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Gratitude in the Chaos- Finding Thanks When Life is a Mess
18 Plays7 hours ago
In this heartfelt and humorous episode, Krista and Chauntel open up about what it means to practice gratitude when life feels anything but peaceful. From cancelled plans and chaotic weekends, to unexpected moments of grace, they explore how gratitude can still exist—even in the mess.
Through personal stories, laughter, and a few “I almost lost it” moments, they remind us that gratitude doesn’t require perfection. Sometimes, it’s just noticing the good in the middle of the overwhelm.
What You’ll Hear:
- Krista’s story about finding gratitude in a moment of total emotional exhaustion
- Chauntel’s reflection on how gratitude shows up in the form of a meme from a friend
- A discussion on how gratitude isn’t about ignoring the hard stuff, but about noticing the good stuff anyway.
- A few laughs about the weird, wonderful things we’re thankful for (spoiler: one of them is wrinkles!).
- A gentle challenge to find one small thing to be thankful for—even if your day is a disaster.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Gratitude
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Exhausted Sparrows Unite. I'm your host, Krista Jones, with my co-host, Chantel Schaefer. And we're recording this episode in the middle of November. And what a great time to talk about gratitude.
Understanding Gratitude's Role
00:00:21
Speaker
Not the count your blessings kind that people throw at you when life falls apart, but the kind that keeps you anchored every single day, even when everything else is falling apart.
00:00:33
Speaker
We're not just going to talk about how gratitude is a mindset, but we're literally going to help you to reset all of it. it changes how we think it changes how we feel and you know what gratitude can even change how we handle chaos so if your life is feeling like a category 5 hurricane right now grab yourself some coffee pull up a chair and know that you are in the presence of minds that are going through the same exact thing welcome hello
00:01:09
Speaker
How are you on this beautiful, wintry day, Chantel Schaefer?
Thankfulness vs. Gratitude
00:01:15
Speaker
I am grateful for my warm coffee and for you. I love how you weaved that all in. It is the subject of gratitude.
00:01:26
Speaker
And Chantel and I have had a lot of stuff going on lately that has really made us say, hey, wait, let's Dive into this with this amazing sense of gratitude and let's change our stinking thinking, which we did an episode on long, long ago, and it is the season for giving.
00:01:47
Speaker
It is the season for gratitude here in the Hudson Valley. We're recording this podcast in November when Thanksgiving is around the corner and there's so many things we should be thankful for, but We should also realize that being thankful and being gratitude are two different things, right? Because being thankful is usually more of like an action, but gratitude is state of being,
00:02:18
Speaker
So I want to talk about that today. i want to talk about the state of being grateful as often as you can be and how that really and truly can change your life.
00:02:30
Speaker
It can because it it improves your mood. You know, instead of being resentful or ne negative or pessimistic, being grateful for even the small things can really lift you and change even the worst of days. Absolutely.
Team Sparrow's Charitable Work
00:02:45
Speaker
So this comes on the heels of a very chaotic weekend for Chantal and There were a lot of things going on in our life. We... you had to fly to Raleigh. We were supposed to front fly to Raleigh. Supposed to means we did not.
00:03:02
Speaker
ah We were going to test out a new run. and in the middle of last week, there's a lot going on here. We are bringing a big group of people down to Fort Lauderdale. We have this amazing team. It's called Team Sparrow.
00:03:16
Speaker
And every year we choose a different destination. And we bring them there. And they raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. This year, about $325,000, which um helps us here with our charity. It's called Sparrows Nest of the Hudson Valley.
00:03:30
Speaker
And we feed people that are going through a cancer diagnosis. We give them these amazing healthy meals. And so in order for us to successfully do a destination run, we always go the year before and we actually check out the run. Because we've learned the hard way that people that say a course is flat is not Krista flat. Flat Krista should not be on that course at all. At all. So flat Kristen now goes in the course and I'm like, I am here to see if or course is really flat.
00:04:00
Speaker
There was a small hill at 0.4 miles. So we go every year and we see what the atmosphere is like. We check out the hotels and a place for lunch and we do all
Gratitude in Everyday Life
00:04:10
Speaker
this stuff. And one of the places we were supposed to go was Raleigh.
00:04:13
Speaker
And we have no business going to Raleigh this week. And we were kind of hinting to each other, right, throughout the week. Like, do you want, instead of you know, doing a half marathon, do you want to drop down to a 10K?
00:04:25
Speaker
That was Krista. And ah Chantel was like, heck no. if we're going, we're doing all 30 miles. And I was like, I'll ask her one more time. And when I asked you earlier in the week.
00:04:37
Speaker
I was like, yeah, let's go do the half. Right. And then you asked me on Thursday. And then i said, do we really need to go to Raleigh? And I was like, no, because we're not going to probably run Raleigh next year. we we kind of have another destination place.
00:04:56
Speaker
And when she said that, I was so grateful that you said that because there was just so much going on in our world. So that kind of started out our week. We're doing apple pies and blueberry pies here. We have a new oven.
00:05:09
Speaker
The racks were wrong. The oven was wrong. We had to return things. We had to take things apart. We've been testing things. The blueberry pie was a little bit drippy. The apple pie, you know, there's just all this stuff going on. And we've got a huge run coming up in Fort Lauderdale. So...
00:05:27
Speaker
We didn't go to Raleigh and I was like, okay, I guess it's meant to be. and I really believe that God absolutely knows what he's doing because as I'm kind of thinking things through, I'm thinking about my food order and I'm like, huh.
00:05:41
Speaker
um feel like my rep and I were on the same page this week about what's supposed to come in with the food order. i was like, I'm going to go over the weekend and I'm going to check it out. And sure enough, I came here over the weekend to check it out.
00:05:57
Speaker
And only one of the two meals, I only had the ingredients for one of my two meals. The second meal, I didn't have any ingredients at all. It was a communication thing.
00:06:08
Speaker
And I was like, oh my gosh, I was spiraling. I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do because we feed our recipients to homemade meals every single week. And we don't repeat a meal for a year, which is like this big thing. I'm so proud of that.
00:06:28
Speaker
We don't repeat a meal for a year. So it's kind of like Christmas every day. Like recipients don't know what they're getting. And so I take this so seriously. Now I only have one meal and it's soup.
00:06:39
Speaker
And listen, I love me some soup, but my husband would be like, who is that feeding? don't know about you. My husband is not a big soup fan. Yeah. Mine would be like, right, here's the soup. But now I need a sandwich to go with my soup and a salad. And and I was like, we have Oh, no.
00:06:58
Speaker
So I spiraled. I went across the street to stop and shop where I know the manager there. And they all immediately identified me spiraling. And I'm like, I need 5,000 loaves of bread.
00:07:09
Speaker
And I need a bunch of cheese. And now i I didn't get the frosting for the cupcakes. and And so I spiraled. And this really sweet guy, Stephen, like found me in aisle six. And he said, are you Kristen? I'm like, how'd you know?
00:07:22
Speaker
And he's like, well, you know, kind of like the look on your face, like you, you really look like you're about to have a breakdown. I said, I am. And oh my gosh, and our recipients, we need all this food. And he's like, okay, what do we need to get? And I'm like, all right, let's, let's think this through. So we got all the ingredients.
00:07:37
Speaker
And I was like, God, thank you so much for not putting me on this plane. Nobody would have caught this. My team would have caught it on Monday and it would have been too late.
00:07:48
Speaker
Like, thank you, God, like for whatever you did to derail those planes because you knew I needed to be here.
Stories of Personal Gratitude
00:07:55
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, you know, this still stinks. Now they're getting a grilled cheese sandwich and the soup, and I don't know what else I'm going to do.
00:08:01
Speaker
And I get back to work. And there is this sweet woman waiting there for me with over a hundred bags of flour, sugar, and brown sugar, all the rest of the ingredients that I could possibly need know to make our apple and blueberry pies without having to spend a penny. She is in the parking lot of Sparrows Nest.
00:08:26
Speaker
And I looked at her and I was like, oh my gosh, what in the world is happening? And she said, my husband, Mike was sick for 14 years. He lost his battle this year in June.
00:08:39
Speaker
She said, and in order to honor him, I want to donate all these ingredients. I'm hoping this is what you needed. Like this is the, this is the rest of it so that you can make sure that all $25 of the pie actually goes towards feeding your recipients. It can go to your program.
00:08:58
Speaker
And I literally was trying not to cry in front of her because she had this insurmountable loss, you know, three or four months ago. And I kept saying, Krista, hold it together. Don't cry in front of her.
00:09:10
Speaker
But, you know, I brought everything in with her. i had this amazing conversation with her. um She's just such a wonderful human being. She was talking about how grateful she was to have him for 14 years, sick all 14 years.
00:09:25
Speaker
They got married. He was sick when they got married. all 14 years. She's like, I wouldn't change anything. We were both so grateful that he had longer than they said. Like she just kept saying this, oh my gosh. And she left.
00:09:39
Speaker
And I was like, God, i get it. Like I had this moment and I was like, My problems are so small in comparison. If I could walk around with more of a feeling of gratitude, right? Like gratitude that I was home and I didn't go to Raleigh.
00:10:02
Speaker
And I caught it. yeah Gratitude that now I'm figuring it out. And they're not just going to eat soup, which soup is great. It was a hearty soup, tortellini chicken soup. It was good. But gratitude that I've got the time to figure out what my second meal is. And by the way, we were able to whip up some delicious spicy ginger meatballs.
00:10:20
Speaker
Gratitude. Like it literally stopped me in my tracks. And I thought this woman just lost her husband. And she continued in that conversation over and over again, talking about the gratitude, how blessed they were, the gratitude.
00:10:35
Speaker
And so when Chantal, when you and i were talking about it, you know, we were like, that's, that's the episode this week about how your entire world can shift if you live gratitude, even in the hardest of situations.
Gratitude Amidst Chaos
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, gratitude thrives in those moments of meltdown, right? It can really pull you up because you can look at things and you have to reframe your stinking thinking. We did an episode on that, but you know, it's, it's,
00:11:07
Speaker
Just by doing that and finding something to be grateful for in the chaos is so important, right? And, you know, I think sometimes people associate gratitude with peace, right?
00:11:24
Speaker
Like it's a quiet morning, it's a good day, but honestly, real gratitude is found when there is chaos, right? It's when your car breaks down. It's when that diagnosis comes in.
00:11:39
Speaker
It's when the to-do list feels like it's this like personal attack. That is honestly where gratitude thrives. Of course, gratitude can be in all of these peaceful moments moments that we have.
00:11:52
Speaker
And when I say all of these, i don't really know how many of us have a ton of peaceful moments. But of course you can find gratitude in that. But honestly, in the middle of the chaos, that is when you need to search for it because that is when gratitude serves you the best.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah. You know, i think that um sometimes we say things like, Yeah. I'll be grateful when that settles down. I'll be grateful when that problem's fixed. I'll be no. no Fixing the problem, things settling down is finding the gratitude in the middle of it, right?
00:12:26
Speaker
Because life doesn't settle down. There's not a lot of moments of peace. So being able in the middle of it to pull out some things that are making you feel blessed, making you feel grateful, honestly, is what can get your life to a peacefuler place. And I think that's where a lot of us go wrong.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's also important, you know, to realize what other people are going through. I think sometimes we walk around with blinders on and, you know, we look in in just in our own life and we say, oh, you know, I don't like my job. My kids are getting in trouble or my, you know, my husband is not picking up his socks, you know, and.
00:13:06
Speaker
That's a real problem. It is a real problem. Sorry, go ahead. um But then we fail to to look around us. I mean, this woman went into the grocery store and bought hundreds of bags of of products and nobody knew why Nobody knew the grief she was feeling in that moment. And there was probably somebody going, oh, she's taking all the flour. Oh, she's taking all the sugar.
00:13:27
Speaker
Not realizing the story behind it. Yeah. You know, and we need to, we need to open our eyes and we need to look around us and we need to not so much put ourselves in other people's shoes, but be sympathetic and sensitive to what other people are feeling and be grateful for what we do have because others don't. Absolutely. There's always someone that has less than you do, right?
00:13:48
Speaker
Emotionally, physically, financially, whatever that looks like. And, you know, like you said, we don't know what, we don't know the walk that anybody else is going through. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve. So when I posted,
00:13:59
Speaker
about this incident, you know, people were concerned, you know, and that's just because I don't wear my heart on my sleeve. I have to run a charity and I'm feeding 450 people. And honestly, they don't need me to crack. Right.
00:14:10
Speaker
But at the end of the day, we're all human. We're all carrying stuff inside, you know, and like you said, you, you brought up, you know, she went to the grocery store and she's doing all this stuff. I mean, and I was helping her carry these bags in and I'm thinking of that weight.
00:14:24
Speaker
And how heavy that was. And she was still grateful for that. She was grateful to put him in her car. I mean, like just all of these analogies that I was going through when I was like, oh my gosh, Krista, like, let's be grateful in that moment.
00:14:40
Speaker
moment. Right. And you know, you said earlier, I think you touched on something that's so important. Gratitude literally will rewire your brain to focus on a more positive emotion, which does a million different things for us. Right. Yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
I mean, physically, it completely changes everything that we're doing, right? It changes our brain. We talk almost every single podcast that we do about dopamine and serotonin and all of this stuff. And you want dopamine. Dopamine is the hormone that helps you to Right. Combat depression.
00:15:19
Speaker
um We work out to create dopamine, to combat depression, depression. Gratitude actually increases that. Right. It is the same exact way an antidepressant does.
00:15:32
Speaker
The same way a medication does by having gratitude, by getting your dopamine levels up. You literally, it is giving you that same effect that if you were taking medication in order to pull yourself out of depression, like that is some amazing stat statistics.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah. And it how easy is that? You wake up in the morning and I'm grateful I'm putting my feet on the floor. I'm grateful I have a job to go to. I'm grateful my kids have breakfast. Simple little things.
00:16:01
Speaker
Right. Because I think sometimes too, we think it has to be that we have a hundred thousand dollar job or that we have a really nice car or, you know, i think that sometimes we don't feel we can be grateful until we hit the level that somebody else is at.
00:16:19
Speaker
Right. But honestly, like you just said it. i don't even know if you really, putting your feet on the floor, you have another day on earth. Like there is nothing else to be more grateful about than to be able to start another day and do the best you can.
00:16:36
Speaker
That alone is something all of us can be grateful for.
Impact of Comparison on Gratitude
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, going back to, you know, I can't be grateful until I hit this level. I mean, the first episode we did, comparison is the stealer of joy. You will never be grateful if you're always reaching for the next thing.
00:16:54
Speaker
You have to be grateful in what you have. And you have this moment. What are you going to do with it? hmm. You're right. And there's, you know, there's a lot of countries that are very poor countries that don't have a lot.
00:17:08
Speaker
And, you know, now's the time when you see like, um you know, the shoeboxes going out and all this stuff. And you know what, there is really something to be said with people that have the basics compared to people that have all this stuff.
00:17:21
Speaker
Like you will find in many countries that the depression rate is way lower in the United States of America. And they attribute that to the fact that they are not focused on all of these materialistic things because one, they they can't afford it.
00:17:36
Speaker
You know, two, it's just not in their world at all. There's nothing to compare to. They're all on the same level. And you know, what are they grateful for? Think about it. Then what do they have? They have their family. Mm-hmm. They have each other.
00:17:49
Speaker
That's all they have, but that is more than enough. And sometimes that trips us up too. It's all of this materialistic things that we feel we've got to have this gratitude for. And getting up in the morning, good health,
00:18:04
Speaker
you know, children that are healthy. Like there are so many basic things that we overlook because we're just this materialistic country that, you know, we we thrive on all of these things that honestly don't bring us joy. Yeah.
00:18:24
Speaker
Stuff we don't need. So gratitude, i think sometimes people feel, um, If you find, you know, something to be grateful for in every moment, like it's toxic, like it's this toxic, positive vibe, right? Like, I don't know how else to explain it, but some people are like, you know, you're too happy all the time. You know, you can't realistically be that happy.
00:18:51
Speaker
You know, there's a difference between a toxic positivity, right? Where everything happens for a reason. And, you know, some of the things that we probably shouldn't say and a radical gratitude. i think that's where there's like a line. Like some people I think mess that up too.
00:19:09
Speaker
You can say this is hard. You can say this really stinks. You can say my to-do list is completely overwhelming me, but then you can still find something good in it. It's not that you are negating that you're going through something hard or something is awful, the death of somebody that you love, what whatever it is that you're, there are many, many incidences in our life that are just awful and hard, but it's just trying to pick something out of there. You know, um, you know, we're having a ah battle at at my house right now with, with my youngest and, you know, just, um,
00:19:49
Speaker
you know, getting her to believe in herself. She doesn't know what she wants to do with college. She's having some issues in the food area. And so I'm celebrating the small wins.
00:20:03
Speaker
You know, if I can get her Not to get on the scale three times a day. I'm celebrating that. If I can get her to put a chocolate chip cookie in her mouth without thinking, I'm celebrating that. Is it a really hard time in my life?
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah. Is it scary? A hundred percent. Am I completely afraid and worried that I'm going to say or do the wrong thing? ah Yeah, it's all consuming. But, you know, there are little wins in all of this, no matter how...
00:20:32
Speaker
you know, hard this is, there are wins. And then when you take those wins, and what I'm trying to do is then really compliment her on those wins and let her see the wins, then the other stuff kind of falls by the wayside.
00:20:48
Speaker
We're still in a really hard area. But when she sees the praise and hears the praise, when she's doing these things, she it is then helping her to focus more on those things yeah instead of the negative. Does that make sense? It absolutely makes sense. It's drawing light to the positive and and diminishing the other areas.
00:21:08
Speaker
And being grateful in all of that grounds us.
Gratitude in Relationships
00:21:12
Speaker
right? it It gives us something that we concretely, if that's even a word, can put our faith in, right?
00:21:21
Speaker
Because we all want to put our faith somewhere. No matter what your spiritual beliefs are, aren't, whatever it is, you need to put your faith somewhere. And it absolutely reshapes all of our relationships. Because if you really express like this genuine appreciation and you're empathetic and you seem more concerned and you're less reactive, people around you You know, if they're having a bad day, they can't help but readjust their own attitudes a little because of the way that you're coming at them, right?
00:21:51
Speaker
We often react to other people's emotions. It's really hard. Somebody that feels blessed and grateful, it's really hard to be a jerk around them. Yeah. I mean, some of you can do that. I know. Yeah. But I'm just saying, it's harder to do it. I mean, you could be really, really mad that day and you're able to do it. But for the most part, it even makes me, when somebody is just joyful, grateful.
00:22:13
Speaker
I was saying something the other day, i was complaining about a workout. And I was like, yeah, but you know, it was whatever it was. And the person that I was talking to was still so positive. I was like, they have just ended any conversation. at Like I couldn't really go back with that.
00:22:29
Speaker
They were like, yeah, but you were able to get up and do it, but you did it. And I was like, ah, crap, I did. Yeah. You know, I feel that way when we're doing our runs. So we talked about team spare we're going to Fort Lauderdale and those law, those end miles, they get tough.
00:22:42
Speaker
And sometimes it's, I am here. I am running because there are people who cannot, and I'm doing it for them. And I'm grateful that my feet are moving forward.
00:22:54
Speaker
You know, those are hard moments. And it's really good to surround yourself with people who are in that mindset that we're here, we're doing this and we can do this. And it's still a hard thing. It's still a hard thing. Mile 10 way harder than mile four. Yep.
00:23:08
Speaker
But. you're you're You're acknowledging it's hard, but you're saying in the middle of it, well, here's my why and here's here's the reason I'm doing it. And it makes it a little bit easier. And I think that's that's that's what it is, right?
00:23:21
Speaker
Gratitude isn't going to erase the exhaustion. but it kind of softens the experience, right? So it's not going to erase if you have 13 miles to do and you're 10 in and you're ready to give up.
00:23:36
Speaker
It is absolutely not going to erase that. But like you said, you're saying things like I'm able to do it. We're running for cancer patients that have lung disease that can't breathe. We're running for women that have lost their husbands And for children that have lost their moms, we are running for people that, you know, um will never get the chance to do this run that are in hospice care that, you know, through surgeries will, you know, not have the mental stamina, the physical stamina ever again.
00:24:05
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? And in the middle of it, wow, that's something to be grateful for. that you are still able to do that. Our health is something we often take for granted instead of waking up and saying, I'm grateful for what I got. yeah And, you know, we've talked about workouts and we talk about all that stuff on here and trying to find some time for yourself. And I can't stress that enough.
00:24:27
Speaker
You know, you are in control to a certain degree of your health. And all of us say things like, I don't have the time. I don't have the energy, but we have to find the time.
00:24:39
Speaker
And I realized that the older I get to like, wow, my years are probably more behind me than I have forward. And that's like a kind of a scary thing to say.
00:24:49
Speaker
But then i really want those years to be the best years that they can be. and I want to be grateful for them. And so I too have to do as much as I can in order to keep this body mind going.
Building Gratitude Habits
00:25:02
Speaker
And I'm grateful for that. But, you know, we talk about all of that kind of stuff in all of these episodes and how taking care of you is the first thing before you can take care of anybody else.
00:25:13
Speaker
So, you know, we say all of that stuff. So how do we, though, practice it in the middle of real chaos? Because I think, yeah, we can say it, but that's a lot easier than doing it. You know, but um I think we can keep it small, like you said.
00:25:28
Speaker
Right. It doesn't have to be this long drawn out thing. We can say thank you that we woke up this morning to our body, to God, do whatever. we can go outside. We can notice the flowers or the sky. We can be thankful for something like that.
00:25:41
Speaker
We can acknowledge the meal that we didn't have to cook. Our recipients feel that way all the time. You know, they will call us, you know, you don't realize until you don't have to cook a meal, just how important that was for you and how much time it saved you. You know, they're little things. And then,
00:25:57
Speaker
I think we have to make it ah habit, right? You definitely have to make it a habit. And what is it? 30 days? Is it 30 days? 21 days. 21 days. 21 days forms a habit, they say.
00:26:09
Speaker
And like for me, we do joke about this on every single episode, but it is it is true. I have ADD, maybe ADHD. I don't know what you would say, Chantel. I'd say HD.
00:26:20
Speaker
Okay. So I have the H in there with the with the d Um, for me to create these habits, I do it every morning when I'm brushing my teeth. Cause now when I brush my teeth, I talk about all the things I'm grateful for.
00:26:34
Speaker
And then every morning I do some type of a workout. So then on that, I spent about five or 10 minutes doing it. That's the only way that I was able to create that habit. Otherwise I'll forget to say all the things I'm grateful for.
00:26:46
Speaker
yeah So that's now when I do it, it could be in the shower. It could be that you pick up your kids um from the bus every day. So that one minute walk down to the bus is when, but you know, if you get in the habit of doing it at a certain time during a certain activity, you know, maybe not one where you need all your brain cells to, to, to function, maybe not in the middle of your zoom call. Like, I don't know, but if you find a place to do it, you can make it into a habit.
00:27:14
Speaker
And then you'll realize if you've skipped a day. You know, I liked, you talked about in a couple of podcasts where you write yourself a note and you leave it on your mirror. What if you put something you're grateful for on your mirror every day?
00:27:26
Speaker
You know, cause then it's looking you in the face. So, you know, when you're looking, you know, for me, sometimes i look at my face and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm almost 40 and I have these lines and these wrinkles and then i go, you know what? I'm grateful for those lines and wrinkles. Cause it means I laughed a lot over the past 40 years. It does.
00:27:41
Speaker
You know, so putting it there so you can see it every day. Yeah. It could be that simple. I'm grateful I'm reading this note, right? Right? yeah I'm grateful I got up because I'm reading this note. and I'm grateful, you know, for everything the day is about to have in store. It doesn't matter how you do it, but creating a habit around it, for me at least, has been essential so that I don't go...
00:28:07
Speaker
a day without it. Right. And I think some people think that you can only do it in quiet, but you know, you, you can do it you know, in the middle of driving or walking. And sometimes I will say something to somebody like, I will just write a note and say, I'm grateful for you.
00:28:24
Speaker
I made you cookies because I'm grateful for our friendship. i you know, did your laundry today, Madison, because I'm grateful that you did not give me ah any more chores when I got home last night. I'm trying to think of something. My little Madison, she's like, I don't know, is that pig pen?
00:28:42
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Her and Fiona. Oh my gosh, my bookends, my house. But um you know, those little things. Sometimes for me, it's a meme. You know, somebody will just shoot me a meme and it's just something like, I don't know, there's this guy and he just runs up to the camera and he's like,
00:28:57
Speaker
Hello, bestie. I love you. that's it. And I love to send those to people because, yeah, it's not me saying it, but it's just adorable. And it's just, I'm thinking of you. Yeah. And sometimes when I receive those, I'm like, oh.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah. Because we're living in these chaotic lives where we don't always have the time to you know, make a phone call or sit down and have coffee. But sometimes it's just those little moments that come in in the midst of chaos.
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah. Where you get this little video or this picture or this meme and it just says, hey, I'm thinking of you. And that's all you need. Yeah.
Finding Gratitude in Loss
00:29:27
Speaker
And, you know, it it also comes in you know, the middle of grief.
00:29:32
Speaker
I think a lot of people are very, very afraid, ah very afraid to um have gratitude in the middle loss.
00:29:44
Speaker
And, you know, because I think there's a lot of guilt in that, but gratitude, it's really, it's not a betrayal, right? It's not a betrayal. You can still be grateful for the friendship that you had, the person that passed away, you know? um And I think a lot of times we're afraid to express gratitude because we feel that that we're cheating somebody or something, a relationship that we lost. And that shouldn't be the case.
00:30:14
Speaker
You know, I went through this recently. I lost my grandmother. She battled with Alzheimer's for eight or nine years. Um, and, and towards the end, she was just bedridden and she didn't recognize anybody. And when she did finally pass, I was grateful that she was free of that pain and that suffering. And people had a hard time understanding that, you know, I was sad obviously, but you know, I would tell them, you know, I'm grateful that she's no longer in the pain she was in. She's no longer trapped in a body that's not responsive to her anymore.
00:30:47
Speaker
And that she's just, you know, home with my grandfather. grateful that she gave me her apple pie recipe. I'm grateful that we made cookies together. I'm grateful that she raised my dad to be the amazing man that is. Yeah. You know,
00:31:00
Speaker
It's finding those little moments in everything we do. And I promise you, it really, really can change, honestly, everything about you. So even though we know that gratitude will not erase the chaos, you should know that it's going to give you a flashlight to see right through it.
00:31:17
Speaker
Sometimes when things feel heavy, gratitude says, hey... I'm still here. still breathing. There's still something worth noticing. So the next time you're feeling life get unhinged, don't wait for it calm down. Practice gratitude in the middle the storm.
Spreading Gratitude
00:31:38
Speaker
That's where the power really lies. If today's episode has given you a little bit of peace, even just a moment to breathe and share it with somebody else that you see is running on empty. We're all just trying to make it through this wild, messy life, one grateful breath at a time.
00:31:56
Speaker
Check out our website, sparrowsnestcharity.org. If you would like to show your gratitude for any of the people that we feed and remember until next time, be kind to yourself and each other.