Whole-Body Gratitude 4/4 "Gratitude & the Brain" (feat. Jenna Zint)

In our final episode of the "Whole-Body Gratitude" series, we're talking about what's going on in our brains when we're focusing on gratitude. More than a dopamine hit, we're getting whole-life change. 

Wanna learn more? Pull up a chair 🪑 

SHOW NOTES

Episode 1 in the "Whole-Body Gratitude" series.

Episode 2 in the "Whole-Body Gratitude" series

Episode 3 in the "Whole-Body Gratitude" series

Where we discussed the value of remembering on The Mentor's Table

Bait of Satan by John Bevere

Victorious Emotions by Wendy Backlund

CONNECT WITH JENNA

Instagram: @jennazint

Habit Lab podcast with Jenna Zint

Marriage Lab podcast with Jenna & Aaron Zint

Schedule a coaching session here.

Benefit from her teaching gifts by purchasing one of her e-courses here.

Here are a few of the most impactful Habit Lab episodes I've listened to:

Part 1: Breaking Free From Over-Responsibility (listen to parts 2 & 3 as well)

Quit Mind Reading! (Stop Assuming. Start Asking) The title says it all!

Learning to be On Time(ish)--This is way more about showing up as your best self and learning how to face pain from weaknesses than about just being on time. 

Offended? Check Your Boundaries If you're going through a painful situation with a loved one, this will guide you through your pain and help you find a helpful next step forward.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Isn't it fascinating to watch how science right now is finally catching up to what the Bible has been telling us all this time? So for example, the Bible says remember over and over and over again. One Google search that I pulled up says the word remember is in the Bible 169 times. And now we're getting all these different scientific articles that are telling us that it is important that we develop neural pathways. That's the same thing as being intentional to remember. Why is that important? Well, let's talk about it in our final part of our conversation with Jenna. Pull up a chair. Welcome back to the mentors table. My name is Joy, and I'm the host here at this table as we start a virtual conversation around our virtual table talking all about in the month of November whole body gratitude. Today we're gonna dig into our brains and what is going on in our brains and what has have scientists begin to discover as far as why gratitude is important for our brain development and how that affects our walk with God. But as always, before we get started, I want to make sure that we take some time to take a minute of silence to just get back into our bodies, focus our minds, and be present in this moment before we start talking about gratitude. So if you could take a deep breath with me, in through your nose, out slowly through your mouth. Place your feet flat on the floor. Take another deep breath in and back out again. Lord, we welcome you into this place. We know, Lord, that you have called us to gratitude. You said to enter your courts with Thanksgiving, and we want to make sure that that is how we approach you, and so we will continue to focus right now on what you have to teach us in the area of Thanksgiving and gratitude. Take one more deep breath in and slowly let it out. Wonderful. Well, like I said before, this is the final of our four-part series all about whole body gratitude. This is a conversation that we have been having with one of my favorite people, Jenna Zint. I've got all the things to contact her linked in the show notes, but she is my life coach and has been an integral part in my healing journey spiritually, emotionally, um, in this last year and a half. And I am so thankful for her and so thankful that she was willing to come on the pod and talk a little bit about gratitude and share her own knowledge. You guys, she's got some really great information, not just in our conversation today, but on her own podcast. I highly recommend that you check it out. I'll link it all in the show notes. But for right now, let's go ahead and jump back in with our final part of our conversation with Jenna. Okay, let's talk a little bit about brain science. I love to geek out on this kind of stuff. And I know you always have really great tidbits in your podcast that I'm always like, what? That's what the science says? I had to find that.

SPEAKER_01: 3:54

But then it's hilarious when I quote it. I'm like, nope, I said all those names wrong. Sorry guys. My husband's the tidbit one that's really good at like, he's like, no, I remember the book you read. I'm like, great, because I don't remember the title of the book I read.

SPEAKER_00: 4:08

I love it. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about gratitude and really we're talking about habits, really. If we're talking about like at the at the root of it, is that we're developing a habit of gratitude. So whether you want to focus on the gratitude aspect or the habit aspect, let's talk a little bit about what's going on in your brain and what can sabotage you as well as what can help you grow in your gratitude habits.

SPEAKER_01: 4:39

Oh, that's good. Well, I would love to hear what you think about what are things you imagine sabotaging people with gratitude habits.

SPEAKER_00: 4:46

Okay, well, recently you put in one of your podcasts you were talking about how the phrase I can't like shuts down your brain from being able to find, and I don't remember the details, but if you could talk a little bit about that, that was one of the first things that I was thinking about.

SPEAKER_01: 5:02

That's actually I didn't even I'm glad you said that because I wouldn't have thought of the correlation, but it's true. So the idea sometimes again, if contentment is like a balance or sorry, gratitude is a balance for some of the hard parts of your life or pain. Some of the natural language is like I can't find anything to be grateful for here or there because you're aware of the pain. Well, it's the interesting part, it's it was called like neuronegation, I believe. This is why it's hard to me. I actually had to write it down because I was like, if I'm gonna be on her podcast, I need to have it in front of me. I cannot wing it. But it says, so we've heard, I feel like most of us have probably heard the idea that, like, you know, um, athletes visualize things. I think the first person I ever heard was that like Phelps would imagine himself swimming and doing the strokes right and what it felt like. And it was cool because I remember the time for Phelps, they said that it was really helpful because this one time in an important race, his goggles broke or something and he literally could not see. But because he had imagined what it felt like to do it for so long, he still won, even with like a malfunction of his tool. And I was like, oh, so I think a lot of us are like, yeah, totally. It's helpful to imagine doing that well. But the flip side, which if you just think about it, it makes sense your brain does it both ways. If we imagine not being able to do it, our brain actually, what does it say? It suppresses the action of possibility. So it literally, what I'm saying is it literally practices imagining you not being able to do it. So if you imagine being able to do it and it makes you stronger, the practice, if you say I can't, your brain actually imagines it not being possible. It's almost like it believes you. So whether you think you can or you can't, or you say you can or you can't, your brain then provides the picture to imagine it. So I like one of the things for me, if like I can't find anything to be grateful for, or in this season I can't, or whatever the can't would be, it actually creates that to be true. And it's almost, it reminds me of like um my son. I think of like pathways in our brains. Like it's not enough to do it once or twice. Um I can't remember, I don't think it was my son. I think it was actually my middle daughter. One time we walked out and we found a A, like the letter A scratched into the side of our minivan. And this was really smart on her part because it was rosy and she did an A instead of an R so that she could deny that it was her. But the reason I'm bringing it up is she didn't just scratch it once with a pin. She like had to like fist it and go at it and like back and forth until she got one of the letters and then she had to move like lines, and then she had to move on to the other line. And it was like a ton of repeated force and effort before it could actually carve the groove into our door. Thank you for that, Rosie. Great analogy that I will use for the rest of habit coaching. But that's what I think about like with creating pathways. So when you say I can't, you literally, it's not once, it's repeating its belief, it's adding limits to what you think is possible or what's happening in your life. And then your brain backs it up with imagining it. So you're reinforcing the idea that you can't. And then the other thing that like what the research has showed with this is that it's called learned helplessness. So then, for example, like really simple, I think they started with like animals, is they weren't able to, maybe they had electric shock color for a while. And then they took, so they knew where they could or couldn't go, they knew where the boundaries of the yard were, and then they took off the electric fence and they still never crossed the lines because they were trained that that's where pain. So I can't go past there. So it was a learned helplessness that even though the boundary had left, they had learned that they were helpless to those limits. So I think the flip side, a lot of times when we're not able to be grateful, is areas that are hard or painful or there's real limits. But I think when we are more aware of what our limits or the pain are, it kind of goes back to this. We forget what else is true, like the other side. And sometimes I tease that I get stuck and I can't land. So either what I like if I'm limited by my budget, and maybe that would be pain, and I'm more aware of what we can't afford, I it kind of goes hand in hand where I lose kind of naturally gratitude because I'm more empowering my the limits and that are real. And again, maybe like spiritual bypassing or some other odd version of Christianity would be like, name it to claim it, you know. And I'm like, I think my perspective would be like, those are real limits, but if we empower them so much by reinforcing them, we won't be able to creatively see what we can do. We kind of I always tease, I feel like a room bus stuck in a corner when I can't, like I can't do this because of my budget. It it actually naturally kind of tanks my gratitude and it it makes me not aware of what we can do. So maybe we can't afford a European vacation in this season. But instead of saying I can't afford vacation, like, oh, what that's true. We can't, that's real. But instead of like camping there, like what would be possible? And that's the beautiful part of like creative possibility is also that kind of goes hand in hand with like gratitude. Like, okay, actually we are lucky. Maybe we can't afford a European vacation, but I have friends who can afford European vacations who can't physically take a foreign or of like a vacation. So there is an another area that we so if we were to lean into what we do have, what could we do using what we do have? Where I think like when we imagine and we empower and almost like not on purpose, but glorify our limits or boundaries, we feel caged or trapped. And I think naturally our our gratitude decreases because we're more aware of our limits than we are possibilities within what we could do. I love it.

SPEAKER_00: 10:29

You know, I was thinking when you were telling that story about Rosie of another example that I was thinking about actually just this morning, because when we woke up this morning, we woke up to more snow. Anyway, it reminded me of when my youngest was still an infant, and so we were taking her snow hiking, but in a backpack. I also had my other two daughters with us, and so they were early elementary age. We decided to go on an adventure and go hiking at Taggart Lake, which is one of the closest hikes that we have in Grand Teton National Park, closest to where we live. And so we all got suited up and we headed out to go. Now I have done Taggart Lake before in the snow, and it was in snowshoes, but what I found out, and it was my first time going out in snowshoes, um, what I found out is that snowshoes really were not necessary at Taggart because it's a very popular destination, and so from the first few days that snow starts to collect on the ground, there are people out doing this hike, and so there is a term that I have learned since I've moved to Wyoming, and that is that they are boot packing the trail. So the people that go before us are going through the fresh snow, and instead of just um trudging through the snow, what they're doing is because uh they're one of the first people to go on that trail, their boots or their snowshoes are actually packing that snow down and making it easier for the people that come behind them to be able to walk on that trail. And this is important because by the time we went on our hike, it was many feet deep of snow. But because the trail had been so well boot packed, you could just walk along it like you were walking on hard snow, and so you really didn't have any idea of how deep the snow was because you were staying on top of it without any problem. But we got to this place where the trail goes into a V and we took the wrong way, and so we got quite a few feet down, probably you know, a hundred feet down from where it had V'ed off, and realized, oh wait, we're going the wrong way. We were supposed to go the other way, and because everything is white because of all the snow cover, it wasn't real clearly marked, and so we were like, okay, no problem. We will just cut across from where we are to the other trail that was to our left that we should have taken and get back on it, and because it's it's packed down so well, we should have no problem being able to find it again and then just get back on and keep on going on our hike. But what we didn't realize is that the snow that was between the two trails was really, really deep. We were post-holing, meaning our entire leg, we would take a step onto the snow, and our entire legs would just go completely down into the snow. And that's hard enough as an adult that is trying to get from one place to the other. It's really difficult for our elementary aged girls who were just falling through the snow constantly and having a really hard time. It takes so much more effort physically to be able to get through that snow. But it was really precarious for my husband who was carrying our infant on his back because every time he would post hole the backpack, you know, he would be like kind of falling forward. And we were worried about our daughter getting uh falling out. Now she was strapped in, obviously, but you know, there was still it was just a really precarious situation. And we decided to go ahead and keep going after those first few steps because we knew the trail was not that far away. It shouldn't have been that hard for us to get to it, but the more that we postholed, the more that we were falling over in the snow, the more I started to wonder, is nature gonna win this time? I had all sorts of thoughts of fear flashing through my mind as I was going through all of this, and our daughters as well as our daughter that was on uh Isaac's back. It was really crazy how just such a short part of our hike became so difficult because it hadn't been boot packed before. All that to say, it reminds me of the neural pathways that we have to form in our head. You know, if we're making a connection between what we're seeing and what we're thankful for, if we begin to develop an attitude or a habit of gratitude, it sometimes the first times that you do it, it feels like that first time when you're actually the one boot packing the trail. It does not come as intuitively, it's a slow process and we don't get to gratitude very easily. But the more and more that we use that connection and the more that we say and intentionally look for things to be thankful for, then we are boot tracking that trail or that neural pathway in our mind and forming a deep groove that easily connects what we're seeing to what we're thankful for. That's so good.

SPEAKER_01: 15:51

And then I love it's that's why it's almost like it changes how you see life or even the hard things. Like again, I think probably because I practice gratitude with the pain points of my life. It helps then when something's hard or painful somewhere else. What I've learned to be it, it makes me go, like, okay, but what what's gonna be the fruit? Again, not spiritual bypassing, this isn't hard, or don't say that, you know, like don't say that it's hard or painful, or you feel sad or lonely. It's like, okay, that's true. What else is true? It it that's the well-worn path of that is true. Your pain is put what else is true? What is it? And some of it just simply it's made me consider every part that is a bit challenging that there it's never for nothing, and that there's always a fruit or a goodness that's going to be formed. And sometimes like we're too early in the process and we just got the lab results back, or you know, whatever it looks like. And I'm like, I don't, I don't have currently anything to be grateful for here. But what I remind myself is like this is such a war well-worn path that there will be some fruit, like pain's never for nothing. There's some he's forming something in me. I'm not saying he's doing it to me. I'm not gonna get weird like that, but that consistency of this will benefit me somehow because he is so good. Sometimes I tease that I call God the spin doctor extraordinaire because there's things in my life that I was like, no way, you cannot win with. I actually don't know poker, so I was gonna use a poker, but like a a two and a three in your hand. Like, there's just no way. But he's so faithfully one with things that I'm like, impossible. But now I feel like I'm so gratitude and content, and I've noticed, like you, like you said, you've boat you've boot packed that path that even when I'm at the start of the trend, I'm like, how are you gonna do this? I'm like, but you will. I can continue in knowing your character will be the way it has been because like anything hard will manifest in fruit. There will be some level of fruit. Maybe it's gonna be over there in the backfield when I'm over here, but like you, nothing is wasted in you. And you can work it off. It's like I think that is actually part of what formed in my thought pattern that I would not have thought when you said, like, start the gratitude habit. I would not have seen all the fruit of how it changed my perspective on hard things because it created those neuropaths of like there's always fruit. Maybe it takes a month to see the fruit, maybe it takes 10 years, but nothing's beyond his ability to redeem. So, like, there will this, this is gonna cost me, but this will bear fruit.

SPEAKER_00: 18:14

Yes, that's so good. You know, um, before on the pod, we've been talking about the power of remembering, and that reminds me of what I was just reading in Victorious Emotions by Wendy Backlund and the same idea of rehearsing. I think I can hear this theme from what you're talking about and from what I've been talking about as well. That if we remember how God has been good before, it actually fuels our hope that he is going to be good again. And this is important to know because if we don't take the time to remember, we are not going to have that fuel that we need to be able to hope for something else good to happen. You know, I was just reading in The Bait of Satan by John Bevere, and he was talking about the parable about the king who had um a bunch of debts that he wanted to settle. Sorry, he didn't have the debts, but he went to the different people who had debts against him and he went to settle those debts. And he went to one guy and asked him to settle up his debt. And this guy, and this was actually uh an estimation made back in like the early 2000s, so it's even more right now. This guy owed what scholars are figuring is about equivalent now to 14.5 billion dollars to the king, which is so much money, right? For us to even begin to wrap our heads around. And the king goes to him and he begs, and this guy begs listen, give me more time. I can't lose my family, I don't want to go to jail. Let me do whatever I can to be able to um to work and give me more time and I'm gonna take care of this. And the king says, You know what? I'm gonna forgive the whole debt. You don't have to worry about this anymore at all. And the guy is so relieved. But then we see, and then almost it seems like the next moment in Jesus' story, uh, this guy goes to somebody who owes him the equivalent of about$4,000. And he says, I need you to pay me that$4,000 right now. And this guy, same reaction. Oh, I just need some more time, please. I need to keep working, I will make it good with you. I will, you know, let don't throw me into jail. I need to take care of my family. And this guy who's just been forgiven for billions of dollars of debt, takes this guy who owes him$4,000, throws him into jail, and makes sure that he works it off and is not able to forgive this guy his debt at all. I think this is so poignant because it illustrates to us that if we are not intentional to remember, we will forget. It seemed like within moments, this guy forgot what had just been forgiven him. So before we go on, I just wanted to know do you have any other thoughts concerning remembering or rehearsing or just why you think repetition is important when we're developing habits of gratitude or just habits in general?

SPEAKER_01: 21:15

I love that. Well, I think talking about how when we're looking literally for something to be grateful and we're like, what does that show to be true about God? Like when I get there, it's like, what is this show about your character? And that is when it's then I can apply it to future things. I'm like, oh, I've known you to be faithful, so you'll be faithful again. So it's almost like a ton, my gratitudes are a thousand little pieces of evidence that he is good or he is faithful or he is comfort or he is redeeming. So then when I need evidence of him being redeeming, I've like stored up a hundred small examples of like, yep, I have I have lots to then feed myself. It almost reminds me of like I'm feeding myself on who he is. So when I need to remember, there's a lot of food in my pantry for that moment. I actually think a lot about um there's sometimes I think about I think it was the Israelites after they've been released and they're grumbling about their situation. And he was saying something like, dude, God was like, Didn't you forget? Like I just saved you from blah, blah, blah. How quickly you forget. Like he calls them some, he calls them some level of like, come on, simpletons, like just did this. Where's your faith? And I kind of think that's the beautiful part about gratitude. Instead of feeling judgmental towards yourself, it's a habit that safeguards we won't forget because we're practicing the daily feasting on what he is doing. Um, I think even too, I heard someone say once that like gratitude and praise is the like the language of heaven. But then what does it mean that complaining is doing? And it's almost like you're you're choosing what you're glorifying. So if you're glorifying the hard, not good things, is it the language of like empowering almost like that the devil or the hard parts of your life is are stronger than the what his power is? So I'm like, oh, what are you focusing on? What is like, are you your gratitude leads to Thanksgiving and praise and worship? So you're more aware of who he is. And when you need to make that withdrawal, it's not like you've forgotten, you've stored up all these little incidents. You're like, oh, I know you're gonna be this way because you've shown me that you've been this way so many times. So out of that spot, I'm like, do it again versus ah, you you didn't see this coming. What are you gonna do? Oh no, you're not good at your job.

SPEAKER_00: 23:20

I love it. I love the practicality of that and whether it means you're storing up those things that you're thankful for by writing them down or by taking a picture or making a note in your phone, like find something or a turkey. Or a turkey you're writing on the feathers. Find something that works for you that you have a tangible place to go back and not just hope that in your mind you're gonna remember all these things that you're thankful for. Thank you again, Jenna. I really appreciate your time. And I will be linking to all the things and um sharing that in the show notes. So everybody call and schedule the channel. You're the best. Oh, it's a pleasure, Joy. Bye. All right, thanks, friend. Wasn't she so great? If you want to hear more and you haven't listened to the first three parts of this conversation, I've linked those episodes in the show notes for you. So, and I've got a whole list of ways that you can connect with Jenna, and I would highly recommend that you check her out. Check out her podcast, The Habit Lab, check out her podcast Marriage Lab with her husband Aaron, and let me just give one more shameless plug for her life coaching. I have to tell you, she did not ask me to do this. This is in no way part of the deal for getting her on the podcast, but it has just made that much of an impact on me that I wanted to make sure that you guys had an opportunity to learn from Jenna, but also to know that this is accessible for you to be able to sit down with her for an hour at a time. It's more affordable than if you were to go to a therapist and have some time and allow the Holy Spirit to move and allow her to continue to teach and speak into your life. It is so good, so worth it. All right, if you um got anything from the the series of episodes that we've been talking, um, text the show, please. In my show notes, there is a link at the very top that says text the show. I would love to know what resonated with you and what you're taking away from this. And even if you're listening to this and it's not November and it's not a time of Thanksgiving right now for you, I still would love to hear from you. Every message that you guys send to me or every word that you say to me, if you see me in person, just keeps me going. And I say that because there are a handful of times that people have reached out that have really meant the world, and there's a whole lot of silence. And so if you think, oh, she's saying this because she hears from people all the time, she doesn't need to hear from me. The truth is, I actually don't hear from very many of you, but I really would appreciate if you did reach out and um let me know what you're learning and what you want to hear more of. That helps motivate me so much, and I really, really, really appreciate it. Well, you guys, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. So before I let you go, I wanted to share that one of the things that is at the top of my thankful list is you. I really appreciate you. I appreciate all of you who listen to the podcast, all of you who have subscribed, all of you who have gone to the website and signed up for my newsletter and are getting those monthly reminders of what's going on in the pod. All of you who are liking my posts, I all of it is such a blessing. I'm being obedient to what I feel God is leading me to, and I really appreciate the affirmation, the confirmation along the way. It keeps me going. So I am thankful for you guys. Thank you so much for listening and have a happy Thanksgiving. Guys, I am such a nerd. I eat out on a show notes. So if you ever want to know how to contact the show directly, how to find us on socials, the links to books or anything that we mentioned on the show, go to the show notes. And at the very bottom, there is always a link that says support the show. It doesn't matter how little or big or how often you want to give, it's super easy to do. And I like to consider it a way for you to take me out for coffee and say, Hey, thanks. You know what I say? Thank you. You guys are the best.