Power of Gratitude

Gratitude is often misunderstood.

It's not about pretending everything is okay or forcing yourself to be positive when life feels difficult.

In this episode, Marquis Walker, LCSW, explores gratitude as a practical mental and emotional tool that can help shift perspective without denying pain or hardship. You'll learn why gratitude isn't about ignoring reality, but about training your mind to notice what is still good, supportive, and meaningful.

We'll discuss:
• What gratitude really is (and what it isn't)
• How gratitude helps reshape perspective
• The connection between gratitude and your nervous system
• Why changing your focus can change the meaning you attach to your experiences
• A simple gratitude practice you can begin today

If you've ever struggled with the idea of "just be grateful," this episode offers a more realistic and compassionate approach to building resilience and hope.

Transcript

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By the end, you will have a simple routine. You can start today. One that doesn't deny pain but changes what pain gets to mean in those moments. Alright, let's jump right in. Welcome back to the show. And thank you. Thank you for being here today. I really appreciate that. Like, look, seriously, if this resonates with you, share it with somebody, leave a comment below. All that good stuff. I really want to know if I'm being impactful in your world. Today we're going to talk about practicing gratitude. Gratitude practice. But not in a way that's fluffed, polka dotted, or whatever else you want to call it to make it sound good. We want to focus on gratitude, practicing gratitude and working for you in a real way. We're going to talk about gratitude as a real mental and emotional tool, a way to shift perspective. If your life has ever felt heavy, repetitive, or just plain unfair, you ain't by yourself. Sometimes just be grateful. So today we're going to make gratitude feel grounded. We're going to learn how to shift perspective and how shifting perspective really works. Why gratitude helps you see more options and in a way that supports your nervous system, your relationships, and your inner world. Gratitude is the practice of noticing what is already present, something real, something that's good, something that is supportive, something that brought you to positive thoughts. And here's the key gratitude is not pretending that everything is fine, it's not denying the suffering. Gratitude is the mind's way of building a different set of lenses. Listen, sometimes you gotta get a better set of lenses. You gotta change your perspective, you gotta change your glasses. In therapy, we often talk about perspective, how thoughts, emotions, behaviors are shaped by what our minds decided to focus on, right? Gratitude is more or less uh deciding to uh reshaping your focus points, rather. Think of it like this your brain is a spotlight, right? It's a spotlight, it's a spot right spotlight operator. Think of it like that, it's always shining light somewhere where when when life is hard, the spotlight often lands on loss, disappointment, danger, or compromising situations. Gratitude helps to retrain that spotlight, your spotlight. Gratitude practicing it changes the meaning you attach to your experiences. Right? I want you to really get that. I want that to sink in. Gratitude practice changes the meaning you attach to your experiences, it doesn't it doesn't erase the reality, but it can reduce the sense that life is entirely hopeless. Many reflections. Take 10 seconds right now, right now, without judging yourself, think where has life surprised me with something, anything good recently? Anything good recently? Just hold that, right? Where has life surprised you with anything good recently? Just hold that, hold that in your mind. You don't have to say it out loud, you don't have to just hold it right there. Where has life surprised you with anything good? Looking for the good in your life. Hold on to that right now. It could be something simple, you know. I woke up and I didn't, my back wasn't as tight. Um, it could be something as simple as that, or I was able to cut my water on and it can't see actually came on, right? Good practices of gratitude. I want you to hold on to the the beauty, the beautiful things that you have, the good things that you have that you often overlook. Hold your attention there just for a moment. Now let's talk about why gratitude shifts perspective. When you practice gratitude, you engage several mental processes. Um, at one time, attention shifts. You're training your brain to search for signals of support rather than signals of threat. Appraisal shifts, you start reframing what's wrong into what I can also acknowledge. Emotional regulation improves. Gratitude can nudge your body towards safety, especially when you do it slowly and specifically. Gratitude reduces the brain's tendency to treat everything as urgent and it increases the brain's capacity to notice resources. And resources matter because perspective isn't only a cognitive thing, it becomes a relational thing as well. When you're more resourced, you respond differently, you listen better, you ask for help, you don't escalate as quickly, you're not as trapped in the narrow tunnel vision of this is the only thing that matters, right? So, gratitude practice isn't just mood management, it's it's life management, man. Now let's clear up some misconceptions. Let's let's clear this up. Some some common misunderstanding. Gratitude is not toxic positivity. Toxic positivity says if you're struggling, you're you're you're doing something wrong. Right? That's what positive positivity, toxic positivity says. You can hold both to be true. This is hard, and I'm not alone. This is painful, but I am surviving, and I have survived before. This season is heavy, and there's still something I can appreciate today. When gratitude is practiced honestly, it becomes a bridge, not a denial. Here's a quick example if someone says, be grateful you have problems that motivate you, that can be dismissive. Very much so. But if you say I am allowed to be disappointed and I can still feel grateful that I have support, skills, and options, that's that's that's that's grounding. That's grounding. Today's gratitude practice is the grounded kind. Anyone that knows me a little, I don't like to talk about a bunch of stuff and just not get practical with it. So we gotta get practical with it. We gotta we gotta put this thing into action. There are different ways to practice gratitude, but not all methods are equally helpful for everybody, and that's important to understand. Here, here are three practices you can put in rotation, try it out for yourself. So you're not just relying on the only one type of gratitude practicing, it's not a one-size-fit-all situation. Let's start with practice number one. The three things, three things I want you to be very, very, very, very specific, right? Everyday things, I want you to either write it down, write it down is very powerful if you don't want to do the journaling, right? Write it down if you don't have a paper, say it out loud, right? The the three things, right? One, the first thing I want you to I want you one thing that went okay that specific day, one thing that went okay, then the next one person or relationship that mattered to you, and then the one small resource you didn't have to create from scratch. Keep keep it keep it very specific. Life is good. That's too vague. We don't want we don't want vague, we want specific. My friends checked on me in even when I didn't respond. Now that is real. My friends checked on me and I ain't even hit them back. That's that that's a real gratitude. That's a real gratitude practice right there. Let's go to practice two gratitude with memory. This is one of my favorites actually. Past to present connections. Choose one meaningful moment from your past, something that helped you grow or survive. Then answer, what did I need back then? Who or what supported me? How does that resource exist in me now? This shift perspective from I am stuck to I have been through and I am capable, I have the capacity. It's true, the proof is in the button. Practice number three micro gratitude. When the day is difficult, don't force big gratitude. Choose micro micro small, very small. The fact that you woke up, the fact that you have a body that still functions, the fact that you can reach out, the fact that you have one small task that you can do next. Micro gratitude trains resiliency, it teaches your mind. Even here, I am not powerless. Now, a quick note if gratitude practice makes you feel uncomfortable or fake, that doesn't mean it's wrong. It means you need to start smaller and get more accurate, not bigger. Accuracy creates safety. Gratitude exercise. Look, make this thing take about two to three minutes. Take some deep breaths in. Take take some deep breaths. It's okay. Inhale, exhale, that kind of thing. Let your shoulders relax with it. Let your body relax. Like right now. Look, just go ahead and take a deep breath. If you gotta talk, pause the video, pause the video, pause the podcast. Look, take a deep breath with me. Think of one person who has contributed to your life directly or indirectly, not as an idea. Make it a real person. Make it a real person in your mind. Now complete this sentence in your head. I am grateful for Blah because blah. Look, let's make it real. I am grateful for Coach Toddy, my high school football coach, for teaching me grit, teaching me discipline, teaching me structure, teaching me to look a man in his eyes. Let yourself feel it for 10 seconds. Not a huge emotion, right? Just a real acknowledgement. Here's where gratitude practices become transformative. It leads to behaviors, it leads to transforming the behavior, enhancing the behavior, altering the behavior. When you shift perspective, you start to act in alignment with that shift. Gratitude can produce three common behavior changes. Connection. You reach out more to people because you see people as supportive rather than obstacles. Action, you you take the next step because you notice resources and the momentum. Tolerance. If this resonates with you, my email is uh mwalker at goinwithin.com. I want you to do this, right? I want you to really do this. So you can find me on Facebook. Send me a message on Facebook, send me a message on TikTok, go in within on TikTok. But I want you to do this with me right now, right? Think about your next 24 hours. Choose one person you can send a gratitude message to, or one action you can take that honors something good in your life. And I want you to put, I want you to put this in put this in the comment box, right? Send the text. Tell me how you feel, right, when you do this. I want you to send a text message or even say thank you in person. Or thank you through text. I want you to I want you to one cleanup task. Do one cleanup task that makes that makes your space feel safer. A meaningful conversation. I want you to do this, a meaningful conversation you've been avoiding having. Gratitude becomes real when you create movement. So let's talk about the barriers. So you're not surprised when gratitude practice doesn't feel easy, right? Barrier number one. I don't feel grateful. Your job isn't to force feelings, your job is to practice noticing. Feelings often follow when you notice. Barrier number two, nothing feels good. When nothing feels good, start with micro gratitude. I have a body that I can breathe in, I can count, I can read, I can feel, I can walk, I can stand. You know how many people out there that can't stand that would love to stand. You're building on a small foundation. Understand that. Barrier number three. I am worried gratitude will make me ignore problems. Gratitude isn't ignoring problems, gratitude is always planning. It reminds you that there are resources while you solve the problems. Barrier number four, I compare my life to others. Comparison steals perspective. If you catch the comparison, shift from what they have to what I can appreciate about my life today, and what I can learn from what they've modeled for me. Alright, look, gratitude is perspective training, it teaches your brain where to shine the spotlight, how to interpret your life, how to respond from a place of resiliency instead of narrowing in on stress. Here's your challenge. We already have the one challenge, but here's your challenge. For the next seven days, I want you to simply, structurally and realistically, each day, do the three Paci ones. One thing that went okay, one person or relationship that mattered, one small resource you didn't have to create from scratch. Once a day, add a micro gratitude moment, even if it's one sentence. Once during the week, send gratitude, kind of gratitude message to someone. Before we wrap up, I want you to take a deep breath with me one more time. And blow it out. Come on, you can do better than that. Listen, slow it down. Hold it and blow it out. Notice all the shoulders go down and quietly say today I can notice what supported me. Thank you for listening. If this episode helped you, share, please, share it with someone. Share with someone who needs a shift in their perspective. And as always, I'm grateful to have you here.