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Gratitude Rewired- How Thankfulness Can Save Your Sanity....And Your Life
43 Plays5 days ago
Have you ever sat in the middle of your life—your chaotic, heavy, heartbreakingly ordinary life—and thought, ‘Is this it?’ The bills, the appointments, the never-ending noise of things that feel urgent but not meaningful?
It’s in that moment—when the weight is real and the light feels far—that gratitude becomes less of a buzzword… and more like a lifeline.
This isn’t about pretending everything is fine. Gratitude isn’t blind optimism, and it’s not some cute affirmation on a pastel Post-it. It’s a fight. It’s a radical act of rebellion in a world that profits from your discontent.
Gratitude says: ‘Even here, even now—there’s still beauty. There’s still good. There’s still me.’
In today’s episode, we’re getting honest about how finding something—anything—to be thankful for can begin to change not just your mood… but your brain, your body, your life. And spoiler: it’s not about being happy all the time. It’s about being awake to what’s still true when everything feels off the rails.
If you’ve been overwhelmed, burned out, cynical, or just numb—this episode is your reminder: joy isn’t a reward for the perfect life. It’s a skill. One we build, one grateful moment at a time.
Topics Covered:
- Gratitude vs. toxic positivity
- How gratitude rewires your brain
- Practicing gratitude during hard times
- Simple, non-cheesy gratitude habits
- How gratitude transforms perspective, stress, and emotional regulation
Key Takeaways:
- Gratitude is not about denying hardship—it’s about expanding your view.
- Daily gratitude practice rewires your brain to see more clearly and feel more joy.
- Even micro-moments of appreciation can drastically shift your mood and mindset.
Try This:
Start your day by naming one thing that didn’t suck yesterday. That’s it. The rest will follow.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to exhausted sparrows unite. I am Krista Jones, your host with my lovely cohost today, Chantelle Schaefer and Tom
Exploring Gratitude
00:00:16
Speaker
Morel. And we are talking about being grateful. Now, when I talk about being grateful, I'm not talking about, you know, the stuff you slap on your coffee mugs, right?
00:00:27
Speaker
Like the slogans that you put on the back of your cars.
Gratitude's Impact on Stress
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm talking about like gratitude, gritty,
00:00:36
Speaker
get down to think about gratitude that makes us dig into that underrated superpower of gratitude, the stuff that happens to us every single day that we just take for granted. But honestly, we should really be praising We're going to get perspectives on your brain and your stress levels and how you can train your eyes to see good in almost everything.
00:01:02
Speaker
And this ladies and gentlemen, I feel could be the episode of this podcast that really like changes your life forever.
Appreciation Among Hosts
00:01:11
Speaker
and I am so glad that I got my friends here today to share it with because guys, I'm grateful for you and I'm grateful for you, Tom.
00:01:20
Speaker
I wish I had an adjective in front of my name before. You said she was lovely and I just i was just Tom Morell. feel like I said the lovely Chantelle Schaefer and Tom Morell. It was lovely for the two of you. i was great I'm grateful that you included me.
00:01:33
Speaker
that' so I'm just grateful for that. Terrific Tom. Terrific Tom. So this is a segment that is i think...
Gratitude: Foundation of Happiness
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm going to be as bold to say is the foundation of everything in your life. It is the foundation of your happiness.
00:01:50
Speaker
It is the foundation of you being able to forgive. it is the foundation to help your anxiety, the foundation for stinking thinking, like all of these episodes that we talk about, the foundation behind it has to be that the way you look at life, right? The way is it rose colored glasses? Like how are you looking at the things that happen to you on an everyday basis? It is basically like a ah ah basis for like your own philosophy, your own way of living, right your own way of thinking of things and and and how you feel about those things and how you react to those things.
00:02:22
Speaker
Right. And we all have the choice, which is what I really love, of of either being grateful every day or not. Like we absolutely in this life have the choice of how we're going to live out our life.
00:02:35
Speaker
I don't know how you're going to react to it. I don't know, Chantal, what you're going to say about my life. But at the end of the day, that is the one choice that I have. I have the choice how I live my life.
Krista's Gratitude Journey
00:02:46
Speaker
And years ago, i started like really trying to focus on being more grateful. And honestly, for me, it has made such a huge difference. The being grateful part is like, like you said, is a is a choice.
00:03:00
Speaker
It's, um, it's not so much what you do. It's how you react to the things that happen to you. There was, um, I think I don't remember who the, the quote was. I think it was from Mark Twain said that life is 99% of stuff happening.
00:03:15
Speaker
Uh, a 1% of stuff happening and 99% of how what you make it, how you react to it. Yeah. And that's true. Yeah. And everything that we do, but how powerful is that? That every single, we can't blame anybody but ourselves. Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker
on what our foundation ends up being, right? No matter our situation, I know there are awful situations out there. There are situations I've never faced. I am not in any way trying to make it sound like, you know, your life maybe hasn't been hard.
00:03:42
Speaker
But like you said, we have control over what we do with that information and how we look at that information and whether we pivot or not or what our next step is going to be. And that's kind of what this is all about today.
Modern Abundance vs Past Hardships
00:03:56
Speaker
And I'll be honest with you, we'll probably talk about this later, but my, like a sneak preview of where I'm going with it is it, it takes five seconds to be grateful for something. It really does only take five seconds.
00:04:10
Speaker
If, ah if you, if you take that time and just think about what it is that's happening or, or, or is occurring or what what situation you're in, you know, you it's easy to be grateful. You know, if you think about,
00:04:23
Speaker
You know, in the past, past generations, you know, think 100 years ago, 150 years 125 years ago, 78, 80% the world was natural disaster away from starvation. From starvation. seventy eight eighty percent of the world was one natural disaster away from starvation from starvation And now where are we at?
00:04:41
Speaker
Where there's a weight loss drug every other week because we have so much food. We have so much abundance.
Everyday Luxuries
00:04:47
Speaker
There's so much waste in food, any specifically here in the United States. But there's so much abundance that we have that it stresses, that stresses us out.
00:04:56
Speaker
I think you raise a good point too, because I think 150 years ago, 100 years ago, 70 years ago, things were so much simpler. And I kind of feel like it might've been easier to try to find the gratefulness in all of that because nowadays there's always something bigger and always something better. And so now we're not grateful for what we have because we can have so much more. we have Exactly. We have so good. Why don't I have the yacht in the Bahamas? Why don't I have the, you know, where a hundred years ago, like you said, they were like, my gosh, I just want a potato, zack you know, on my plate. Like, I don't know where my next meal is. yeah And so we've kind of also gotten really spoiled in what we think grateful is. i mean, my gosh, we're breathing.
00:05:34
Speaker
Like, let's start there. We are waking up and putting two feet on the ground, you know, every single day. Like, wow. Like we take for granted even just something as simple as like a hot shower.
00:05:45
Speaker
Yes. A hundred years ago, a hot shower was, that was not, it wasn't something that was common and certainly not something that you would be able to do every single day or twice a day if you needed to.
00:05:58
Speaker
Now we just kind of take that for granted. But that moment that you're in the shower and you're like, come on, why won't it get hot? It takes two minutes to get hot. Just give it a second. Give it a first world problems. Give it a second. Can we do that? You know, that's the, but if you take that moment instead of that two minutes of like, why isn't this happening? Why, why isn't this getting hotter?
00:06:19
Speaker
Just be grateful that the, the, for the fact that you have, and we sound like such old people when we say that, staley be just grateful. Just be grateful. You have anything. We are. Chantal's the baby. When I was a kid, we only had a rock and a stick to play with, and we were grateful.
00:06:33
Speaker
Chantal's the baby of the group. I'm sorry, you only had a rock and a stick. i had Well, I had two rocks. um so i was You were living the dream. Yeah, we were living the dream. but it's But it's that simple.
Gratitude vs Toxic Positivity
00:06:44
Speaker
It's just having that perspective of, you know, i in this moment, I could be mad that the shower isn't working right, or I could be grateful for the fact that they don't have a hot shower. They may have running water inside shower.
00:06:55
Speaker
And at a moment's notice, I have access to water. Because even right now, there are people, there's a billion people around the world that don't have access to even just clean water. 100%. And we have clean, hot water.
00:07:07
Speaker
Right. At our fingertips. Or cold showers, because that's also a thing now, too. Or cold showers. want to take five-minute cold showers. But- For me, I think what took me a long time to um grasp, and I still do it, Chantel will tell you I do this at work all the time, is also being toxically positive, right? Okay, yep.
00:07:32
Speaker
You can be grateful, right? And still go through these things and still, you know, validate that you're going through like all this hard stuff. Like there's still pain, you know, you're trying to see the beauty and stuff in it.
00:07:46
Speaker
But you know, there were times when I was trying to grasp this, I'm grateful that I was, I'm fine. It's fine. It's all fine. Like there was this, this toxic trait to it too. And I think we have to realize that being grateful does not mean that you have to be overly positive all the time in every situation.
00:08:06
Speaker
it just means there has to be a spark in every situation, a pivot in every situation that you can find to still be grateful in that. Does that make sense?
00:08:17
Speaker
I think there is gratitude or there should be gratitude in
Learning Through Pain
00:08:20
Speaker
every situation. I mean, because every situation is an opportunity to learn and to grow. So it might be painful and it might hurt, but you can look at where it's bringing you.
00:08:29
Speaker
You know, maybe it is the loss of ah a friendship or a relationship, but it's growth in you and gratitude for losing maybe that toxic person or that toxic relationship so that you can start to thrive. Sure.
00:08:41
Speaker
And struggling is a thing. Like you, you know, you have to own that. There's going to be a lot of things that you're in that are painful. And, you know, I think I could not tell the difference, right? So if I was in an awful situation, you know, I'm fine. You know, i had, I felt like,
00:08:56
Speaker
You know, I just had to be overly positive about everything, but that's not what being grateful is. So I think for me, it was really hard to decipher between the two. So I was kind of living this this fake Brady Bunch, for lack of a better term, life.
00:09:12
Speaker
For a little while too. And then that, that also affected people around me and my friendships and everything, because then i'm I'm not deep. I'm shallow. I'm, everything is fine. And I'm not really letting you in any of the pain. You can still have all this pain and still be grateful for these moments. Right. And people see that too.
00:09:29
Speaker
They, they, then they're not, they're not blind to that inauthenticity. Right.
Authentic Gratitude vs Positivity
00:09:33
Speaker
in authenticity And that's really what this entire podcast is about. It's like, how do you balance that? You're still authentic.
00:09:40
Speaker
You're able to be grateful in it. And you're not this this fake person that's, that you know, yeah, there there are struggles. The loss of not only friendships, the loss of people you love.
00:09:51
Speaker
you know People are like, where do you find the gratitude in that? Well, wow, that is digging deep. And that doesn't mean that you're okay in any of those moments. like You don't have to fake this positivity, which I think for me was a struggle for years.
00:10:04
Speaker
And it really did. it just It affected a lot of my life and a lot of my relationships because people were like, I can't even get
Science of Gratitude
00:10:11
Speaker
to know you because you're making all of us think you know you're you're grateful for every single thing and you're positive about every single thing. So i mean I had a lot of struggles with that.
00:10:22
Speaker
That's an interesting take. i didn't I didn't think we were going to go there with that. that's that's really That's really raw of you to actually even come out with that. Because like you said, it's theyre they're you it sounds like youre you were hiding behind positivity. Oh, 100%. You're using gratitude in air quotes and positivity as like a shield from the the real feels, you know, the stuff that's really going on. And you just shove it away and go, no, I'm grateful for that. Sure. Because here, know, someone hit my car. Right. I'm grateful that my, you know, my friends hate me or this happened or, or someone passed away or that these things, I, I, I think you're right that there's a, ah there's a misnomer in this is that with gratitude is like, you have to be positive about everything. Gratitude isn't always about positivity. Not at all. Sometimes you can be grateful that something, something terrible has happened.
00:11:20
Speaker
Cause like what Chantel was saying is that there's a lesson in that there's a learning in that there's something, there's a gift in that as as hard as it may, be is as hard as it may seem or as hard as it may be to, to see that.
00:11:33
Speaker
um I think there's an opportunity there, but like you said to, you know, hiding behind like, Oh no, everything's cool. I'm great. It's not, that's not gratitude. Well, you know, the the the whole podcast is around our charity, which is called Sparrows Nest. We're here in the Hudson Valley, which is in New York.
00:11:49
Speaker
Hi, if you're listening in Argentina.
Supporting Sparrows Nest
00:11:51
Speaker
Hola. Or hola, if you're listening in a Spanish-speaking area. Or guten tag, if you're listening in Germany. Yep, and now we're digressing. And here we go. Here we go. We've lost all control.
00:12:03
Speaker
But here in the the the charity, it's a charity to help people through a cancer diagnosis. And not all rainbows and unicorns, we, you know, 10, 15% of our patients end up losing their battle. We feed their families.
00:12:18
Speaker
And so here, you know, I'm always um in this fake positive because I don't want them to see The sadness, there's there's already enough sadness. So, you know, I'm also like, I have to be this positive force.
00:12:32
Speaker
And I think that's what it is too. Sometimes we feel and we get confused with being positive and having gratitude.
Daily Gratitude Practice
00:12:41
Speaker
gratitude, like you just said, Tom, and I think you hit the nail on the the head, it doesn't mean that you need to be all hunky-dory positive. Gratitude is, there's a lot of stretching in that through loss and all this stuff. You think, what do I have to be grateful for?
00:12:54
Speaker
Well, in that you're being stretched and you may be You may have to be stretched for something else coming in your life. So it's it is a growing process that, you know, I'm grateful that I was able to walk that out a little better than the last time. Like, you know, that's where you find the gratefulness. And sometimes that gratitude comes after the fact.
00:13:16
Speaker
You might not feel grateful in that moment. I mean, i don't feel gratitude when, ah you know, I lose a loved one. But after that grieving and grieving never really stops. But after the initial shock and and grief, I have gratitude that I had the memories, that I had the time, that I was able to share a part of their life.
00:13:36
Speaker
But that doesn't mean there's no pain. Mm hmm. and grateful as well that you you are here and you are breathing and you are living in sometimes losses of friendships and people also make us reevaluate, you know, life is short.
00:13:49
Speaker
I need to be grateful for what I have. I need to you know, be better in these areas. Like these are the areas I want to grow more. Like I have the opportunity. What am I waiting for? So yeah, for me, it was always this um positivity, gratitude. And I just always thought that they had to coexist and I'm realizing they are really completely different.
00:14:08
Speaker
And being grateful does a lot of amazing things to our brain, right? Like both of you said, being able to like look at positives of a situation over negatives helps to actually lighten. I'm going to use like some tiny scientific words here.
00:14:25
Speaker
Your prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal cortex. And it increases dopamine, which is so important. And I want to focus on that for just a second. love dopamine.
00:14:36
Speaker
I love dopamine as well. I have pills that and say they're dopamine pills. Those are supplements. Please hold on. Please on. I think those are just Skittles. Those are just Skittles. I think that's in there. She's digging
Reframing Frustration with Gratitude
00:14:48
Speaker
through her desk drawer right now. I really wish you could see this. She's pulling out all kinds of snacks. I'm going to actually take two of my dopamine pills because I do need to take them they're at the bottom with my shake stuff. Okay.
00:14:57
Speaker
We need to talk about dopamine, especially in women, which I know, Tom, sorry, but that's ok menopausal women, like dopamine um is is lowered in menopausal women.
00:15:07
Speaker
When you're depressed, your receptors, your dopamine levels are very, very low. So think about that. Joy, gratitude, all of those positive things.
00:15:19
Speaker
things that are reinforcing your brain are actually increasing your dopamine, which we need to survive. We need for our mental health, our wellbeing. We need that to actually have relationships, positive relationships with people.
00:15:34
Speaker
So being able to take negatives and say, all right, where is anything positive out of this situation? Reframing our stinking thinking. Exactly. Yeah. The cake.
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah. That whole story, which I think you should retell for, for people that did it, but being able to rethink things actually helps our brain to function better.
00:15:56
Speaker
So there's ah actually what's interesting about that, what you're saying there is there is a logical element to feeling better emotionally. Yeah.
00:16:07
Speaker
There's a scientific, it's shown in studies. Well, using logic to make yourself feel better is what mean. So some people, you know, most people are, you know, they think that you're, oh, you're very logical or you're very emotional. And those are the two parts of it. think they work hand in hand.
00:16:25
Speaker
It's better to be, it's, I think it's easier to be emotionally happy if you use that logic and vice versa. You can be more logical if you also think emotionally on occasion. So it's, there's, there's a, there's a hand in glove in there.
00:16:39
Speaker
There's like a balance. But it, but it does start with, like you said, It starts in the brain to to reframe a situation. Sure. Like we said about the shower, right? Or like we so we talked about the the story with the car, ah with the cake.
00:16:54
Speaker
yeah For those of you who did, if I repeat it, I apologize. But in a previous podcast, we mentioned, you know, about road rage. You're driving around on ah on a twisty, turny road and you're doing 20 miles an hour when you should be doing 45.
00:17:08
Speaker
And, um you know, we've all been in that situation. We get angry about that because we framed it as why isn't this guy moving faster? Why isn't he driving as fast as I need him to?
00:17:18
Speaker
um I choose to reframe it logically in my head that the guy probably has a cake on the front seat. Probably his anniversary cake. It's very special to him. He's
Krista's Timely Encounters
00:17:29
Speaker
driving slow. His wife is going to be very angry if it does' they spent hours.
00:17:33
Speaker
I have a whole backstory already built in my head about what this guy in has a cake in the front seat. you're grateful for his cake in the front seat, which is then forcing you to slow down a little. What I'm actually grateful for, honestly, is the fact that I can reframe it.
00:17:48
Speaker
That's as as weird as that sounds. Like I'm grateful for that because now I know I'm not going to arrive at the next location angry. the The drive is actually more enjoyable when you're not when you're not cursing out the guy in front of you. True.
00:18:01
Speaker
And I'll be honest with I'm thinking about cake. And you're thinking about cake. you're grateful for all those. And i in that situation, am thinking I'm not supposed to get to that place any faster than I am.
00:18:14
Speaker
Like the other day, i had to come to work. My husband was not happy. My husband had to drive me to work on a Sunday. Not thrilled at all. He said, well, we should go to Sibelica's, we should get all this stuff done. I go, listen, I really have to go to work first.
00:18:28
Speaker
So that's what we did. We had to come here, i had stuff I had to do, he had to wait on me, he was not happy. Then we went to the next destination and there he saw a cousin that we haven't talked to in 10, 15 years,
00:18:41
Speaker
who ended up telling us a story about how his mom died, things that we did not know in the family. And I said to him, I know that you were angry. I know that you were upset, but let's be grateful that the day worked out exactly like it needed to. You know what I mean? Like, like you're put in situations, you're going slow. And then you hear of an accident later or you're like, so sometimes we just need to be grateful in the unknown.
00:19:05
Speaker
Because we may have been, I like to think we have been saved from something else that
Contagious Nature of Gratitude
00:19:10
Speaker
couldn't happened. We weren't supposed to be there at that time and see that other person. Or I always do that in my head. I'm exactly where I need to be when I need to be there.
00:19:21
Speaker
Gratefulness. A hundred percent. And the other thing with gratefulness that I, the gratitude that I find is that it's contagious is that when you are grateful or you find gratitude in a small thing at home, you know, when my wife makes lunch for me in the morning, so I don't have to do that. Or when my coffee is, know,
00:19:42
Speaker
not piping hot, but hot enough for me to drink it comfortably. I'm grateful for that. You know, when there's, um yeah you know, the opportunity, we were talking about the rain today, right? Today it's when we're recording, it's raining today. I'm a baseball coach. It's our worst enemy.
00:19:57
Speaker
Can't play in the rain. You play other sports in the rain. Can't play baseball in the rain for whatever reason. So I'm not entirely grateful for the rain, but I know that,
00:20:09
Speaker
The flowers are grateful for Well, yeah, you look outside the situation, right? Yeah. You need rain for things to grow. And I'm not grateful that the boys can't be there out on the field. But how about you guys go to the weight room today and just keep strengthening yourself and you you have to pivot too.
Finding Gratitude in Weather
00:20:25
Speaker
Yes. You know, you got to be grateful and everything because there are things that are out of our control completely. Well, because the alternative is what? It could be not raining and it could not rain for several months.
00:20:35
Speaker
And now, you know, the trees and the plants and the, when there's now there's fire, there's fire risks and all kinds of stuff. i mean, Tom goes from dark, but Tom goes from warm. One to like 400 seconds. Yes. I mean, that's, that's, yes again, that's the the logic thing. I took a, I took a course in college called logic. And one of the ways that you, it was all about proofs.
00:20:56
Speaker
How do you prove something is true? Well, you, one way is you take the opposite, right? And you prove that that's not true. Right. So using that same kind of logic, we get to so too deep this early in the morning that sometimes my brain can't. Yep.
00:21:12
Speaker
I'm grateful you're here today, Tom. Yeah. But in that situation with the rain, like, hey, um I hate the rain. Okay, well, what if we didn't have the rain? Well, i write I would really hate that, too. So which one is worse? Right. Not playing a game or not having rain and forest fires that we're obviously running from.
00:21:28
Speaker
Like the people complain about the weather when it's cold outside. Those are always the first people who are also complaining that it's too hot outside. Right. So we're going to be grateful in any season. We live here in New York. So you're getting every season there is. in like a two week time frame. Yes, exactly. So get
Krista's Daily Gratitude Practice
00:21:44
Speaker
ready for it. And in in New York, it has rained, I think, for like 73 days straight.
00:21:50
Speaker
it's like We've had a lot of rain. Every weekend for like eight weeks. Yeah, we've had a lot of rain. I saw actually on Facebook. So it's you know it's true. It's on Facebook. Since November, every weekend in New York State, it has rained.
00:22:04
Speaker
That could be true. Somewhere in New York state, it has rained every single weekend since November. I feel like we live in Ireland. Yeah. Ireland is very lush and green. Very lush and green, but very rainy. There we go.
00:22:15
Speaker
So we're talking about this gratitude, right? And we need to practice it, right? In the everyday things so that when we do have a dumpster fire, like it's not completely out of control, right?
00:22:30
Speaker
So we're saying, obviously, if it's something that you're not doing every day, It does make it harder, especially in the middle of grief and loss and all of these things that all of us have to deal with at some time during our life.
00:22:44
Speaker
So I do it every day. It's silly, but I mean, I'm being open and raw. So I mean, right. Authentic me, judge me if you need to. But every single day now, when I get up, I just spend five minutes and I set a timer because Tom and I laugh.
00:22:59
Speaker
Chantel knows it's true. i have ADD. So I set a timer that I can physically see where I go through every single thing that I am grateful for.
00:23:09
Speaker
i go through the meetings that I'm about to have. I, you know, I'm grateful that these people want to speak to me, not like, oh my gosh, I have seven meetings and I've overbooked. I'm grateful for the appointments that my kids have because we're, you know, I have a child right now going through some major health issues.
00:23:26
Speaker
So I'm grateful for those appointments so that we can figure out things.
Expressing Gratitude to Loved Ones
00:23:29
Speaker
But I give myself five minutes every single day and I just go through how blessed I am to be able to get up and enjoy that day. I get to do these things. I don't have to go to work. I get to go to work.
00:23:39
Speaker
I mean, there are people, right, that can't find work, that are struggling, that are disabled and are unable to work, that, you know, um there are addictions. There are so many things that just could be so much worse. So I am grateful that every single day have a packed day.
00:24:00
Speaker
I like to verbalize my gratitude because a lot of times it's to my spouse, my wife specifically, where sometimes that, uh, that doesn't always get communicated because of the busyness of the day or because of the, how mundane some of the tasks that are done seem to be like laundry and dishes and lunches and making sure the bags are packed and that the, you know, the all of that stuff.
00:24:27
Speaker
And every once in a while, I'll just shoot a text message to my wife, which to me is, I know I said verbalizing, but it's, it's a, you're, I'm communicating. And I shoot her a text message. I can say, I'm so, I'm so grateful. I'm so thankful for all the stuff that you do for us. And, you know, I, I'm, I'm so, I'm so happy to, you know, to have you in my life.
00:24:47
Speaker
And she'll text back go, are you okay? Is everything all right? Yeah. Or what did you do? Yeah. Are you about to drive off a cliff? Like what's going on here? what you do? That's the other thing she'll say is what, okay, what what do you need?
00:24:58
Speaker
What do you, what what are you about to buy? but What souvenir cup are you about to bring home that she is going to be mad about? But you know, but that's because those things do seem to be more rare when you do that more often than people don't think you're, you know, okay.
00:25:13
Speaker
Well, it but it is healthy to normalize it. I just did it to Chantal the other day. i saw something on TikTok or something about people in your life that are, you know, amazing and supportive to you.
00:25:25
Speaker
And I just sent it to her. Like, because that, like you said, it is contagious. Showing people that you're grateful. Like, you know, like I'll get a text every once a then i'm like, oh my gosh. And then I will spread that on because how great on a random Wednesday to get something from somebody that loves you, that cares about you, just saying, I'm grateful for you.
00:25:47
Speaker
Like we should normalize that. Absolutely.
Communicating Daily Gratitude
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that should be your homework if you're listening. I think just once a day. Yeah. Pick someone. Doesn't matter. Send them whatever, a real ah social media post, send them a text, give them a phone call, send them an email.
00:26:04
Speaker
Just like once a day, spend one minute, find somebody and just send them something random out of the blue. How amazing is that for dopamine for the other person? Not even just you. But make sure you use the word gratitude that you're grateful. 100% and tell them maybe what you're grateful for. yeah Because like you said, those mundane tasks, you are grateful because that is a million things that your wife is doing that you don't have to do after you're done working.
00:26:28
Speaker
How great is that for you to to come home to a clean house? Yeah. Yeah, you're grateful. Yeah, should be.
00:26:40
Speaker
Is Jeremiah sending you text? Yeah. No. No, but something my husband, so something my husband taught me, and this is for like strangers or people, is instead of saying, i appreciate it, he says, I appreciate you.
00:26:53
Speaker
So when somebody does something for him, he says, I appreciate you. Not I appreciate what you did for me, but I appreciate you and who you are. That's that's great. And I really, really like that.
00:27:03
Speaker
And it takes people by surprise. You know, it's a different level of gratitude because, you know, anybody can do anything for you. But he's saying, I appreciate you as a person and that you took your time to do that for me.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's that is pretty powerful. yeah Chantel comes out with one-liners, but I i like i want to say this now. ah She has definitely a fan club, and I will talk for 30 minutes, and somebody will come up to us, and they'll go, Chantel, those one-liners.
00:27:32
Speaker
And I'm looking at them, and I'm like, do i have any good one-liners? And they're like, Chantel, man. like I'm grateful for Chantel. Yeah. Yeah, you're grateful for Chantel because she gives you room to to to express yourself.
00:27:44
Speaker
Oh, 100%. She's stammering all over you like I am. And when she comes out with something like that, guess what? Now I'm doing that. That's amazing. Thank you, Jeremiah. Thank you, Jeremiah. Who then gave it to Chantel, who has now told all of us this. But you can do that randomly too. Like I'll do that to my buddy Kevin who, you know, as as guys, we don't always communicate our gratitude for each other necessarily because it's not really,
Casual Gratitude Among Friends
00:28:07
Speaker
you know...
00:28:07
Speaker
It's not cool to do, but every so often I'll send a text message to my, my trio or quad of guys. And I just go, Hey, you know, I'm really, I'm really grateful to have a friend like you because you know, there's the this life would suck more than it does in some days without you.
00:28:25
Speaker
And just want to let you know that. Yeah. And it can be something that you just, just learning to say thank you throughout your day but not just But not just to say it, to mean it.
00:28:37
Speaker
But to mean it, right? When somebody holds a door for you at the grocery store, when somebody lets you cut in line, like whatever it is, saying the word thank you and getting used to saying that as well is a big thing.
00:28:50
Speaker
Something that we've kind of, i feel, right? I think you have to find a way to say it differently though. Because I feel like if a guy opens the door, you go, oh, thanks. I hear thanks or I appreciate it or i hear that a thousand times.
00:29:06
Speaker
So you need it to be a little deeper. like No, it doesn't need to be. But if you want to be grateful, right? Tell that guy, instead of just say say thanks, say something like, that was really nice of you.
00:29:18
Speaker
Or, hey, man, that was cool. Thanks. Thanks for holding the door. ah i'm I'm serious. like no it's That hits differently than just to throw away thanks. okay Not that you don't mean it that way, but maybe perceived that way. Thanks is just like, thanks, you're cool. You're saying it's obligatory. like We're all so used to it that you know it just kind of gets lost in the background. All right,
Self-Talk and Gratitude
00:29:40
Speaker
so. It's like when I say hi to you, I go, how are you doing? I'm not actually asking you how you're doing. I'm not looking i'm not inquisitive there. is' just That's just what you say. Right.
00:29:49
Speaker
so Which we've done episodes on, and we've had people in here in the middle of grief also saying, when you throw that out to them, for them it's kind of insulting because you're walking down a hallway and you really don't care. yeah and they you know so I'm getting a little bit off topic, but all right. So besides the fact that you need to text somebody once a day,
00:30:09
Speaker
Now, now, now when we're thanking people, we want you to go, Hey man, thanks. That was cool. Just, just, come to just communicate in a way. Well, just what I mean is, no, no, I like it. I like it. We're, we're having people do that. And, but communicate it in and like a genuine way, yeah not just to throw away, mix it up a little bit, right? Saying, I appreciate you instead of, I appreciate And,
00:30:31
Speaker
and How about when you are in the middle and you're alone and you're doing things like this, this also is me being authentic. I mean, you might find this funny, but I will sometimes like when there is tons of laundry and I am just like beside myself, I will pause and I will fold and I will just say, all right, thank you.
00:30:55
Speaker
my kids are healthy and they're home from college. Thank you. Like I literally will have to do that over myself. Like I literally will have to say, i am grateful that my children are home.
00:31:07
Speaker
I am grateful that this summer I get to spend
Gratitude for a Busy Life
00:31:10
Speaker
time with them. I am grateful for the dirt that they are able to go outside and play. Like whatever the thing is, i am grateful for the memories they're creating when they did slime for like four years and it's on the back of my couch.
00:31:22
Speaker
So I also feel that I have to say that to myself and I do that a lot throughout my day. We do that as baseball parents. My, my wife and I are baseball parents and we're not like, when I say baseball parents, I don't mean, Hey, my kids play baseball.
00:31:39
Speaker
No, no. We're all in like we have the wagon and we have the chairs and we have all this stuff and it's permanently placed in our car year Sure. um I made a sign a few years ago that's sitting in our in our dining room. I did make it handmade.
00:31:56
Speaker
And it says on there, our schedules are frantic. We eat dinner out three days a week. Our, our cars are a mess. There's clay everywhere.
00:32:08
Speaker
There's smelly clothes everywhere. And we love it. How lucky are we? Like, this is so awesome. And like when we complain about how, like this week is hellacious in terms of, you know, this one's got a playoff game and that one's got to be here. And that was good.
00:32:21
Speaker
And it's just frantic the whole weekend at the end of the week we go. That was pretty awesome. That was cool. That was really cool. Being grateful. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't have it any other way. No. Even through all the stress, because it could be just the same without it.
00:32:35
Speaker
We wouldn't have any of those memories. We have so many people that we've created long relationships with forever. Through that, sure through that stress of, oh, who's going to play on this team and who's making that cut and my kid isn't playing and what's the schedule this week and oh, we have pictures this week, but it was supposed to be on Thursday, but now it's on Friday. Why is he changed?
00:32:54
Speaker
All of that stress is. we We love that. We're grateful for that because that means that we're we're living this lifestyle that we love with with baseball and through that.
00:33:07
Speaker
Right. And at the end of the day, like we started the conversation and we're going end the conversation at the end of the day, we get to choose what our foundation is.
Gratitude as a Choice
00:33:17
Speaker
Exactly.
00:33:17
Speaker
We get to look at every single day and take five minutes, two minutes, whatever, and we can... scan through what went right at the end of the day. We do that around the dinner table. I don't know if you guys do it, but we started one positive thing.
00:33:30
Speaker
So at our dinner table, you have to tell us one positive thing that happened to you i don't want to know about, you know, Jimmy pulled your hair and somebody ate your carrots and yeah whatever it was. I want to know what was the best thing about your day to day. I did that with the girls when they were little.
00:33:42
Speaker
We still do it when we communicate. What is the best thing that happened to you today? And then sometimes i do the flip, like, you know, both of you were saying, and I say, what are all the things that could have happened but didn't?
00:33:55
Speaker
yeah I got to work on time. I didn't have a flat tire. I wasn't behind cake guy. We do love cake guy, but sometimes, you know, we don't want to be behind him. Like, whatever it is, like whatever works for you. But in our family, that changed the whole trajectory of our dinner time too, because it was only positive talk. You were not allowed to talk about Jimmy pulling your hair because I'm going after Jimmy tomorrow, Jimmy.
00:34:14
Speaker
You and me, Jimmy. I'm sick and tired. Oh, sorry. No, I don't know. Jimmy's going to get a stern talking to. Jimmy's in a lot of trouble. Jimmy, I'm grateful for you, but no, uh, you've taught my daughter how to fight boys. No, anyways, I'm digressing.
00:34:27
Speaker
But, um, that changed the tra trajectory of everything that we did when we started making these little moves. And now, like for me, I'm like, I am blessed. Like I have such a great life. No matter what you throw at me, I can find gratitude and all of it. have beautiful friends and all these amazing people behind me and a great family.
00:34:46
Speaker
And so we have the foundation to do that. Like we have the control to do that at the end of the day, because gratitude grows wherever you water it, right? Like wherever you water your life, that's if it's a negativity,
00:35:00
Speaker
that's what's going to grow. That's, that's your thorn. If it's in positivity and gratitude and thank yous, there's your plants. Like, do you want a life filled with thorns or do you want, you know, these beautiful flowers where nothing is choking the life out of them? You get that choice every single day.
00:35:16
Speaker
I did see one thing and I actually just, you
Perspective of Gratitude
00:35:18
Speaker
just mentioned it there. You can be, you can be mad that roses have thorns or you can be grateful that thorns have roses.
00:35:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Flip-flop. That's a t-shirt. Is that the t-shirt? Well, I don't know. I'm thinking the car with the cake and the passenger seat. We've already got that. That's already in the works. That's one of them. So now we need one for today, you're saying.
00:35:42
Speaker
All right, we're going to find a t-shirt for today, and we're going to sell these online. Eventually. And the money is going to go to Sparrows Nest, we can feed cancer patients. And if you want to find out more of what we do, you can go to sparrowsnestcharity.org.
00:35:56
Speaker
So if all you did today was find one thing to be thankful for, then, I mean, that's enough. I feel like we did our jobs, because gratitude doesn't fix everything.
00:36:07
Speaker
It's not about being positive all the time. kind of just changing the way you walk through the mess, right? That's how you got to look at it.
00:36:18
Speaker
And that, my friend, changes everything because it changes your outlook. It changes how you feel about the world and that you have control over that. You have control of the foundation of your life. So,
00:36:30
Speaker
Maybe this week, instead of chasing more, maybe you slow it down and you send that text to your friend. You say, hey man, cool that you opened up the door. You whisper when you're doing the laundry how much you love your messy, unfiltered life because you're in this life.
00:36:47
Speaker
And this life is something to be deeply, deeply grateful for. So please be kind to yourself and each other. Until the next time, thank you for tuning in to Exhausted Sparrows Unite.
00:37:00
Speaker
you