Podcast: Download
Podcast Summary:
Full Transcript Below
In this eighth episode of Wellness Wednesday, Beth Gustin, LPC and Robin Ennis, LCSW, CPC, explore how they think about gratitude and ways to express gratitude. It’s not just the big things, the little things matter, too.
Check out all the Wellness Wednesday episodes.
Show Hosts:
Robin Ennis on the web at www.robinennislcsw.com
Beth Gustin, LPC, NCC, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, CAGCS, PLGS
Www.transitioningthroughchange.com
You can message Beth and Robin by calling 612-367-6093 or by email. They are looking forward to hearing from you!
Contact Your State Services
If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Pre-ETS Program and Transition Services Coordinator Shane DeSantis at shane.desantis@state.mn.us or 651-358-5205.
Contact:
You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities
On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com
Send us an email and give us a call at 612-367-6093, we would love to hear from you!
Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Storeand Google Play Store.
Give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093 we would love to hear from you!
Check out the Blind Abilities Community on Facebook, the Blind Abilities Page, and the Career Resources for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Full Transcript
Jeff:
From the Blind Abilities studios, it’s Wellness Wednesday, with your hosts Beth Gustin and Robin Ennis.
Robin:
Welcome to Wellness Wednesday. My name is Robin Ennis and I am a licensed clinical social worker in Colorado, and I am here with Beth Gustin, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado. Today’s topic for Wellness Wednesday is going to be gratitude, which is very fitting, right? Since it’s almost Thanksgiving time, and we’re gonna be gathering around the table, whether it be by yourself or with family or friends, whatever it may be. But a lot of people tend to think about what they are thankful for and what they are grateful for.
Beth:
And I can hear some of you going, ugh, gratitude schmatitude. You know, like it’s such a buzzword and I don’t have an attitude of gratitude, and I’m being kind of serious and silly here at the same time. Thank you all for being here. We are gonna talk about gratitude and we’re going to talk about some different ways we can think about gratitude and some different exercises maybe that you haven’t thought about to express gratitude.
Robin:
Because gratitude is very important and I know it may seem, ugh, well, you know, I have nothing to be grateful for, you know, what’s the point? But everybody has something to be grateful for, even if it’s something small, right? Well, actually this is quite big, but you know, waking up in the morning, being able to take a sip of water, whatever it may be, finding something in your day, you do have something to be grateful for. And so having a sense of gratitude definitely improves the endorphins and the hormones within your brain to make you feel less anxious, to make you feel less depressed, and who wants to feel less anxious and depressed? I think a lot of people want to feel more happier in life, and so I feel that anything that can be able to help me do that in a healthy way, why not give it a try?
Beth:
I agree with that, and I also think if we’re in a really challenging situation where it’s hard to see the positives, we can try to look to see if there’s anything about that situation to be grateful for. I don’t know if you all can hear it, but I am sitting in my office and outside my window is some lovely construction going on with this obnoxious beeping sound and it’s driving me crazy ‘cause it just keeps going and I’m going, okay, how can I be grateful for this ‘cause I’m getting irritated by it, I’ll be honest with you. And so I’m like, well, I’m grateful that I have new neighbors and they’re remodeling their home, and that’ll bring up the neighborhood value, yeah, yeah, that’s it. I’ll go with that. You know, and I’m stretching here, I admit that, but my point is we can always find something to be grateful for even in situations that are annoying or really, really difficult for us to go through.
Robin:
Yeah.
Beth:
And I like Robin’s examples of being grateful for a sip of water that we can take or getting up in the morning or feeling the sunshine on our face or having a roof over our head, having something to wear clothing-wise. I mean, gratitude can look a lot of different ways, it’s not always this big, huge thing.
Robin:
Right. Yeah, and that’s the key. It really isn’t a big, huge effort or undertaking that you need to take. It can be just a simple shift in your mood or attitude. You know, the way that you’re viewing your current circumstances. There’s Berkeley. They have a calendar for the month of November, so every day they have a prompt to help people figure out something to be grateful for. And so like today, when I was looking at the calendar, it said, what is one memory, one past memory that you can think about to be grateful for? They mentioned in terms of your partner, but I feel like it could just be broader than that, so you don’t have to have like a romantic partner that you can think of a specific memory, but think about a past memory that made you laugh or something that made you happy. I thought that was pretty cool that they actually laid out a calendar for each day for people who feel like they are stuck and can’t think of things. But if you google Berkeley, and maybe-
Beth:
There’s a happiness calendar.
Robin:
Yes. And I think that’s what theirs is called too, so maybe if you google that then you can go to their website and find it. But I think that’s pretty cool.
Beth:
It’s greatergood.berkeley.edu.
Robin:
Awesome. I think the one tomorrow it says, and this really is a good one I think, ‘cause it promotes staying present in the moment, but before your meeting, be grateful for your coworkers, for the people around you and try to talk to somebody that you haven’t talked to in a long time. I think in society we tend to be busybodies and just keep moving from one meeting to the next, especially if it’s a Zoom meeting. But try and take that time to reconnect with a coworker. You may be helping that person in that moment. You never know what somebody else is going through.
Beth:
Looks like they have one for each month of the year, and it looks like…it’s a day by day guide to wellbeing. We hope it helps you to practice an attitude of gratitude and increase your mental wellbeing. That’s a neat site.
Robin:
That is a neat site. I thought it was pretty cool. I bookmarked it, so thank you for looking that up.
Beth:
Yeah, greatergood.berkeley.edu for the website.
Robin:
Yeah.
Beth:
Something else I think is helpful and actually there’s a lot of research out here to back this, that if you like to journal, and that can be a challenging word for some people, if you like to journal, even writing a short gratitude list once a week can boost your mental wellbeing, and it could be just five things long. It could be just bullet points, it could be paragraphs if you want it to be, but just jotting down or audio recording things you’re grateful for, even once a week is going to help boost your mood.
Robin:
And I like that too, because it can also add to your toolbox, right? So it boosts your mood in that moment, but then also too, let’s say you’re having a really hard day and it’s hard for you to think of something that you’re grateful for in that moment. It can be helpful to even look back at things that you have written down in the past, and that can boost your spirits in that moment too.
Beth:
Something else I do, and I’m a little bit, it’s kinda cheesy, I’ll admit that, but when I wake up each morning, I like to set my intentions for the day just to kind of help me get in a better mental track, if you will, for my day. And I’ll actually start out with gratitude, like I’m grateful that I’m able to wake up this morning and that I’m in a place where I can focus on X, Y, Z, but I’ll start my day with gratitude. Or I might end my day with just a simple “I’m grateful for…” and pick something that happened throughout my day. Because for me, it helps me actually fall asleep better. It helps me wake up in a better mood and I feel like I’m a little more mentally healthy for my day.
Robin:
I agree. I think that it gives, again, a different perspective and it can make people feel less hopeless about their situation. For instance, a lot of my caseload are those who have chronic illnesses. Although I’m not feeling good right now, I am grateful for my body for being able to get me to this point. My body has been through a lot and it’s still remaining strong. I know that’s something that I try to think about in terms of my own medical condition – it’s frustrating and it’s hard sometimes, but look how much my body has endured to get me to this point. I am so grateful for all that it’s helped me through. And so again, it takes some effort and it takes some time, but it can shift your mind over time and it can become natural. So initially it may seem hard, but over time, once you start doing it, it just becomes a regular part of your routine.
Beth:
I agree with that, and I think with most of my clients we’re working on grief and loss, due to human death or pet death or vision loss. And so it can be really hard to find things to be grateful for in that process. But there is a lot of things that can occur throughout our grief process we can be grateful for. An example, it is forcing us to slow down. It’s forcing us to take good care of our bodies. It forces us to reach out and build connection. And those are things to be grateful for in grief, and I know that can be really hard to see in those moments, but there are things that grief can bring us that we can be grateful for.
Robin:
Yeah. I really resonated with the connection piece that you said, Beth, because I know that in particular, especially hardship, when you navigate certain things, you start to realize who your true support system is. The people who stick with you through thick and thin, and so I feel like when I navigated my health challenges years ago, the people who stuck by me and stuck with me through those challenges, those are the friends who are till my friends today. It really means a lot, and so community is a big piece of navigating adversity and making you feel grateful. However, if you don’t have that sense of connection and community, or you may feel like you don’t really dig deep down inside and really truly evaluate who’s around you, because you may feel like you’re not supported or you’re alone, but I bet you, you can think of at least one person around you who is there for you.
Beth:
I agree. And if you feel like you have no person around, is there a pet you have around? You know, something like that, because I think sometimes we feel like we have no person that we can talk to, but if we have pets, we can talk to pets, and that counts.
Robin:
Oh, it very much counts. Pets are a part of family. Like I mentioned in the last podcast that we did, my French bulldog, she’s my fur baby, she’s my child pretty much I feel like, and so she’s very intuitive of whenever I’m feeling upset, then she gets upset. Animals are very perceptive, they’re very good companions and they’re very loyal, and so I’m glad you mentioned that, ‘cause yes, pets are a good source of support and they are good listeners. So I think that is a good one. Today, I will say that I am grateful for my job. I am grateful to be in a position where I can be able to do something that I’m passionate about, which is helping other people. And so that’s one thing that I’m gonna say that I’m grateful for.
Beth:
I was thinking the same thing. I absolutely love the work I do. I love being able to help other people and walk with them on their grief journeys. In a selfish way, that’s very rewarding for me when I can see someone come out the other side. I’m grateful that I’m in a place where I can help people and hopefully make their lives better. And I’m grateful for this podcast honestly, because it allows Robin and I to hopefully help those of you listening. And we appreciate your questions, I’m grateful for those because it helps give us other topics we might not have thought about to talk about, and so I appreciate that as well.
Robin:
Right, so I’m gonna speak for you, Beth. Hopefully you don’t mind, so chime in if you do mind, but we challenge you to think of one thing right now that you’re grateful for, and say it out loud or journal it or whatever you can do to really let it sink in and to not lose sight of the fact that you have something to be grateful for, big or small.
Beth:
And I want to add to that challenge. If you are grateful for something someone else has done for you, or shown you or something they’ve done, tell them. Tell them that.
Robin:
That’s a big one. You know, I think so many times in life we go through and not thank people or tell them that we are grateful or appreciate what they do, and unfortunately there are instances where it’s too late and people are wondering, well, I should have told them that. So instead of thinking about the should’ves, think about I am gonna tell them the way that I feel.
Beth:
And you can write it down and send it, you can verbally tell them, there’s different ways that feel more comfortable to you, but I think in the season of gratitude, it’s important to express how we feel about other people too.
Robin:
Including yourself. Don’t forget to thank yourself. So what are you grateful for that you have offered or done in the world? Because showing yourself the appreciation that you show other people is key too.
Beth:
You know, I think I mentioned this on here before in a previous podcast. There’s a really neat site called futureme.org, and you can write yourself letters and then you can choose when it will send them to you in the future, like three, six months, or a year down the road.
Robin:
Oh, that’s cool!
Beth:
You could write yourself a letter expressing gratitude for some good things about yourself. And if you’re like me, you’ll send it off into the ether and promptly forget you did that, and like, oh, look, six months later, I wrote a letter to myself and I forgot what I said. So it can be kind of a neat way to remind yourself that you’re a good person, and you’ve got a lot of good things to offer people and be grateful for.
Robin:
And what is it? It’s futureme.org?
Beth:
Futureme.org. It’s just a blank box. You can write whatever you want to yourself. So I think it’s a neat concept.
Robin:
That is. I like that. Well, Beth, do you have anything else to say before we end?
Beth:
No. I just wanna thank all of our listeners again, and we look forward to coming back in December for the next episode of Wellness Wednesday. In the meantime, please take good care of yourselves.
Robin:
Yes, and have a great Thanksgiving, and we are definitely thankful for you. Until the next time, and don’t forget to keep those posts and comments coming and calling in, we love hearing from you. Take care.
Jeff:
And you can send Beth and Robin a message at 612-367-6093 or by email at info@blindabilities.com. They’d love to hear from you.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.