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Episode Transcription

welcome back to another episode of the Road to Life podcast with Meredith and Craig.

So we've got a special episode this week. We're talking about gratitude in honor of Canadian Thanksgiving, which was a couple of days ago, a week and a half ago.

So one of the things that I've learned over the last few years is the importance of gratitude. I admittedly, I took it for granted. I wasn't always. It wasn't front and center for me, like literally every year for Thanksgiving, I would think about what I was thankful for and then I would think about for a year and then I would move on with life.

And over the last few years I've realized that gratitude is so much more important than five minutes around the dinner table for one time a year. And the difference it's made in life for me is incredible. And we're going to talk a little bit about that, but So that was my experience with gratitude up until the last couple of years.

Yeah. I can remember like 20 years ago seeing on Oprah to keep a gratitude journal. And I was like, Oh, that seems like a good idea. And then

never to be done again.

I did it like twice and then just never followed through.

But it's like, it's one of those things that you weren't ready for it then. Right? It just, it didn't hold, it didn't take.

And it just wasn't something that was meant for you in that moment. But now it's something that we do regularly. Like, so I have a regular gratitude practice and I can say that over, and we'll talk about what that looks like in a few minutes, but In the last few years. So I started doing it, was it two and a half years ago, maybe three years ago.

And it's made such an incredible difference, I do it in the morning. So it starts the day off in such a positive way. Whereas before My corporate job, I'd get up, I'd be fighting the alarm clock. I'd be miserably like, Oh, I hate it. I have to get up. I have to go to work. I have to go. Yeah. It just, it was a miserable start to the day.

And then what do you think happened? Well, it like cascaded from there. Yeah. Whereas now I start the day with a routine that gets me into thankful gratitude energy. And it's just such a more uplifting place to be.

Yeah, you start the day literally scanning your life for positive things. For the goodness.

And so when you look for things, you find those things. When you look for good, you find good. That's just the way it works.

And when you're on that energy, when you're at that level, you're vibrating at that energetic level of all the good things in your life, more good things come to you. So it's like a snowball of like when you're negative and you're getting up and fighting the alarm clock and you're miserable and you're walking to the work and That's when you step in the puddle.

That's when you get splashed. Bird craps on you. That's when, that's when all the negative stuff is attracted to you. Yeah. And when you start the day, the opposite in a state of gratitude, I'm thankful for the warm, cozy bed that I have my beautiful wife. I'm grateful for, you know, the warm blanket that I'm wrapped in and the coffee or the tea or the whatever is waiting for me.

Like it just is such a more. energetic high to be on.

And I loved one of the things I learned early on in my gratitude journey when I started practicing gratitude was something I found super interesting. And it was from Brené Brown and she was studying people who are joyful and happy and what they have in common.

And most people, myself included, had the thought process once I'm in a relationship, Once I'm joyful, once I'm happy, then I'll be grateful. Once I have the thing I want, then I'll be grateful. But really it's the opposite. Once I'm grateful, then I will be happy. Then I will be joyful. Then I will have the things, the life that I want to have.

The gratitude comes first.

And again, it's because you bring yourself to the energetic frequency, the vibration of the things that you want. You attract those things. That's how you get them.

Yeah.

If you're not grateful for the things you already have in life, the universe isn't going to be fit to give you more, give you more.

So it's when you show that level of gratitude for the things that you already have, all the goodness that's already happening in your life, you're vibrating at that frequency. The universe just aligns and allows you to see the opportunities and the things that are going to need to happen for you to get the next big thing that you are looking for in life.

Yeah. And seeing things through the lens of gratitude. It lets you see the good in things that you might not like. It's not even just looking for the good versus the bad. It's seeing the good in all the things that happen instead of seeing the negative side of all the things that happen.

Like even the bad things, bad, quote, unquote, bad things that thing, things that happened to you, like the, when you ran that race and you got hurt.

Yeah, for sure. I was just thinking like, we're in the middle of recording a couple of podcast episodes and They came to the door like Interrupted our little flow here of what we're doing, but he came in to sort of download his fantasy football Weekend and

and he wanted to share win and celebrate with us his his provincial running cross country

yeah, and it's Looking at that and being so grateful that our host is on the way home from the bus stop, that he feels so comfortable and he's so proud of himself to come over and share his wind with us and chat with us for 10 minutes and then, and then go home to do whatever he's got to do today, you know, you could look at that as an interruption.

And see that as an interruption and what we had planned for this afternoon, or you can be grateful for the relationship that we have with that kid that he wants to come and share his good news and talk through things with us. And it's just an opportunity to be grateful. And so you see the positive. In so many more situations in life that normally you would only see as an interruption, or only see as a negative thing when, when you're looking for things to be grateful for, you find them everywhere.

And

the other thing I really liked about Brené Brown's research is she's very clear on what it means to practice gratitude. It's not an attitude of gratitude the thinking of what it is.

It's actually manifesting it. It's saying it out loud. It's writing it in a journal. It's like, Putting it out into the world, not just keeping it locked in your brain

and feeling it, like legitimately downloading it and feeling what it will feel like if we're being grateful for future things, or if we're being grateful for things, but but sitting with it and feeling it again in the moment, like, I'm really grateful.

I had that moment with Nate today Thinking about it and feeling how it felt like, Oh man, like he really does connect with us and he trusts us and he feels connected with us that he was able to come to our place and tell us his story. And he knew that he would be welcomed and celebrate it. And he was really proud to tell us that he had made his team the big tournament.

And so it was just really cool feeling. And so to feel that again, feel that in the moment and get your energies aligned on that vibrational mhm think it's really important in relationships in particular to have that attitude and practice of gratitude because I think a lot of times we take for granted our spouse or things that are going on in our relationship and we don't take a moment to realize the good, the benefits. So it's also really important in life, but also.

In relationships in our marriage.

Yeah, like I've shared this example before, but

is it about me? Share it again.

You know, when we first moved in together, that's when I realized that when you come out of the shower, you take like, wait,

this isn't a good story. This is

all the shower water out with you. Or when you trim this ginger beard, we get these little ginger beard hair and you do a really good job of collecting most of them, but there's always a straight ginger beard.

hair whisker around and it's easy to only notice those things and be irritated by the wet bath mat. It's easy, but It's really easy. Really easy! But you also can use that as a trigger.

Where's the gratitude coming from? I'm

getting to it. I can also use that as a trigger. When I step on a wet bath mat, it's like, Oh, Bennett's here!

And it reminds me of all the things I'm grateful for that you bring into my life. So it allows me to flip a switch and be grateful for all of the things you do for me. All of the things you are and all the things you bring into life.

That's so fantastic, .

So it is, it is really important from a mindset perspective in a relationship so that you aren't universally focused on the things that irritate you.

Because we're two humans living in a confined space. Things are gonna irritate like they just are.

You want me to retort? You're waiting for a robot? No, like I'm grateful for all the things. I'm grateful for having you in my life. Even if sometimes I can't find something I just placed on the counter two minutes ago, it disappeared, it's tucked away somewhere.

I ask where it is and I'm wondering, and not even you know where it is anymore. Two minutes later, it's gone. It's disappeared off the planet.

I like to tuck things away. I don't like clutter.

But I'm grateful that we have places to tuck them. I'm grateful that I have someone who can tuck my things away.

And so because we, because we practice gratitude, we're able to find the silver lining, the positive and not just spin on the negative.

And the humor and the fun and the joy. Like when you have an attitude of gratitude and a practice of gratitude, These little things, these little situations that maybe otherwise would set you off.

Like, Oh, it's with the dirty wet bath mat. It's driving me nuts. It's a thing that we laugh at. Like it's, it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things because we've got so much good that's going on in life. This little, this

little wet bath mat is a very tolerable situation.

Yeah. So I think it really does increase your Empathy for the other person.

I think it allows you to just find the fun and the joy in the situation. It just all around makes your relationship so much better. And yeah, and easier. Yeah, totally.

So what do you do? What's your gratitude practice?

So every day, a couple of times a day. So when I wake up and when I go to bed as I'm falling asleep and as I'm waking up out of sleep.

I think about the things that I'm grateful for in my life. And usually it starts with you in particular and our relationship. And then it's, it'll, you know, move her at some days. It's our health and our wealth and our vitality. And sometimes it's whatever we have going on in life in that moment. Like maybe it's, you know we've got a big event coming up or something cool happening.

And I'm grateful for that. The amazing people we get to work with, the amazing people we get to connect with when we go to these different events and things like that. So I just, I'm, I'm thinking about life and all the, all the good things that are happening and all the good things that I'm, I've got, I have in my life.

Yeah. And so that's in the morning and at night. And I also, when I'm journaling, write out a few things just, and I think about those as well as I'm writing them. It's just an extra time. So there's about three times a day where I'm, I'm grateful for things in life.

Yeah, me too. My going to bed, waking up, those last like last slash first 10 to 15 minutes, I'm practicing gratitude, for the things I don't yet have in my life that I want.

And so I'm working on feeling the feeling of gratitude for the things I'm working towards. So that's my like end of day, start of day gratitude practice. And then in the morning, first thing usually that I do is meditate. And part of my meditation routine is things I'm grateful for. So in my meditation, I'm thinking of things I'm grateful for.

And then after meditation, it's. It's a quick journaling and then I journal what I'm grateful for. And that starts with you. And then I don't know, eight or nine other things that I, whatever comes to me that morning, like it's often the birds chirping or a lovely morning we're having when it's summertime.

The

crows cawing. So yeah. And so for me, like it's, it's a mixture of both and, and I do it actually meditation as well. So that's another time. But when, when I'm doing it, it's not just the things. That I have, but also the things that we're working towards as well. And it's not like one time I do one and the other time I do another, it's a mixture of kind of what I'm currently

grateful for,

but also future pacing, what I'm grateful for, what it's already coming to me.

And that's in, you know, before bed when I wake up, when I'm meditating and when I'm journaling.

Nice.

And I think it's really important on a relationship level to not only be grateful for the things that are going on, you know, even the little things that maybe would annoy you otherwise, but being mindful that those things wouldn't exist if your person didn't exist.

Correct. And being grateful for all of it. But also

grateful for those ginger beard hairs,

but also sharing that with the person, with your person, actually tell them that you're grateful for them. It's because it's probably not uncommon for a lot of people, for a lot of us to share when those ginger beards go astray.

It's like, why can't you clean up these ginger beard hairs? Or why is this bath mat always wet? That's one way to approach something. I don't recommend it because it's, it's chiseling, it's chipping away at your relationship foundation. Whereas maybe if you, you know, I'm really grateful to have you in my life, but bath, mat and all, you can make it light of it.

You can make light of it. But if you're showing gratitude, if, if you're coming with a with an attitude and a practice of just letting them know how appreciative you are of them, the little things that come up They just, they don't matter as much and you can make light of them and you can have a laugh and it actually really fortifies your relationship.

But it's really important I think to share

what

you're grateful for about them.

Yeah. Once a day, either going to bed or a text in the middle of the day that doesn't have to be at a specific time, but sharing one thing today that you're grateful for with your partner will make a world of difference.

On that note,

we're grateful for you.

Very grateful for you.

So if you've got any value out of this, we really, really appreciate it. If you share it with a friend who also would get some value out of it.

We'd love to see you join our free Facebook group, Marriage Reconnection. It's where we share strategies and we do live trainings and you can get accountability and support from a community of superstars transforming their marriages.

We're going to leave you with a key question this week. I think. Okay. Now that you've listened to this episode, What's one thing you're going to change? You're going to stop doing or you're going to start doing in your life based on this episode?

Good question.

So we'll leave that with you.

So that's all for this week. We will see you next week. Bye everybody.