Ep #7: Practicing Gratitude

I’m Mikki Gardner, and this is the Co-Parenting with Confidence podcast, episode number seven, Practicing Gratitude. Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to be. My name’s Mikki Gardner. I’m a Certified Life and Conscious Parenting Coach, with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I’m here to help you do the same. If you’re ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well, get ready and let’s dive into today’s episode. Hello, friends. I’m so glad that we’re back together and that we are onto our next episode. So, this time of year, at least for me here—I’m in the United States—and so, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. And this is the time of year where it’s all about gratitude. It’s the season of gratitude. We hear a lot about cultivating an attitude of gratitude, spending time being grateful. I’m sure you all have heard this, and it seems like a very wonderful time of year. And it is. But I want to talk about gratitude, not just as a season of time that we think about, but actually a practice—a way of seeing the world as a way to help us heal, move forward, and empower ourselves to become the mom and the woman that we want to be. I heard Oprah once say that the biggest shift that she’s ever made in her life was having a daily gratitude practice. And I didn’t really understand this until I started to study and actually practice gratitude, and I saw the same shifts in my own life. It is a profound opportunity, and this is what I want to talk about and dive into in this episode. There are some common misconceptions, I think, that people think about when they think about gratitude—that it’s this obligatory thing that we do during the holiday season. Or it’s a positive thinking tool to help us ignore negative thinking. Or it’s just thinking positive—just think happy thoughts, and everything will be okay. This isn’t what gratitude is. What I want to do is dive into what gratitude really is and how we can use it to our advantage. So, the first thing we want to do is define it, and whenever I have a question that I want answered, I go to the Googles. So, Google says that gratitude is a noun, and it defines it as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” And I love this definition. It just kind of makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. But there’s a lot more research coming out about gratitude and the power of gratitude, and so I really wanted to dive into that today. The first time that I really started to understand, study, and practice gratitude was in positive psychology class. Positive psychology research shows that gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions; relish in the good experiences in their life; improve their health; deal with adversity; and build stronger, more loving relationships. So, why wouldn’t we want to be more grateful, right? One of my favorite gratitude researchers—and, honestly, humans—is Brené Brown. She’s a world-renowned shame researcher, and she does a ton of research on gratitude and joy. And so, there are three powerful patterns that she has found in her exhaustive research on joy and gratitude, and I wanted to talk about them as a way to start this episode. So, number one: she found that, without exception, every person she interviewed who described living a joyful life or described themselves as joyful actively practiced gratitude and attributed their joy to gratitude. The second pattern that she saw is both joy and gratitude were described as spiritual practices that were bound to a belief in human interconnectedness and a power greater than ourselves. The third pattern that she found was that people were quick to point out the difference between happiness and joy, as being the difference between a human emotion that’s connected to circumstances and a spiritual way of engaging in the world that is connected to practicing gratitude. So, these are three powerful patterns that she noted, and I found those in The Gifts of Imperfection, one of her most beautiful books. If you haven’t read that, I strongly recommend that you do. So, getting back to it. So, what can we learn from all of this? Well, one thing that I took away is that happiness is more of a transient emotion—that is connected to the circumstances in our life. And gratitude is a spiritual belief—a mindset or a lens from which we start to see our circumstances. And so, having a practice of gratitude really does help us navigate the inevitable hard times that we are going to experience and that maybe you’re experiencing now. And when we do have that practice of gratitude over time, it actually deepens our joy in the quote-unquote “good times.” Gratitude is actually the antidote to the things that mess us up. You can’t be angry and grateful simultaneously. You can’t be fearful and grateful at the same time. So, gratitude is the solution to both anger and fear. And instead of just acting grateful, it’s about looking for specific situations that we’re grateful for, both big and little, every single day and stepping into those moments, learning how to experience them on purpose. The more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract things to be grateful for. And so, those of you listening who might be having a difficult time—maybe feeling really anxious, maybe in a lot of fear or loss from the divorce, or maybe being without your kids for the holidays, or from conflict—all of these times breed scarcity. When we are afraid to lose what we love most, we are in a place of scarcity. And we hate that there are no guarantees. And for those of us that are in this time, have experienced the divorce, are experiencing the loss, we already know that the worst can happen, and then we’re left to clean up that mess. And often, our brains trick us into thinking that if we aren’t focused on gratitude and we’re not feeling the joy, that we’re somehow keeping ourselves away from more pain. We think that there’s no way out of the pain, that we’re just feeling what we’re feeling and that we’re stuck there. That scarcity convinces us that we are desperately stuck there. And we try to just kind of ignore or get away so that we don’t feel more of it, we don’t lose more, and we don’t feel more “not enough.” But none of this is true. That’s the thing that I want you to know first and foremost today. And that by practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to feel joy on purpose, even in the tiniest of moments, those are the two things that will actually move us towards healing, and that it will help us sustain ourselves through the hard times. We all want to feel better. We all want to be happy. We’re actually starving for joy, for more presence, for more contentedness, for more connection. And often, a lot of this is because we are lacking gratitude for what is present. And so, when we’re talking about scarcity, addressing scarcity doesn’t mean that we just go searching for abundance or just switch to happy thoughts—that misconception I mentioned earlier. But it’s deciding on purpose to choose a mindset of sufficiency. So, what is sufficiency? Sufficiency, according to Lynne Twist—she’s the author of The Soul of Money—says that sufficiency is “an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.” Sufficiency really resides in all of us. Why? Because are all divinely made. We are all connected from the same source and the same energy, which is love. We are each perfectly enough because we were made in the energy of love. Sufficiency is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of enoughness. And when we choose that enoughness, we create a lens from which we see all of our circumstances. By choosing a mindset of sufficiency, we then use gratitude to unlock the fullness of life by turning what we have into enough, and then even more than that. I’m going to give another Oprah quote here because she has so many good ones about this. But she said, “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” And this is really choosing that sufficiency. It’s letting what you have be enough. It’s choosing to find sufficiency and enoughness on purpose. Now, if you’re like me, you might not be feeling enough. But that is a belief that we choose and a muscle that we build by stepping into it, one decision at a time. And I will tell you from personal experience, I actually had to choose this belief and practice it before I actually believed it. I had to learn how to believe in enough. I had to learn to find the evidence that I was enough. I had to learn to step into it, even when all the signs pointed to me not being enough. And I am guessing that maybe a couple of you out there can relate. You know, especially after divorce, we find all the evidence of how we weren’t enough—how we weren’t enough to keep the marriage together, how we aren’t enough to keep the family the way that we wanted it. And it really goes to your core of not feeling enough. And then we start to build that evidence over time, just proving over and over and over again that we’re not enough. But it’s simply not true. I know this about myself, and I know this about you. And here’s the thing that I found so interesting, is I was listening—and I talked about this in episode one—but I saw the Brené Brown TED Talk, and she had an image of a woman with “I am enough.” tattooed across her chest. And I thought it was laughable. Laughable that someone could even contemplate that they thought that. “How egotistical. How out of touch must be,” I thought. But here’s the thing: she wasn’t. She was tapped into who she was, in her core, as a human who was given this life on this earth. And when we’re able to step into that enoughness, when we’re able to practice and step into sufficiency, that enoughness becomes more. And we use the gratitude to build it. I’ve deepened my faith and my knowledge into who I am in my core and who every human is—that whole, worthy, and more than enough person. Our job in this life is to find our way back to that place of knowing, and we do that through gratitude—gratitude for what we are, gratitude for what we have available today, gratitude for what is yet to be. It’s that faith. And so, as always, I really want to offer you actionable ways to incorporate these concepts into your life. And so, with Thanksgiving tomorrow and the holiday season approaching, I want to challenge you to step into a practice of gratitude. Maybe just from today till the end of the year. It’s not that long, and if you just do it a little bit every day, you build that muscle. It’s like we can’t get the big muscley arms unless we lift the weights. We can’t run the marathon unless we train—you know, walking a little bit here, then a little jog, then a longer and longer run. And so, that’s what we’re going to do with gratitude. So, here are my three favorite ways to practice gratitude—the ones that I use in my life and the ones that I teach my clients. The first one is a morning practice. Each morning, when I wake up, the first thing that I do is I state out loud to myself three things that I’m grateful for. This helps me create a mindset of sufficiency from the moment my eyes open. It connects me to the enoughness. It connects me to what is available and starts putting my mind to work, looking for that. I happen to love the five-minute journal. I’ve used it for years. I’ll put a link in the show notes to it. I actually gift it to each and every one of my clients when they start with me because it’s so important to, daily, take the time to practice this gratitude—to reflect on it and to build that muscle. The second practice that I really love is more for in the moment. This is when I might be flooded with fear or scarcity. I try to call forward sufficiency by acknowledging the fear and then transforming it into gratitude. So, out loud—again, we want to actually hear ourselves say these things—I will state what I’m saying. I might say something like, “I’m feeling really vulnerable and alone right now, and that’s okay. And I’m so grateful for (blank).” In those moments when my son—he goes to his dad’s house maybe for Thanksgiving or Christmas—I will say to myself, “I am feeling vulnerable and alone, and that’s okay. And I’m so grateful for the time that I do get to spend with him.” Or “I’m so grateful that he’s building memories with his father.” This turns my attention towards what is enough and increases my capability to feel joy in that moment, maybe in a tiny, tiniest way, but also going forward. And then the third thing is called a gratitude rampage. I know it sounds ridiculous. I thought it was ridiculous too. So, this is kind of a silly one, but I learned it in positive psychology class. And we used to actually practice it on lunch breaks, and I guarantee you we all came back feeling amazing and laughing a lot. But when you’re feeling angry or conflicted or sad, or maybe you have two minutes as you’re walking from one meeting to the next, but whatever it is, make a decision to find as many things you can be grateful for in two minutes. It’s like rapid-fire gratitude. So, as you’re walking or as you’re moving, you just spend that time finding things that you’re grateful for. And if you’re anything like me, you’re going to struggle. We’ll get two or three in, and then we look around, “I don’t know…” Nothing’s gone wrong here. Our brain just isn’t used to doing this. So, we actually have to readdress it and say, “What else? What else? What else?” Or “Why?” Why do you find that gratitude? What else are you grateful for? And just keep stretching that gratitude muscle. If you commit to doing one of these three things—or there are so many others. Ask the Googles. So many ways to practice gratitude. But I promise you that if you commit to this, over time, you will strengthen your gratitude muscle. You will step more into a mindset of sufficiency. And you will feel better. So, that’s the show that I have for you today. My hope is that I’ve given you some hope and some ideas to move yourself forward into that space of a little more joy, a little more healing, and definitely a little more gratitude. And for all of those of you who are in the States and celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, whether you’re alone or together or surrounded, just know that you are loved, you are worthy, and you are enough exactly as you are. Find ways to be grateful and find ways to show gratitude towards others. It really makes us all feel better. So, I’d love to hear from you what you’re grateful for. Please leave it in the comments and tell me at least one thing that you’re grateful for, and I will respond back to you. If you want to hear about any of the free workshops that I’m running, resources I have, or ways to work with me, please just go to my website, www.MikkiGardner.com, and sign up for my newsletter. You’ll get a weekly newsletter from me. I do Monday co-parenting tips, and then I’m always telling you about upcoming free workshops and resources that I have for you. So, that’s what I have. I’m sending you all a ton of gratitude because I am so grateful that we are here together. I’ll see you next week, and in the meantime, take care of you and practice building that gratitude muscle. To celebrate the launch of this show, I’m going to be giving away $75 Amazon gift cards to three lucky listeners who follow, rate, and review the show. I want to give you something that brightens your day, like subscribing and reviewing to this podcast brightens mine. And it doesn’t have to be a five-star review, although I sure would love that, but I want your honest feedback so that I can create a show that provides so much value to you, because that’s why I’m doing this. So, please visit CoParentingwithConfidence.com/PodcastLaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. I’ll be announcing the winners on a show in an upcoming episode. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I know there are a million other things that you could be doing, and I’m so grateful that you chose to be here with me. So, take care of yourself, and I’ll see you next week. Thanks for listening to Co-Parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit CoParentingwithConfidence.com. I’ll see you next week.