Gratitude

It can be so easy to forget to be grateful. In today's episode Daniella discusses gratitude and how to feel more grateful when we've become so used to life 

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Hi, welcome to Strawberry Waffles. I'm Daniela, your podcast host, and I am excited but nervous but sad for today's episode. And I'm really happy if you're here listening, and I'm really thankful that you are here to share this episode with me. And yeah, let's get into it. So in the past weeks I've been back at uni and I've been at work and just doing my thing and some problems I've been facing recently or some stresses and anxieties have been around being at uni. My assignments have been coming up. I've had four exams, three assignments due, two quizzes, and more and more. And during this time, my boyfriend and I, and um my friend and um my boyfriend's brother, we've been trying to look for a house to move into, and we've been going to house fearings and applying for houses, and it's been so stressful waiting for people to reply, and also trying to manage all of this while I've also got to keep on top of my uni work and study for exams and do my assignments and quizzes, and also just deal with like my mental health and just taking care of myself and trying not to you know lose touch with that and also feeding myself right, which if I'm being quite honest, I have not been doing recently. Um, yeah, it's been very difficult. It is so hard to try to keep up with these things when life gets so crazy, and also you know, trying to keep up with my laundry and my appointments, it is just complete chaos, and then also having work and also dealing with the flu season, and it's just been a lot of stuff going on, and I've been feeling so overwhelmed, and I've actually been wanting to make an episode about dealing with those struggles and trying to manage your time better during like uni time and exam time. So, I mean maybe that episode will be coming next week, but today's episode is about gratitude. I think gratitude is one of probably the most important things when it comes to mental health and mindfulness, because um I remember doing a podcast months and months ago, and I just spoke about how it's always easier to think about how good life could be instead of being thankful for the life you have right in front of you. And when I think of gratitude, I think of the life like right in front of me, the life all around me, and the life I'm experiencing in my day-to-day world, and things that help, let's say, mental health and um just mindfulness is being grateful and affirmations. And when I think of gratitude and affirmations, I think of waking up in the morning, doing my skincare, looking myself in the mirror. This is something I don't do very often, but it has been something that I've heard is really great. But you look yourself in the mirror and you say what you are grateful for every single day. You name like three things, or when you're journaling, or whatever it may be, you mindfully sit and think about the things you're grateful for today, and then at the end of the day, you do the same thing, and you just think, Wow, today I am grateful for so-and-so, like just things that make you feel fulfilled and lucky to be living your life. Now, since life has been literally so busy and so crazy and overwhelming, I know for myself, and I I assume this happens to a lot of people, but it it doesn't really become a priority to think of things that you're grateful for or to take care of yourself, and problems arise and you feel very overwhelmed, and it's just there is no time to even look in the mirror and think of what you're grateful for, even if it takes literally 10 seconds, it's just the kinds of things that we put at the back of our minds, and especially when it comes to taking care of yourself, because I do think gratitude is a part of taking care of yourself, especially in mindfulness and the mental aspect of taking care of yourself. So, um, basically, back to what I was saying, I was going through all this stuff, uni, life, etc. etc. And I really was feeling very overwhelmed then today, actually just before, this is what kind of inspired me to um make this episode, is I was watching a video, and um if you don't know this about me, if you're new to the podcast, or if you just didn't know this about me, I am from South Africa, and South Africa typically when people think of South Africa, they think of it as really poor, and um they think of a place that is really like less fortunate and just not a lot of money, very dirty, and in some parts of South Africa it it really is that way for a lot of people, and I'll get more into that in a second, but um, for me I was always very privileged, um, as I always had a roof over my head, I always had food on my plate, and I always had a warm home and a warm bed and parents who loved me, and even though my life wasn't perfect, you know, my basic needs were always meet. I was able to go to school every day, which is really some days it really did suck because some days you just don't want to go to school, but being able to experience that is a privilege. And I was watching this video, and in this video it was basically this little boy, and he was selling something in on the side of the road or in like a parking lot, and he was selling it to this person for 10 rand, which is um the South African currency, and 10 Rand is literally, I actually just googled it, is equal to 94 cents like to the New Zealand dollar, it is like 94 cents is 10 Rand, so one Rand is literally only like not even 10 cents, and um he was selling this food, this young boy, he was selling this food for um 10 rand, and he was asking this person for the 10 rand and they were buying the food, and this was a video where this person was actually helping the boy, and he was like, Let me give you some extra money. The boy um said he was only supposed to be in grade one, which is year two, which means he was only like literally seven years old, six or seven years old, and he was out on the road selling food for his family, and he had no shoes on, and this man was being very generous and giving him some extra money for his family. And it it really just blew my mind because I've moved to New Zealand four years ago, maybe five years ago, in January, I conjure me, but four or five years ago, and I really in my day-to-day life was experiencing these problems, such as, you know, uni. I was worrying, you know, what if I don't do well enough uni? And what if we don't get accepted to a house? Or, you know, um, things like that, or what if I don't have time for my appointments? Things like yeah, what am I gonna do in my university holidays or midterm break or whatever? And these were problems that I was just like very overwhelmed with, and then I watched this video and it just kind of blew my mind because it's like it just made me realize how insignificant my problems are. Now, I would just love to clarify that I will get into my problems later, and just because my problems are smaller and may seem insignificant in the bigger picture, it doesn't mean that they are exactly insignificant. So I will get into that soon, so just be with me for now. But um, yeah, and I watched this video and I was really just overwhelmed, and it actually like made my heart feel very sore because it's like this is what people's lives are like, you know, people having to send their children out to work and not being able to buy their children shoes or food or to put them in a warm bed, and it really put into perspective that I have so much to be grateful for, and even though in in the bigger picture, my problems may feel very insignificant when I look at them, you know, from across the world, and literally my warm bed with my heater on, with a roof over my head, with petrol and a car, and you know, opportunities like being able to go to school or to go to university, and being able to have a job, even is such a privilege, and being able to have my own money and to be independent and to even have the problems that I have is such a privilege, and it doesn't mean that my problems aren't important and how I feel isn't important, but it does mean that I really have things put into perspective, and even though my problems are hard and they still suck, it just really makes me feel very grateful that these are my problems, and I I feel very lucky to have everything that I do have, and to have a family, and to really be able to experience love and warmth, and a full tummy, and being able to wake up every morning and know that I have the opportunity to learn and the opportunity to go to university and walk outside safely and to be able to rely on the police and to have a job that pays me, you know, um, living wage when there are so many families out there, literally from where I came from, who really have so little and are trying their best to manage with that. And it just when I watched that video, it really took me back, and it took me back to living in South Africa, and I have this very vivid memory of when we were um, I think it was like a few weeks from moving to New Zealand, and I remember being in the car with um, I think it was my dad, and we were driving somewhere and I looked, and it was a hot day. I mean, summer days in South Africa are just so hot and it is so hot all the time and so very dry, and and I remember looking at um there was the stoplight, and there was a mother sitting at the stoplight on the street in the blazing sun with no umbrella, no shade, um, begging for money, and she had her baby, and I just remember seeing that and feeling so overwhelmed and so helpless because I was I was only a young girl, I mean it's it was hard because it's like I just didn't quite understand and and I just remember thinking to myself like why why would someone have a baby if you know they can't afford to take care of their baby? And in a situation like that, I think there are two things to be grateful for is the first thing is even having water and shade, like I mean something as simple as that in the hot summer heat is such a privilege. I mean, imagine having a hot summer day and having no water, I just it it would literally be torture, and even having water and shade is just something to be so grateful for, and it's something that is so overlooked. And then another thing is you know, a mother being able to look after their child, I just it just hurts my heart so much to know that you know where I come from and in so many places in the world there are mothers and families struggling so much to even just be able to take care of their baby. And even when it comes to it makes me think of like abortion laws and it makes me think of how it is a privilege to be able to get an abortion because even though health care isn't a privilege, healthcare is absolutely a necessity, and um so is giving women access to healthcare. I think it's also so important to acknowledge that even when women are legally allowed to get abortions, um not at all that I'm saying that somebody should and that like this is completely separate to what I was talking about before, but just on that topic, just even being able to have the transportation to be able to go and get an abortion, you know, these are things that are really something that a woman such as myself feels, you know, very grateful to. Oh my gosh, my dog is literally snoring in the background. So please bear with me. But when I think of how lucky I am to live in a country where, you know, abortion is legal, and also to be able to live in a country where I have access to public transport, I have a job that I can pay for, you know, travel to go get one if need be, or women in general, like if they needed that service um and that hospital care, they would be able to receive that. And I I feel very grateful to live in this country and to be able to have even that, or to live in this country where I am able to have maternity leave and to be able to have a job that pay, even though it is a very easy and very um bottom of the chain job at a supermarket that you know they still pay okay, I mean they don't pay the best, but I like women who work at these jobs and men who work at these jobs are still able to support their children and to you know be able to feed their families, and there is just so much to be grateful for in the world around us, and it's so easy to overlook that and to kind of get so used to living in the privilege that you know we do and I do every day, it kind of becomes all blurred, and you kind of forget how lucky you are to even have something as simple as water in the morning, or to be able to, you know, have a shower and keep clean and take care of your hygiene, or to be able to have a car and to be able to have a warm bed and I mean to have TV and a laptop to do my uni work on or to even be able to go to university. I am very privileged and I'm privileged to be able to feed myself breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm privileged to have shoes on my feet and a warm jacket on my back and light in my home and to be have the opportunity to even be able to move out at such a young age and to be able to have my money and be independent and to walk the streets and there is just so much to be grateful for and to even have my health, these are all things that you wake up in the morning and you open your eyes, which it's even a privilege to be able to see, and it's it's so easy to kind of forget about everything that like I am so lucky to have and yeah, it's just something that has really put things into perspective for me and know that you know if things don't work art in some aspect of my life, like I don't do the best in university, I always have options, and even to be able to have options is such a privilege, and I feel very, very lucky to be able to live the life that I do, and yeah. This was a very short episode, and I just wanted to say thank you very much for listening, and hopefully I will be posting next week, but I hope this was a good listen for you, and I hope you come back next week and thank you very much. I am very grateful for everyone who listens to my podcast and everyone who continues to support me, and just a little reminder to never forget how lucky you are, and even though we have problems that may be very significant in our lives, that we still are always very lucky in some way or another, there's always something to be grateful for, and there's always something to be positive about.