, envy, whatever it is, fear regret. You want to reduce that and experience more joy, then you pay more attention and express more gratitude for what is working in your life on a daily basis. Heck on a moment to moment basis. Now, when things are going well it's really easy Feel grateful, isn't it? And when they're not a

that's the most important time to acknowledge what's working, when things feel like they're not acknowledge it. I'm worried I'm concerned. Okay, fair enough. I am in a human experience. You're, I'm connecting. We talked about this last time, remember, I'm connecting to myself. So I want to acknowledge how I'm feeling, hey, I can justify this anger, no worries. I'm sure you can. And we want to acknowledge that we want to feel that out. But we also want to embrace it. And step back and look at what is there for me to learn, even if what I need to learn is, you know what the pattern is there, this relationship does not serve me, all this stuff that I'm not feeling gratitude for, is an indicator that contrast is an indicator to move on. write a new story. And it's going to start with gratitude. Being thankful for what it is that we have in the moment. It will help us to regulate our emotions. Oh, so much better. And it is foundational, right? Managing these emotions and feelings. This is essential if you want to manage your stress. Yep. And I know you have some, because we all do. And I don't know about you. But sometimes it's It's scary how much stress there is. And it's scary. How how that vast the amount of what is not working does sometimes appear to be. But all you got to do is walk outside step into the woods. And go whoa, there's way more working. That is not. There's all kinds of magic going on all day. What do I want to look at? If I can focus on the gratitude and what is what I feel truly appreciative and grateful thankful for. I am going to experience less stress, I am going to be more joyful, checking in people checking in. You want to have higher self esteem, still enjoy. Studying gratitude telling you this works. But you got to do the work. No one can do it for us, we have to do the work. We can't do it for our kids, or anyone else that we love. They have to do their own work, we have to do our own work. And this is the work. We had a conversation about resilience. And this comes up a lot. But a couple calls a couple of podcasts ago we did this. And we talked about our mental well being. And resilience is a key component of that. And gratitude plays a huge role in our ability to be resilient, and our ability to focus on what is working and overcome any trauma that we have experienced in our lives. There's been a lot of research around this with war veterans, for example, an obvious traumatic experience. I don't know about you, but the way the world is rolling right now I feel like I'm at war sometimes. I guess what I really should say is I used to, I don't so much anymore, but it will pop up. If I look too long at what is not working, it will pop up. And I quickly moved to what is working quickly. Like I know better than to even go there but again takes practice. So if you're sitting in trauma, take baby steps. Because what you are grateful for will help you kind of pull yourself out of that trauma or at least begin to neutralize that energy. So you can quiet your mind. And when you quiet your mind. You can truly quiet your mind. Your body can heal because you and your mind can heal. I mean think about it. When you're in that struggle of trauma you don't Sleep well, you may or may not make the best choices around food.

Understandable, but hey, the body the mind have to rest must rest. How many sleepless nights have you had. And let me tell you insomnia, and I, we were close at one time and it was brutal, absolutely brutal on my mind as well as my body. So living in that more powerful place of gratitude is going to help us improve our rest. There's nothing like it right when you are just in a place of joy and peace. And you crawl under the covers, and you curl up and you lay your head on that pillow. And it's just easy to drift off. Because there isn't all that flippin noise. All that worry, all that stress. Yeah, you could take that list that you just worked on, of all those things that you feel grateful for and read that right before you go go to bed. Or take a power nap during the day read that take a power nap for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, game changer. Journal, release, what is not working, absorb what is working. This will clear the mind. And again, bring that piece in that rest. Which heals. This is how much power we have. We can do the work, we can do the healing, we can do that. We don't necessarily have to reach outside. And hey, if we're working, let's say with physicians and that kind of thing. Yeah, let them do what they do. But you do your work also enhance what they are doing. By always moving into that space before you know having to subject yourself to whatever it is that you feel you need to do. With practitioners of sorts. Yeah. Love it. Absolutely love it, it is truly a ripple effect. I believe that we actually become how can I say this more attractive? When we are in this place of gratitude or energy is like, is more attractive people want to be around us? What do you think? I can't tell you. Actually, just recently, I was I was gonna say how many times I've not been fit to be around. And recently I had a situation have happened that was traumatic. And, you know, some of my family members checked in, do you want me to come? Is there anything we can do. And I immediately said, I'm not fit to be around right now. I just needed to go apart and do my work. I said, Thank you so much. I love that they were expressing that gratitude. Like they really appreciated what I was going through, and just put that out there. But then they just gave me my space to do what I needed to do. And that was my work. But I really wasn't fit to be around. There wasn't any conversation I wanted to have, I just needed to deal with what I needed to deal with. And because of this work, I was able to communicate that and it made me it also helped me to recognize that this work has made me manage myself from a higher place from a place of love instead of fear and anger and frustration. I felt strong enough, I felt resilient enough. I felt like I'm gonna get through it. But right now, I am in the middle of hell. And I know I'm gonna get through it, but I just need to do what I need to do. But I didn't offend anyone. I was grateful for them. I acknowledged that at that their willingness to help me helped me. It really did help me even though we didn't physically come together. And I was able to manage it. Did I crush it? I would say not at all. But I did it. I got through it and did what I had to do. And it's enough and then I didn't judge myself. I could have done that. But I shouldn't have done that, too. Did it? No, I didn't do that. I just said do what you need to do. gave myself that permission. Yeah. There was definitely some self love there. There is a little bit of beating up as well. But not much. Not much. Shit happens. You know what isn't like I had, I was poorly intended.

Just sharing, hoping this will help you know that you're not the only one. Never Alone in it. But sometimes you got to do the work alone. And maybe if I had invited them in to help me, maybe it would have went differently. But in the moment, that was the best I can do. And I was okay with that. It really created space for patients. I was very patient with them. I wasn't short with them at all. And I said, Thank you. Even though I was very emotional, and I was more patient with myself, because like I said, I gave myself the space to do what I needed to do without judgment. That's a big deal for me, I don't know about you.

This brings us to a place where we are able to find more meaning in this work. Which then creates more passion. More excitement enhances intention and desire for why we're here. This is powerful. So I hope you will take that little gratitude practice of making that list for five minutes and embrace that on a regular basis. And if you haven't gotten started with the course check it out. If you need support, we're here for me. If you already have a practice, great, keep on doing what's working for you. But if you don't check it out. It's time to live in gratitude. Let's see wake up pissed off, wake up grateful wake up in a state of panic, wake up in a state of appreciation. Wake up, knowing that my life is a shit show or wake up knowing that all as well in my world, and I will be okay. Everything is going to be okay. He really is. So living gratitude. Embrace it. Have it for breakfast. It's a choice. Until next time, I will continue to be grateful for you. We will talk again soon everyone nothing but love as always. Peace