Unleashing the Transformative Power of Gratitude

Have you ever wondered how gratitude can completely alter your perspective on life and arm you with resilience in the face of adversity? Join me, Life Coach Jen, to unlock the transformative power of gratitude. This episode is designed to help you master the art of being thankful, not just when the sun shines but even during turbulent storms. You'll learn how practicing gratitude can make sense of your past, bring tranquility to your present, and carve a hopeful path for your future. We will also explore some tactical ways to build a grateful mindset, and how this shift in attitude can remarkably enhance your relationships and overall life perspective.

In those moments when life is throwing curveballs your way, finding the silver lining might seem like an uphill battle. But, what if we could find gratitude even in the toughest of times? As we delve deeper into the episode, we will unmask the possibility of discovering thankfulness amidst trials. I'll share some personal anecdotes and insights on how adversity can carve out room for us to cultivate self-love and appreciation for others. We will also unravel how acknowledging even the minutest things can dramatically uplift our spirits and usher peace into our lives. This heart-to-heart conversation is packed with personal stories and practical advice on infusing more gratitude into your life. Get ready for a perspective shift!

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My website is www.lifecoachjen.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I'm Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I'm a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing senna. A home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself and your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life's greatest challenges. Hey friends, welcome to today's podcast and the time of year it is.

Speaker 1: 0:46

I always think of gratitude and we have a lot to be grateful for. I have a lot to be grateful for. I hope you have a lot to be grateful for, and I think sometimes it's super easy to get so caught up in our own problems, in our own world and what's going on and just get doom and gloom. Possibly Maybe you're always someone that's super grateful and that's awesome, but for some of us we sometimes forget. It's like we're complaining and we're uncomfortable and this didn't work out and that didn't work out. But we can forget to be grateful and I think if you can master gratitude in your life, especially when hard things are happening.

Speaker 1: 1:35

I wanted to read a quote by Melody Beatty. No idea who that is, but anyways, I liked it, found it on Pinterest. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow, and I loved that because it talks about our past. There's lots of things in our past that we can be grateful for, and I would challenge you if you think because I've been experiencing this like, oh, why did I wait so long to get divorced? Or all these, maybe like getting mad at myself for past choices, but finding the gratitude in them, like, oh, my gosh, of course I waited, so I had my four amazing kids, or I was able to do this or that and so find things, especially if you're feeling negative about your past. What is good about it? Why are you grateful? What did you learn? There's so many things that you can be grateful for, and just it might take you a second to think about it, but I think it can be really empowering and really change your view of your past. And then, of course, present. I think a lot of us get challenged living in the present and stay in tune.

Speaker 1: 3:00

What are you grateful for about today? What happened today? And I think, as you go about your day and you're thinking about it. You're gonna start noticing little things like, oh my gosh, that person smiled at me. That was so nice. I'm gonna smile at someone else. Or they opened my door for me. Or, oh my goodness, my child came and gave me a hug and it just felt really good. So, really, if we can find gratitude in our today, that can also be a beautiful experience.

Speaker 1: 3:34

And then, what are you grateful for in the future? What is your now self going to do so that your future self will be like thank you for doing that. And so it might make us rethink some of our choices, some of our decisions, how we spend our money, what we're doing in our life right now. If we're doing things that maybe don't feel 100% authentic to our self, how can we stop that? How can we?

Speaker 1: 4:05

I always think about this with food. Like, is my future self going to appreciate the fact that I ate the entire bag of chips or cookies or whatever? Probably not. They're gonna regret it. So like, okay, maybe that helps. You say, okay, I'm gonna only have one cookie or whatever. So what are you grateful for for your near future? What do you want to see in your future and how are you gonna get there Anyway? So I just like the idea of gratitude with our past, present and future. So gratitude we all know and we've heard this, but it's just a reminder that helps people feel more positive, have more positive emotions, helps them remember our good experiences, it's great for your health, helps you deal with adversity and it helps you build strong relationships, and I'm sure there's a lot of other things that gratitude does, but those are just some that I thought about.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Gratitude helps you look outward instead of inward. Now, a lot of times in what I'm teaching, especially in my coaching practice, we wanna focus on ourselves and instead of other people, because we unfortunately know it's impossible to change someone else, even though we really want to. So for those of you still trying to change your husband or your wife or your kids, like stop now, it's not gonna work. So instead of focusing on them, we need to focus inward and how we can change us. But in gratitude, I think it's important to look outward. You can be grateful for things that you're doing, but looking outside of yourself to find the power of what you're grateful for. So I think it's kind of just a shift, a time then when it's okay to look outward and it's actually gonna be super beneficial.

Speaker 1: 5:59

And I loved President Monson. He was a profit, former profit in my church that I belong to and he always said cultivate. And he gave a talk about this cultivate, an attitude of gratitude, and I think it's really a practice. It's like you're strengthening your muscle of gratitude and it is an attitude If you know people that are super positive and just always grateful for things and say thank you and are appreciative, like I think we wanna be around those type of people. So how can you implement that in your life, especially if you aren't doing it now and I get sometimes things are challenging and you think, oh my gosh, like I don't feel, like I have anything to be grateful for. But I promise, if you can focus on gratitude, especially during those times when someone dies, when you've experienced betrayal, when you've gotten divorced, when you have an illness, when you feel depressed, when you have anxiety, those are the times that I feel are even more important to focus on gratitude. So if you don't have this practice, I just would challenge you and you don't have to write like 10 things or five things or three things, and if you don't wanna write it at night, that's fine, but think it in your mind like what am I grateful? You have to be intentional with it.

Speaker 1: 7:31

And how I decided to talk about this. I was looking through some old journals and this journal I found from last year. Literally, it starts from the day before my divorce was finalized. So I'd already filed for divorce, and I'm just gonna share some things that I wrote that I was grateful for. In this journal. I decided to say things that I was just grateful for in general, like my kids, running water I'm always grateful for that my mom and dad, my brothers, heated floors was what I put. I don't have heated floors anymore, but I was grateful for them when I used to have them, anyways. And then I decided to also, and I did 12 things that were just like regular things that were grateful for it, and then I did 13 things of why I was grateful for my divorce. That was hard, I'm like, because it was really took me to think a lot, and so I'm just gonna share some of them.

Speaker 1: 8:37

That I said gave me courage, helped me face my fears, step out of my comfort zone. It was a challenge connect with new friends, connect with old friends, increase my faith, become who God intended me to be, become stronger, reconnect with my kids, see what I can do, have empathy towards others. So, just if you're going through some trial, just wanna challenge you to consider what about that hard event could you be grateful for? Some other ones I said were second chances. I'm reinvent myself, find myself I felt lost, obviously. Figure out who I want to be I said that already. Make my own decisions, have freedom, find out who I am another one, independence, anyways.

Speaker 1: 9:50

So, as you're, this time of year, if you are struggling, if you've experienced betrayal, if you're experiencing a divorce, if you're someone that you love has died, I just wanna challenge you to not only say the things like your friends, your bed, medicine. I'm always grateful for toilets, because I've lived in third world countries and they don't always have the best toilets, things like that, all the typical things that you're gonna say. Right, I would challenge you to think about how is this trial giving me space? What am I grateful for? What is it teaching me? And I just think your whole outlook on your trial could really be lifted and your thought about it could actually bring you healing and closure and peace.

Speaker 1: 10:44

And so, at this time of year, as we're thinking about gratitude, I would just challenge you to do that, and just so you know, I'm very grateful for everyone that listens to my podcast. I'm grateful for all my family and friends for supporting me in the journey of my divorce and supporting my children. My favorite saying is love always is the answer, and I really believe that, and gratitude helps you increase the love that you have towards yourself as well as others. So thank you so much for your support. I love all of you. Even if I don't know you're listening, tell me, leave me a review, let me know, be the friend. I had a friend from 30 years ago that wrote me an email and said she's been listening to my podcast. So if you're listening, jill, I love you, and so thank you and have a great day and amazing holiday week. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at lifecoachjennwith1ncom. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after podcast. Let's work together to create your happily even after.