The Tilted Halo

EP 42: We Are What We Thank

• Kathleen Panning

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Join me as I go through the theory and practice of gratitude, revealing its striking relevance to your ministry work. Be it as a pastor, music minister, elder, or even in your work unrelated to ministry, this episode shines light on how integrating a culture of thankfulness into your life can be transformative. We'll discuss how to appreciate the 'whats' and 'whos' in your life, even with all of the pressure to be perfect. Prepare to challenge your perspective and potentially, transform your life through the practice of gratitude. Get ready to become more grateful and make the world a better place, one 'thank' at a time.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Tilded Halo. This is a new podcast and it's for anybody who's a woman in ministry. You might be a pastor like myself, a bishop, a priest, a rabbi, music minister, elder children's minister whatever your title is, you're absolutely in the right place, especially if you're someone who loves your ministry and you're doing it well and you're feeling pressure to sometimes be perfect and deep down inside, you know you're not, and how in the world to deal with that? And men, you're absolutely welcome here too, because this is about ministry and the same thing can happen to you. So you're all in the right place. Let's get started with the show.

Speaker 1:

There are many little sayings that I've heard over the years, and one of them is we are what we eat. That's a lot of truth in that when we eat junk, our bodies feel pretty junky and, you know, can mess up a lot of things with our metabolism and all kinds of things. So, yeah, we are what we eat. I've also heard we are what we think and I've talked about that in some different ways on other shows here. One of them with the saying from somebody I know and has been a mentor for me the way we choose to see the world creates the world we see, and that's part of we are what we think, and that's another version of this. We are type thing that I heard recently and this comes from Dr Robert Emmons, who is, for most people, the acknowledged expert guess the best word in the science of gratitude, and he is the first person who started studying gratitude scientifically and with legitimate scientific experiments, like one would do in any field of psychology and positive psychology, in actuality. But Dr Emmons, who is a professor in psychology at University of California Davis, says we are what we think T-H-A-N-K. We are what we think. And when I first heard him say that, it was in a presentation on a YouTube video that I chanced upon the thing and I thought, ooh, that's interesting. We are what we think. And I would add, we are who we think, not just what, but who we think. If we thank God's spirit universe for a lot of the what in our lives thanking for the food we eat, the things we have, the relationships, all kinds of things we become more thankful people, we think more in thanking and we live more as a thankful person and acting in thankful ways. One of the things I've been doing is learning more about gratitude and focusing more about gratitude myself and learning the power of gratitude, of not only feeling gratitude but being grateful. And gratitude is more than just a feeling. It is an activity, it's a way of living, it's something we do as well as think or feel, and so we are what we thank.

Speaker 1:

Question then becomes who or what do you think? That can be a sobering question for any of us as we think about that. You know, who or what do we think? Do we think the people in our immediate family, for the little things that they do, as well as some of the bigger ones? Do we remember not to just be polite? Gratitudes about being polite, yes, and that's a great place to start and start teaching children about saying please and thank you, great. But if that becomes a requirement or, as some things I've read about, children are punished if they don't say thank you, then who wants to receive something if you're going to get punished for forgetting to say thank you? You know that's not the best formula for learning to be a thankful person, but if we think about who are we and what are the things that we receive from people around us, from our families, immediate family and community, and know we don't always receive the things that we want to from them, and there are people who have experienced trauma from family and not good things. So, you know, maybe you don't want to thank them for that, but there are. Yeah, I mean, maybe we don't want to thank them for certain things at least, but we are what we thank, we are who we thank. Who do you think, and for what? Why? What is it that is part of your thank journey?

Speaker 1:

I recently spoke at a congregation and shared with them about gratitude, and they gave me an honorarium, something I wasn't expecting. I thanked them during the presentation when I was talking with them, but then seeing, after I left, the amount of the honorarium, I was wow. I did not expect that. So I sat down and wrote a thank you note and stuck it in the mail to the congregation. Now, sitting and writing thank you notes has never been something I've been overly great at doing. Partly just the discipline of sitting down and doing that has never been something I've greatly enjoyed.

Speaker 1:

But this time it was a little bit different because I was more aware of the welcome I had received from them. I noticed that. I noticed how they were open to receiving me, even though I'm of a different faith tradition than they are, and that was beautiful to see and to experience a time of worship with them in person, to be able to share some things about gratitude with them. I was aware of the opportunity to drive to a place that I'd never been before, and part of it was a route that I had not been on or, if I have, it was a long time ago and I didn't remember it. And so thinking about all of those different things that went into that experience helped me feel more thankful for it. And, yes, for the money that was there too the honorarium but it was more than that, and so I was thinking of individuals and how they had helped me prepare, and the person there who did a PowerPoint presentation for part of the service and helped with that and helped pick out music, since I didn't know what kinds of music they might know.

Speaker 1:

So all of those different elements that went into that experience, and part of being thankful is noticing those things. It's noticing the way somebody says hello, the way we're greeted by friends, family, by a stranger, it's the way somebody prepares a meal for us and the thought that might go into it, even if it's not 100% what we want, or maybe it didn't turn out 100% the way we wanted. I mean, I've been cooking for many, many years and there are occasions when things don't turn out quite the way I wanted them to. But to still hear my husband say thank you means a lot to me. Thank you, at least for the effort and for the creativity that may have gone into planning things. But to see things as bigger than just the immediate little piece, like the meal or maybe something got a little overdone at one time, or maybe it's not exactly what we wanted to eat that day.

Speaker 1:

But we can still be thankful, and it's not just about thinking of well, there are children in Africa who are going hungry. Yes, there are children in Africa who go hungry. And there are places in this world where people, through no fault of their own, because they're in a place where there's conflict, they can't get the food they need either or to feed their family. All of that's true, but we can still be thankful for what we have and for the things that are right in front of us, for the opportunities that we have, that maybe it's the same opportunities that 99% of the population has Great, but it's something that we have and it's still an opportunity and we can be thankful for that. How many? If you were to sit down today and put out, put down a list of things that you're grateful for, how many things would you have on that list? Could you come up with two or three or 10 or 20? How many?

Speaker 1:

I did a program a number of years ago with some of the leadership of a faith community, the members who are leaders in that faith community, and it started on a Friday evening and then was going for half a day on Saturday and before we left on Friday evening, I encouraged every single person, I encouraged everybody there to find three things for that day that they were grateful for. So on Saturday morning I asked people, how did you do with that? And one person said that they couldn't find three things to be grateful for. I was very sad to think that somebody had whatever happening in their life that they couldn't come up with three things to be grateful for.

Speaker 1:

Now, these do not have to be life changing, momentous, earth shattering things. They can be the fact that you can see, the fact that you're able to walk, to get into a vehicle, to go someplace, that day, that you have a vehicle to get into and the dollars are funds to put gas in that vehicle and to maintain it, that you have a place to live. It can be basic things, can be the people in your life. Do we notice them? Do we take them for granted? And if we take them for granted, what does that say about who we are, we are what and who we thank? Who and what do you thank and what could you add to that list of thanking? How many things could you come up with today that you're grateful for? That's part of what writing a gratitude journal can do is to help us think about those things every day, or at least a couple times a week. But you don't have to do a gratitude journal to do that. It's good to do that every single day, to come up with a minimum of three things that you're grateful for every single day. And, like I said, they don't have to be life saving, earth shattering things. They can be everyday things, but try to make something unique about that day. Yeah, it could be a specific food that you had that day. It could be somebody you talked to on the phone who you haven't talked to for a long time. It could be somebody you met. I had a conversation with that you weren't expecting you found out something really neat and interesting. Can be all kinds of different things. Could be that you just had another day to spend with somebody you love, just had another day. That's a wonderful gift. So today, who are you? If we are what we thank and who we thank, who are you today? I'm going to leave you with that question.

Speaker 1:

This is the Tilted Halo, and I hope you'll come back and join me for another day and another topic. You have been listening to Tilted Halo with me, kathleen Panning. What did you think about this episode? I'd really like to hear from you. Leave me some comments. Be sure to like, subscribe and share this episode. Catch another upcoming episode for more conversation on ministry life, mindset and a whole lot more. Go to wwwtiltedhalohelpcom, where I've got a resource guide and other resources waiting for you, and be sure to say hi to me, kathleen Panning, on LinkedIn. See you on the next episode.