This One Practice Can Shift Your Entire Reality, Unlock the Hidden Power of Gratitude!

Welcome back to Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious, the podcast where curiosity meets consciousness! In this uplifting episode of our special series Unlocking Your Universe, host Dr. Sandra Marie and co-host Nikki Ackerman explore the magnetic, mood-shifting magic of GRATITUDE and how it can literally transform your life.

What if gratitude isn’t just a “nice-to-have” practice... but the spark that ignites your entire reality and accelerates your soul’s expansion?

Get ready for real talk, laughter, a slippery donkey, unexpected beauty in a snowstorm, and deeply personal stories that will move your heart and open your mind to the hidden frequency of appreciation.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• How gratitude instantly elevates your frequency and attracts what you desire
• Why authentic feeling, not just mental lists, is the secret ingredient
• How small practices can lead to life-altering spiritual breakthroughs
• Why the universe responds to gratitude as if your dreams already happened
• The unexpected story of how 10 gratitudes per hour changed an entire ER shift
• How even a freezing, muddy trek to a barn can become a moment of divine beauty
• Why gratitude is the gateway to joy, compassion, and inner transformation

Whether you're just starting your spiritual path or deep in your awakening, this episode will remind you:
 Gratitude isn’t a chore, it’s a cheat code to unlocking your universe.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Gratitude
• 8:06 Transforming Reality Through Gratitude
• 16:01 Embracing the Beauty of Everyday Life

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00.078)
Welcome to the happy hour for the spiritually curious podcast where curiosity meets consciousness. I'm your host, Dr. Sanda Marie, and I'm joined by my co-host, Ackerman, for another episode of our special series, Unlocking Your Universe. Grab your favorite drink, open your heart, and let's dive into today's conversation. Hey, Nikki, how are you doing today?

Awesome, how are you doing?

I'm doing well, it's been a good day today, lots of positives happening. I am super pumped on today's topic. The role of gratitude for shifting your reality. I feel like gratitude would be like yeast in your cake. It's a vital ingredient to our awakening and soul growth. So what is your thoughts about gratitude and

shifting your reality.

Absolutely. So when we want to shift our reality, part of it is this feeling tone of feeling, elevating our frequency. And so when we start elevating our frequency and experiencing a little bit more freedom and a little bit more inspiration, a little bit more excitement, that's when we start bringing into the realm of infinite possibilities of what's to experience in our reality. And so gratitude work is one of the

Speaker 2 (01:25.588)
my favorite practices that helps me put into play whatever's going on. So I think it's interesting because I was actually having a rough day yesterday and you know, I've been such a practitioner of gratitude work. just found myself automatically as I start filling myself kind of feeling kind of heavy, kind of dense and just kind of low. It's like, okay, what am I grateful for?

And so as I like start to really identify the things that I'm grateful for, it took a few. And then I start noticing my mood starts elevating a little bit and it's like, yes. And just recognizing that there's so much to be grateful for. then as we start having that gratitude, it opens up a whole new realm of the infinite possibilities, if you will.

So going back to, I'm looking at our topic, gratitude and shifting your reality, it doesn't have to be when we're feeling down. It could be when we are so like feeling like, my gosh, this can happen in my life and just really embracing and just feeling that gratitude. Fun thing about it is though, the universe is gonna show us an out picture in our lives.

what we feel is happening and what we're visioning and what we believe. So the good thing about that is the universe doesn't know what is real and what is not real. When we can put our attention, our focus and our feeling on something that we desire to happen and we have so much gratitude and act like it already happened, how does it feel that it already happened? my goodness, I just received blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is how I feel with it. And my gosh, I get to share this with whoever. It's almost like I call Sandy. I'm like, so what just happened? This just happened. I just received blah, blah, blah, amount of money. I wasn't even expecting it, but this is what I can do with it. And this is how it's in making a difference in my life. And this is how I'm making a difference in other people's lives. You know, just going through those practices is wild or crazy as it sounds when we can have that authentic gratitude for something. We start to see that.

Speaker 2 (03:52.366)
do that, like show up in our lives. It's like giving a seed water, you know, we're nurturing it. So gratitude could be work in manifestation. Gratitude can just be simply to make you to remember that there is always something to be grateful for when you're feeling down. It's just a great practice in even just acknowledging all the blessings that have taken place in one's life, you know, and if this has taken place,

What else can possibly take place as well too?

Yeah, I agree. Gratitude has a really high frequency to it. It puts us in a different place and the gratitude is part of the emotion, which is the magnet to drawing in those good things that we desire, we've been thinking about. It's funny, I was thinking of a story, I have a gratitude partner. It helps keep me on track and sometimes gratitudes can feel like a chore.

on some days and then I have to really think about that. Like, why does this feel like a chore that's in opposition to the shifting of what I want to do with it? But what happens then is I have to pause and think about what it is. There is something in that moment, although maybe in that moment I wasn't feeling it. There really are things to be grateful for, more than one thing to be grateful for.

So I met her when I was in the Middle East and we were kindred spirits over there. And I remember one day I was working in the ER and I just was not a happy camper and there were some things happening and my energy and my mood really shifted and I shifted into a negative place. It was so funny. She's like, you know what? We're just gonna be done with this. Enough is enough.

Speaker 1 (05:53.25)
when you're rounding, every hour on the hour, I want you to stop at my desk and I need 10 gratitudes from you. 10 gratitudes. I'm like, 10 gratitudes, what are you thinking? Are you like crazy? But like she was dead serious. you know, every hour on the hour I would round it and I would stop at her workspace and I had to come up with 10 gratitudes. And it was like...

not so easy in the beginning, but I'll say probably halfway through the shift. Like it literally legitimately shifted my whole mood, all my energy. And the way I was looking at the situation was able to be open and start having compassion. I looked at things differently and I was able to have compassion for myself because I was being a bit ridiculous in the beginning with it.

And it was interesting and it was all the gratitudes that really shifted it. I was grateful enough and lucky enough to have someone who was holding me accountable. So I mean, that was a gratitude in itself. And the other part of this was I was not allowed to repeat something. So once you said it, you were done. Like you had to come up with new things. oh no.

Gratitude partner can be a drill sergeant. But you know, that was part of it, but that's part of the ship. Because you can get sloppy with that, right? I could come by, I like my coffee, I like my coffee. If you're gonna be really intentional about it and be involved and be in the moment, that really shifted having to do something unique and differently to go deep, to really go deep. And there really were things out there. You know, that was...

Gosh, that was many, at least five or six years ago. Like, and it's still to this day makes me smile and laugh, but it was a turning point on my spiritual journey was that simple little practice from that one event, which was probably a five hour process.

Speaker 2 (08:06.798)
It's interesting because it's, it's not just about listing things either and having the task complete, you know, and I found myself doing that like, gosh, probably three, four years ago, I, every night before going to bed, would do gratitude work and I'll list out gratitudes. It's like, oh, can I be done with this? Like, I just need to list 10. That's all I need to do. Funny how 10 is a magic number here, but it's just like, no, can you authentically

feel what you're grateful for. Can we allow ourselves to really feel the gratitude? It's okay if we don't like the first few gratitudes, right? Cause we're, it's kind of like we're, we're kind of getting ourselves in the mood to like really appreciate and to feel. And, and it's like, yeah. And when we do really have that gratitude, it's like, I think it opens up a whole lot. It's like, what are the things that we are taking for granted?

What are the things that, you know, what's the resistance behind us not coming up with granditudes? we, is there some deeper work we need to do with ourselves? You know, that, that's kind of how having that resistance show up for us. But yeah, it's interesting. And for me, I was okay with repeating some gratitude. Not in the same night, I went repeat them, but from if they happen to come up two nights later.

I'm just really grateful for it, you know, and then, and not using it as a way to get out to do my gratitude work either. So there, there is an intention. It's because I'm authentically happy or authentically grateful that I had a certain experience because if those certain experiences really elicit a lot of higher vibration coming from you, a lot of love, a lot of gratitude, a lot of feeling, just the feeling of being genuinely blessed, you know,

Why not feel that again? If that's one way of getting to that feeling point, go for it. And that's what the whole gratitude work is about is getting to that feeling point, not being all up in the head and figuring it out. It's what do we feel? And like, yes. I'm grateful to be able to have this conversation with Sandy. I'm grateful to be able to serve people the way that I serve people. I am grateful to be in the lives of.

Speaker 2 (10:30.36)
people that I'm in, you know, so I'm just making a difference in people's lives. I'm really grateful for that. You know, not everyone allows themselves the permission to do what they love to do. And I'm grateful I give myself permission, you know, it's just different things that we can do.

I feel like I've made a big difference in people's lives over the years, but it's easy to get caught up some times in looking in the past at things to be grateful for where you made a difference. this, I'll just share, because this may seem mundane, but it's a big shift. So right now we're in the middle of a significant cold spell where we're at.

I have a couple feet of snow on the ground and then I actually ended up with a couple inches of ice on top of the snow and not under it. And so I have animals that need to eat and need water. And the barn never seems so far away, but when you have to walk through two feet of snow that's got, you know, ice on top of it and the ground's not, you know, you're not walking on cement, you're walking on

mud from the rain that we had for three weeks, it can be an event. And so, you know, I'm on about my fourth day of doing this, but it's interesting in that, you know, I go out there and, you know, look at these cats and these, they're like, hell, we're not going outside. Like, what's wrong with you? And then, you know, I had a

grab this sledgehammer to break the water so that the donkey could have something to drink, but the donkey's running up and he's so happy to see me and someone's out here and are you gonna give me some food? And literally within 20 minutes of this, I, I'm not making this up, I am feeling really helpful, happy and joyful. And I'm leaning against this barbwire trying to break this out and all of a sudden, look, I was like.

Speaker 1 (12:32.152)
God, this is like so beautiful out here. It is gorgeous. Like, I would have been sitting in the house and I wouldn't have seen this glistening snow off these weeds and the ice off the trees and the sunset and this and, you know, it's sparkling off this and it just, it was like, was so consumed with the beauty of it all. And the cold actually started to feel really good. I know this sounds crazy, but it did.

And I was just enjoying every minute of it. And if you would have ever told me that, I would have said you were crazy. Like having to get up early and walk out to see the sunrise is not something that I would thought that I would just do if I didn't have to go to work. But when I get up and I step out and I start seeing this and it's like, there's just, there's so much beauty in all of this.

And it, as you said, I feel this overwhelming joy in all of it. And it doesn't, it may not make sense to someone. I don't, I think that the literal purpose of it is that there's just so much beauty everywhere and the most unexpected times. And if you allow yourself to immerse yourself in the mump, cause I lost one of my gloves. So one of my hands was freezing and

It's still like it didn't make a difference. All of a sudden that wasn't my focus was my hand. My hand is really cold. You know, I've tucked it away. It just, wasn't an issue. That's all I'll say is you could have either focused on the, we'll say the uncomfortableness of exposing yourself to the elements and having to do, we'll call them chores. That's what the farm chores, whatever.

But it wasn't, it was fun, it was happy. And you know, I was greeted with happiness of nature and I was greeted with the happiness of the animals. I mean, you could say at least I get to go on the house to eat, they don't.

Speaker 2 (14:49.112)
So we could say the animals actually practice gratitude as well too. Because the donkey was absolutely great.

He was so, he was so, I could see this. He was so excited. He comes running down this little hill and he gets close to the watering trough and the fence and he starts sliding about 20 feet and his eyes got so big because I don't think he was sure he was gonna stop before he hit that barbed wire. I wasn't sure he was gonna stop before he hit that barbed wire and I thought,

He was just like so ex- he literally was so excited. He was so excited and happy.

And that's the beauty of it all, right? It's not necessarily the events that seem to be taking place. It's all the feeling tone underneath all that. The beauty, the grace, the love, being in service and having that experience. think anyone and everyone can relate to those, you know, to those experiences or at least desiring to have those experiences and then be able to have it and to acknowledge that, you know, nature has a fun way of being able to share that with us.

Yeah, and I walked back into the house thinking, gosh, I am so lucky to have been able to just do that.

Speaker 2 (16:08.866)
What an awesome gratitude.

I mean, it wasn't unexpected or expected. It just was. And I think that's a two right, letting go of the expectation.

want whatever to show up, just to show up.

Yeah, yeah. I love this topic when you brought it up. I just can't say enough about gratitude. And I think that it really is an important ingredient or element in this journey on Earth. And absolutely, as we're moving to unlocking the universe, engaging with consciousness.

because it also, it has just a lot of different frequencies. It's got that feel good, it's a feel good.

Speaker 2 (16:57.036)
Yeah, absolutely.

I bet you didn't think this conversation would go down that path, did you?

No, they're not.

think the donkey just wanted to be part of the show.

Absolutely. Maybe sometime I'll take some film of him and we can throw him in. He's character. In the spirit of gratitude, I do thank you for joining us. That's awesome. And I mean it from my heart. Remember, the universe expands with your curiosity. So stay open, stay curious, and keep unlocking your universe until next time. Much gratitude.

Speaker 1 (17:36.578)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Wild Soul Gathering's Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious. To learn more about our guests, please go to our website, WildSoulsGathering.com. We're very eager to hear from our listeners what you thought of the episode, topics you might like us to cover in the future, your thoughts on spirituality, questions you may have. Please feel free to send us an email at WildSoulsGathering.gmail.com.

This is your host, Dr. Sandra Marie, sending each of you peace and love. Until we meet again, embrace your wild soul.