23. How Gratitude Rewires Your Brain and Improves Relationships
Nov 10, 2023
Ryan & Heidi Sawyer
Do you ever feel like there's a veil of negativity clouding your vision, preventing you from fully appreciating the beauty in your relationships and everyday life? This episode promises to lift that veil, revealing a world of 'glimmers' - those precious moments of gratitude, love, and appreciation. We'll take an in-depth look at neuroplasticity, the scientific principle that our brains can be reprogrammed. We're hardwired towards negativity, but we can retrain our circuits to move from a state of wanting to a state of noticing and liking.
Now, imagine strengthening your bond with your partner, experiencing more joy and connection than ever before. This episode unveils the profound impact practicing gratitude can have on your relationships. We'll talk about how recognising the 'glimmers', no matter how minute, can open the door to more joyous relationships. Moreover, we'll discuss how, with an understanding of neuroplasticity, we can intentionally train our brains to focus on positivity, ultimately creating more robust relationships and enhancing the joy in our everyday lives. You don't want to miss this enlightening conversation!
Do you ever feel like there's a veil of negativity clouding your vision, preventing you from fully appreciating the beauty in your relationships and everyday life? This episode promises to lift that veil, revealing a world of 'glimmers' - those precious moments of gratitude, love, and appreciation. We'll take an in-depth look at neuroplasticity, the scientific principle that our brains can be reprogrammed. We're hardwired towards negativity, but we can retrain our circuits to move from a state of wanting to a state of noticing and liking.
Now, imagine strengthening your bond with your partner, experiencing more joy and connection than ever before. This episode unveils the profound impact practicing gratitude can have on your relationships. We'll talk about how recognising the 'glimmers', no matter how minute, can open the door to more joyous relationships. Moreover, we'll discuss how, with an understanding of neuroplasticity, we can intentionally train our brains to focus on positivity, ultimately creating more robust relationships and enhancing the joy in our everyday lives. You don't want to miss this enlightening conversation!
Welcome back to the show. We're excited to continue our conversation on our cycle of reinventing your relationship. Just to recap what we've talked about so far we started with slowing down and decluttering to create space for transformation in your relationship. We talked about the three toxic relationship habits and how to overcome those, and then we talked about focusing on yourself first and really that conversation coming down to understanding and owning your own internal experience. And then last week, we talked about having a vision for your marriage, your relationship, your life and each other really understanding where you're wanting to go. So this week we're going to be talking about being intentional and seeing the good. So welcome, Ryan.
Speaker 2:
Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to be here, as always, I love it. I love having these conversations. I really, you know, years for years, we talked about launching podcasts and then I thought about it and then I visualized it and then I wondered if I'd like it, and then we finally did it and it's probably one of my favorite things that we do, you know. I mean, of course, I love being in front of people and facilitating, like that's my jam, right, but but yeah, no, it's. I'm always excited whenever it's like podcast day or we're going to record a couple. So here we are. Yeah, so perfect podcast day.
Speaker 1:
It's like kind of rainy and we got our little coffee here and just hanging out. I love it. It's great to spend this time together and we appreciate you taking the time to listen because we know there are a lot of podcasts and a lot of choices out there. I sound like Alaska Airlines when you fly. We know you have a lot of choices when you fly. Thanks for choosing us.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for choosing us, so we'll respect your time by diving right in. So what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about being intentional and seeing the good?
Speaker 1:
First thing that comes into my mind right now is this idea of glimmers. People are talking a lot online about the opposite of a trigger is a glimmer.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so a trigger you know, usually triggers something negative, some sort of a past trauma or negative experience, and that's triggering. But a glimmer is this beautiful moment that triggers appreciation, gratitude, love, and it makes me think of what we call in our program glimpses of goodness, and how we can begin to focus on these little glimpses of goodness that happen in our life and in our relationships and how, the more that we can focus on these things, these little magical moments, the more we see the magic in everything you know, the more I'm curious about what's good, the more good I can find, and I think it's. It's an important conversation when it comes to relationship, because we spend a lot of time interacting with other people and a lot of times we are seeing the things that are wrong or the things that we want to be different, but there's a lot of good stuff happening too.
Speaker 2:
And we talked about it in the last podcast. You have to overcome the natural mechanisms that limit our experience of life and therefore limit our connections and the. You know what we want to experience, and a lot of that is that we are wired towards negativity. You know, there were these pattern creating machines that serve energy, and so you have to like the gym. And there's the sciences. It's such a great time to live Because there's a mountain, so much science out there that tells us like, oh, you know the neuroscience and different things and that allows for us to to create intentionality in your life that leads you towards the experience that you want, and one of them is is, if you're not intentionally looking for what's good in your life, you're missing out on creating more good and or experiencing. I mean not necessarily was saying worry about the word created, but you're experiencing the good, right, right and, and you know.
Speaker 2:
So I always like to give a little bit of the science that we've learned over the years. We have these circuits in our brain called wanting and seeking and then noticing and liking circuits. So when we want something to be different, we then this is an evolutionary pulse thing. So I'm not saying this is good nor bad. It's just recognizing that sometimes we one of this, one of these types of circuitry can be Overfiring, right, we can be using them too much.
Speaker 2:
It's wonderful to recognize we want something to be different like boredom. That we boredom can turn into creativity, right. Or we're hungry, so we get up and we find food, right. That these are evolutionary things that helps us survive. If we we didn't have a signal of hunger, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be here, right, it's starving death. So the the wanting to seeking is great, but again it's. It's one of those things that becomes overactive, especially Because it's 2023 and we have been kind of conditioned in program to be More outwardly focused, more materialistic, more achievement based, and then our attention is being drawn like there's legitimately being sold, you know, from a corporate level through our platforms, through our social platforms, being screened your city or beings and we're being sold.
Speaker 2:
Our, Our attention in itself is being sold. The more you know it's just so, our attention becomes very much in that and over our wanting and seeking circuits become lit up more than serves us right. And so the problem with that is that you it's never enough. You're constantly in a state of lack. Wanting at a root is lack, and so what?
Speaker 1:
Because it's the recognition of the absence of the thing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so then that's what you're focusing on. You're focusing on the absence of the thing Rather than shifting. And then it's legitimately a shift and there's a posture and there's an eye gaze to it and there's a, there's a breath, and there's an awareness and a curiosity that can shift our, our neural circuitry from wanting and seeking to noticing and liking. And noticing and liking is just recognizing. Like you know, it's raining outside, but I kind of like it when it's a cozy day and I can throw a blanket over and read a book or whatever right.
Speaker 2:
You begin to notice what is, what's in front of you, how it is, and then you're going into a liking or receiving state, and receiving is, we all know, like a sense of gratitude. Gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership. So you start to notice and be grateful for the things that are in your life and you begin to strengthen this, this circuitry that legitimately can pick up on things that are good, and then you focus more attention there and where your attention goes, energy flows, and so then you experience more of these things that are good. You start to experience more connection with your loved ones.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, life starts to begin to have a sense of ease.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Because we're moving from that place. This is interesting, right, because making me think of something I've been listening to some of Martha Beck's podcasts lately and she's been talking about the book that she's writing right now has to do with this connection between anxiety and creativity as a cure to feelings of anxiety. Right, because a lot of what's happening with fear response and analytical stuff that's going on is happening in the left side, left hemisphere of the brain, but then the creativity is happening on the right. So when we can kind of switch to more of a creative, open, expansive state of receivership, like you're talking about and noticing and liking, versus that wanting and seeking.
Speaker 1:
You know, if you think about the posture of someone who's really wanting and seeking, it's like the heads down, they're just kind of you know, it's like this grinding through life.
Speaker 2:
They're not slowing down long enough to smell the roses.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you're kind of grinding through. It's like go, do, do, do, do, do, yeah. And then someone who's really noticing and liking. It's like this open posture, it's this wide gaze. It's what happens when you go outside and you look at the horizon and you see in your peripheral vision as well.
Speaker 1:
You get into that calm nervous system state it's really interesting to think about. Okay, what is our operating origin? Where are we operating from when we are in our relationship? You know, maybe you've had a stressful day at work and you're really trying to solve some big problems and you're really working that left hemisphere of the brain and you're you know, you're very analytical and you're doing all this type of stuff. And then you come home and you're also analyzing and trying to solve problems at home, like why is this thing on the floor? Why didn't someone do that? And so now you're nitpicking and finding all the things that are wrong because your brain is just in that mode of doing that. That's what you're practicing. Is that wanting and seeking? And how powerful could that be? To switch to seeing the good, to switch to that noticing and liking Wow, isn't this cool? My whole family's home right now Instead of what's wrong with the situation or what people aren't doing or we don't have or what we don't have, and to noticing the things that we do have.
Speaker 1:
It's amazing. It makes me think about, you know, health when we just as an example of a way, a simple way that we can be grateful. You know, a healthy person has a million wishes, a sick person has one.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Right, it's like we're in a wonderful situation and we can't see it because we're so caught up in all these details that really don't matter. And when we can open up to noticing the things that are good and appreciating those things, it really opens the door to more of that coming and attracting more of that like a magnet and having a life of ease because things naturally flow to you when you're in that state. Yeah, yeah. And so how can we relate this to relationships?
Speaker 2:
Well, yeah, I mean you start with what we talked. I think you already mentioned the glimpse of goodness, right? You said that, right, so you know to make it a practice. If you're really whatever, what's your focus in your life right now, right, if your focus is really truly to work on your relationship and strengthen that bond and strengthen the connection and experience more joy in that relationship, then make your journaling exercise at night the three glimpses of goodness. That has something to do with them, and don't worry about how small they are. I don't care if it's, you know, I mean, no matter how small, like they did. There's clean clothes that are folded right, right, or just like the way something laughs.
Speaker 1:
It's something that's quirky about that. Yeah, it could be something so incredibly small.
Speaker 2:
So that's the first piece in a relationship that where you can bring it back to say, okay, am I practicing seeing the good in being in this relationship, in the other person as well, right, and then to kind of these things all overlap into each other, right, to pull back in the vision stuff and to then, if I have a certain ideal and or experience that I'm working towards internally that I want to create as an experience externally, then I need to do my part, right, doing your part.
Speaker 2:
It means that you're being intentional and seeing the good and those type of things and working on yourself to be patient and present and faithful and confident and whatever else. You're working on these different intentions that lead towards an experience of where you're actually conditioning yourself to be more of those things because you are rehearsing them, yeah, right, so that's doing your part. You're doing your part means that if I can clearly see that if I'm more present, that's going to impact my relationship, then I need to damn well work on my presence, right, that's my part and so that's my intentionality, yeah, and as well as seeing the good in the other person and actually not just seeing the good but actually treating them as if. So go back to the vision for a moment. How you see them treat them that way.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Like actually treat them as if they're already showing up in that way. They're already that present, they're already that patient, they're already that passionate, they're already that things Treat your life as if and that doesn't mean you go out and do things that you don't have the resources for. That means that you are experiencing your life as if, you're experiencing yourself as if. Right, try it out, yeah, yeah, because you can't avoid the undeniable science that is neuroplasticity and the fact that our cells are reproducing millions of cells are reproducing every single second of the signature that they're currently vibrating at Right.
Speaker 2:
It's a biology of belief and this is the understanding that the more that I rehearse and practice something, the more I'm intentional to create a certain way of being in the world. Then I'm going to start to actually experience more of that thing, incrementally and spontaneously over time. So, every single time that I focus and I choose to have the practice of seeing the good in you, I'm going to see more good in you, which then is naturally going to pull out more good in you. Right, we can really truly create an incredible amount of momentum with each other's lives being in a relationship with each other by really intentionally not only lifting ourselves up, by lifting up each other, by like seeing the good in you, more good that we portray as good is going to come out.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:
And so the opposite would be obviously true. Right. The negative, the undesirable things, whatever those things may be. Yeah, guess what I'm gonna notice more of?
Speaker 1:
Right. Yeah what we focus on, we find, and and that is what it comes down to is it's really simple, yeah. Yeah, it's really not easy.
Speaker 1:
It's not always easy. This is about, like what you said, neuro, neuroplasticity, retraining the brain. You know we have this ability to change our brain, to change the way that we interact with the world, but it does take practice and it takes sometimes catching yourself when you're having a negative thought or you're treating someone in a way that is based on who they were yesterday versus who they are today and and being able to course correct and go yeah, that's really not how I want to see my partner. So I'm gonna choose to see the good. I'm gonna look for that little glimpse of goodness.
Speaker 1:
Like, isn't that funny how they have that little dimple when they smile that way? Right, and you know, isn't it kind of cool that we both have this same shared interest? And Even if it's a TV show, you guys, you start really, really small. Isn't it cool how we both like the office and we laugh our heads off when we're watching an episode together. Isn't that fun to connect in that way? So, whatever it is, just Begin to bring your attention to the good and you will find more of it yeah, and then Another piece that I think it'll play more into next.
Speaker 2:
Our next podcast is the idea of basically just staying open. Right, so we're doing this work, we're being intentional, but then a lot of times will end up happiness. People like, well, I'm doing it, but, but, but it's not working, like it takes time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah it takes time and you know one of the things to when, when we're looking for the good, we're finding those glimpses of goodness, we're being intentional or treating each other as if, and we're staying open to new possibilities One of the things that can really really be a perception shifter. I'm reading this book right now. It's called the comfort crisis and it talks about the impact of an individual on their happiness, on their gratitude they experience, in the happiness they experience in their life, regardless of. Basically, there's a baseline of happiness that happens once your physical needs are met and Everything else that you acquire beyond that does not impact your happiness at all. Right, so the, the bigger house, the new car, the boat, the things, the, whatever this to that, the other, like, none of those actually increase happiness.
Speaker 2:
But there's a baseline happiness that happens once you know that your physical well, mean, your physical well-being, is met, which means that you know that you could put roof over the head and you can put food on the table.
Speaker 2:
Right beyond that, the impacts of happiness become, you know, are your ability to perceive, you know, optimist, optimistic and positive things and gifts in your life and the glimpse of the goodness. But the other thing that is incredibly Powerful in the science and I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I was just reading this chapter yesterday about when you allow yourself to recognize that everything is always changing and that someday we won't be here, and that we're talking about little Michael, we're spinning it around a rock in the middle of nowhere, and that death is inevitable and is unknown of when it's going to happen and is something that we can't control and it could happen at any time. Then it's all of a sudden like whoa, when you just allow they talk about actually to be the happiest people in the world intentionally allow for themselves to think and contemplate about death three times a day in this study, because when you do all the crap, that doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:
The gym will just fades away All the stuff you're being sold right Like, hey, you're going to be happy if you have this, hey, you're going to be. Oh, don't ever think about death, but get more stuff.
Speaker 2:
To avoid that reality is ignorant. Yeah, the gym is ignorant. To avoid the reality, just not want to talk about that, to not recognize that tomorrow I might not be here, I might not wake up tomorrow, we don't know, right. And so that, legitimately, is something that will maybe impact a little bit further.
Speaker 1:
And you guys? This is making me think about a show that we were watching with the kids in Nature Show. It's called Life on Our Planet. Is that what the name was?
Speaker 2:
That sounds right.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh, how many times almost all life on earth has been wiped out and had to come back.
Speaker 1:
I mean, talk about a perspective shifting thing to watch. I was just telling one of my coaching clients about this. I said watch that show and see how things are always, always, always, always changing and there's so much of life that we don't have control over. Let's just focus on that little corner that we can control, which is just how we choose to see the world and how we choose to interact with it, and let's see the good, because we're here for just a really short period of time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, whether it's our life in the sense of the 80, 100 years that we live as humans hopefully longer, but the quality of life begins to change a little bit or it's just the idea of humans being on the face of the planet, I don't think anybody can argue that at some point something's going to happen, that either the majority of us won't be here or none of us will be here, something will potentially happen and will potentially something will happen, whether that's just the complete collapse of the universe because at one point it expanded from nothing into something, and so to think that it won't eventually some point expand from something back into nothing again and we'll all just be gone, that could happen any moment. It could be billions of years, but you know, and you can have a heart attack and die tomorrow too. So there's all these ways, aren't?
Speaker 1:
you glad you just tuned into the podcast Well, for instance the reality of that.
Speaker 2:
There's all these different ways that this experience can be just taken away, and so for us to come back and to be able to just not focus on all the crap that doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:
It's such an important perspective to look at because, really, the reason why we're here, in the thing that's the most important, is relationship. It's being with and connecting with other human beings and other living things, and that is what we're doing here, yeah. So thank you so much for listening today. Next time we're going to be diving into our next step in our cycle or process of reinventing your relationship. So please join us, leave us a rating review and share this podcast with someone who you think would benefit.