Hi there, you're listening to Take Out Therapy, short lessons in popular topics about emotional health. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. I'm a therapist by day, and we don't really tell people what to do.
We listen, we validate, and we focus on helping people reach their goals. But in the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations, because sometimes we need some damn instructions. Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee you it might help.
Listen up. And if you have little people in the room, throw on some headphones, because I swear, okay? I'm grateful you're here. Thanks.
Hi, friends. Thanks so much for showing up today. I am sitting in my studio recording this episode on a beautiful, we're almost into winter here in Oregon night.
It's cold out there, but my studio is like this really snuggly little 10 by 12 room out in the back of my house, and it stays pretty warm. So Lily and I are out here, and it is the evening of Thanksgiving week here in the States, people. And we all know what that means.
Welcome to the shit show. That is the holiday season, right? So I thought it would be important as we head into the biggest meal of the year to say gratitude is what's for dinner. Like it? That was my little Thanksgiving joke.
But no, seriously. Today we're going to talk about gratitude and that all the hype around gratitude, it's not just a bunch of bullshit. The hype around bullshit is actually based on research.
Hey, go figure. It's so exciting. Anyways, that's enough of my sarcastic attitude.
Gratitude's a good idea. That's what I'm saying, people. With Thanksgiving coming up and other holidays that we get together with our friends and our family and celebrate life and connection, and even giving, right? All these things are coming up, and so I think it's important just to stop and let's talk about gratitude today and why it might be a good idea for us.
I have to say it's a really tough time right now. I think, duh, and also every generation could kind of look at any time in their history and say it's a really tough time right now. The world is a constantly changing place, especially since humans are in it doing our thing.
I think it's very easy to get caught up in despair, in hopelessness, in negativity surrounding politics or the way people are or the way our work week is scheduled. It's easy to get caught up in negative attitudes or thinking, and so gratitude seems sort of, well, frankly, it seems kind of silly, right? I'm busy over here. Don't be bothering me with your gratitude attitude.
We generally underestimate the importance of something like gratitude, which would honestly greatly increase our satisfaction in our life. Also, if we practice gratitude, and I'm going to give you some ideas about how to do that, of course, I would never leave you empty-handed. If we practice gratitude, then we kind of mess with our brains a little bit, to be honest, among other things.
Basically, studies about gratitude have shown that practicing gratitude actually helps us cognitively with other things like focus, attentiveness, ability to follow through on things. It kind of lights up an area of our brain that not a lot of things light up. And so practicing gratitude is actually great for your brain because I don't know about you, but a well-exercised brain, right, I think is a good idea just in terms of aging and the lifespan and also like happiness.
So we can create change by practicing gratitude because we're going to be less miserable all the time. So I think it's important for you to understand that a lot of the studies on gratitude and kind of what we see when people start practicing gratitude in their lives, it's kind of infectious. Like it's really, it helps other people, you know, it's just a way to open that door for other people.
And so something like gratitude being trendy, like I'm telling you, that is on fleek, you guys. Is that how you use that expression? I'm learning some new things. Yeah, gratitude, like what could possibly go wrong? We could be less miserable.
We could be less dismayed in the world, right? And what we also know about gratitude from kind of another point of view, which is like energy, right, if you think of your sort of body is just a bunch of energy, right, atoms and molecules and all those fun things just wiggling around, then it would be, it would make sense that like sadness kind of has a slower, heavier energy to it, right? When you walk in a room and everybody's sad, now you know what I'm talking about. Of course, yes, a heavy, right? And you walk into a room and everybody has gratitude going on and there's a lot of love there, right, which is they're very closely connected. Then that feels really good.
And that energy kind of moves faster and lighter, which like we humans like, basically, right? And also that energy kind of like infects other people. Like I said, it's a little infectious, right? And so, I mean, you know, we could spread a little gratitude energy and it's really easy to do it. It's easy to practice gratitude.
It's not, it's not easier, though, than practicing misery. And so, I just want to let you know that our brains, they see all the negative things before they see anything positive. That's just how the machine works.
So, please understand that I'm not giving you the assignment of finding all the annoying people in your neighborhood because, duh, you already know who they are, right? You don't have to practice that. I'm not asking you to practice, right, losing your patience with your kids, right? So, the brain kind of doesn't do these more positive things naturally. We actually have to teach it things like gratitude because its job is just to be negative, to keep us safe, right? And so, the way it does that is just to look for all the bad stuff.
So, we have to practice gratitude. Some ways to do this are to just sit, right, and think of something in your life that's just a blessing, right? And when I use the word blessing, what I mean is, like, it's just something you feel really freaking lucky to have. It's somebody who's come into your life.
It's a beautiful item, right? It's a nice cup of tea. You guys, we have so much good. So, a little gratitude practice is just to sit in your, like, room or your living room or your bathroom, I don't really care where you sit, and just think about something that's really good in your life and try to focus on thinking about that for about, like, 30 seconds to a minute while you're just, like, having some nice breathing and see how that feels.
It feels really, it feels kind of shimmery. I don't know how to explain it. Do it and then tell me how it feels.
But to me, it feels, like, kind of twinkly and light and it feels good. It feels empowering. It feels like love, right? There's nothing wrong with that.
So, that's just a really easy way, you know, and then just, like, spend some time there. So, I would say this is, like, a three or five minute exercise where you just practice thinking of a thing that you're really grateful for, that you're super lucky to have in your life, or you just feel really happy about, and you're just so thankful. And then you just sit in that for a moment.
And if you can't hold your attention on that thing, think of something else, right? Just think of something else, but set a timer for three or five minutes. That's called a gratitude meditation. What could that possibly hurt, right? And then I also really like the idea of messing with our brains.
And so, the way we do that, the way we sort of teach our brains about gratitude is to mess with them on a few different channels. So, one way to do it is to write, you know. I'm sure you've heard a lot of people write in gratitude journals.
I have the five second journal. I love the five second journal. It literally takes a few seconds in the morning and a few seconds in the evening.
And I'm one of those people that I'll do the gratitude journal for a while. And then I'll practice in a different way for a while. And then I'll come back to the journal in a year or so.
So, hey, no pressure. I'm not one of those people that buys a journal and then is like, I need to write in this every day. Forget that.
I just do it when it feels good. I do it when it feels right. And I'm not hard on myself when I don't.
And so writing things you're grateful for is very good for your brain because your brain's just a simple computer that needs a lot of repetition. So when you write, that's a repetition, right? If you were to read that aloud, that would be another repetition, right? If you were to talk with somebody about your gratitude journal and your gratitude practice, or maybe if you're grateful for somebody in your house or the way they behaved or the way they didn't behave, you could tell them that. And then you're speaking about gratitude.
So those are like three ways to kind of repeat, repeat, repeat the gratitude so that your brain like goes, oh, oh, that feels good, right? We want your brain to pause and go, oh, that feels so good. So in order to be able to practice gratitude on a regular basis, we have to be intentional about it. And so I would say that one way to be really intentional about practicing gratitude is just put your attention, attention in your life.
Your attention is intention. Just so you know, when you decide to slow it down and pay attention to what's going on, that is a really intentional way of living. And that's where you're going to start to feel better when you live really intentionally.
And in order to live really intentionally, you got to slow it down. So that's all I'll say about that. Hopefully that gives you some ideas about ways that you can practice gratitude.
A lot of people just flat out make a list over this holiday season. I'll be putting something up on my whiteboard. We have a pantry with a whiteboard on it in my kitchen.
And I like to, you know, just like get participation from my family members on all sorts of kooky things. But this month we will totally do like, what are you grateful for? And just have like some different colors and markers. We're for like adults.
I mean, my kids are 17 and 16. So they're, you know, they can think of things they're grateful for. I don't need to get the construction paper out.
So, but it's all just really good reminder. And then we just, you know, it's all just like kind of fun and joyful, right? And it will help us this holiday season because it's a hustle and bustle out there, guys. Be careful.
You know, people get into this frenzy during the holiday season. And so I will just insert here that when you feel, if you feel that frenzy, what I would say is just to back up from it, to slow down, take some nice deep breaths and just do a couple gratitude moments where you can get a different kind of energy going. And one that's more productive, positive and good for your brain.
So that is it for me on gratitude. I am thankful that you are here listening to my podcast, and I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving. And for those of you who don't have a hoopla at the holidays, and maybe sometimes feel a little bit alone at this time of year, or you're missing people that aren't around anymore.
I see you, friend. And I just want to tell you that you are not alone. So this time of year is such a rich time for opportunity to connect with other humans.
And so I hope everybody goes out there and just gives of themselves for just a moment, or many moments over the course of this season, because there's a lot of people out there need, and it is getting cold outside. So let's take care of each other. Okay, thanks for stopping in.
Thanks so much for listening. This podcast is meant to be helpful to help you learn some stuff and grow as a person, and to help me fulfill my mission of opening the doors to the therapy office a bit wider, so we can get rid of some of this stigma. Life is challenging, and we need all the help we can get.
This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I do recommend getting some professional guidance, whether you're struggling or not. It can be a great way to learn about yourself so you can navigate life a bit easier. I'm really excited to be a part of some change.
If you like what you heard today, head on over to my website at rebeccahuntermsw.com, or go ahead and follow me on social media. I'm Rebecca Hunter, and this is Take Out Therapy.
