Gratitude, Finding Light in Dark Times - Resilience & Relationships (R&R) - Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders

In this conversation, Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders explore the multifaceted nature of gratitude, discussing its importance in daily life, especially during challenging times. They emphasize that gratitude is not just about recognizing the big blessings but also appreciating the small, everyday things. The discussion delves into the psychological benefits of gratitude, including its impact on mental health and emotional well-being, supported by scientific research. The hosts encourage listeners to cultivate gratitude through practices like journaling and to reflect on what they are thankful for, fostering a positive mindset and resilience.

Takeaways

Gratitude is about recognizing the good amidst challenges.
Even small things, like having a refrigerator, are worth appreciating.
A negative mindset can cloud our perception of life.
Focusing on blessings can shift our perspective.
Gratitude can be cultivated through intentional practices.
Gratitude journaling has proven psychological benefits.
Finding gratitude can help during times of grief and loss.
Support systems can help us recognize what to be grateful for.
Gratitude doesn't have to be about grand gestures.
Everyday moments can be sources of gratitude. 

Sound Bites

"What do you have to be grateful for?"
"It doesn't have to be fancy."
"I'm grateful for you."

Chapters

00:00 The Essence of Gratitude
04:02 Finding Gratitude in Adversity
07:34 Everyday Gratitude: The Little Things
09:49 The Science of Gratitude
12:58 Gratitude in Difficult Times
15:36 Closing Thoughts on Gratitude
15:50 R&R Outro.mp4

Transcript

Stephanie Olson: 0:17

Hello and welcome to resilience and relationships R and R. I'm Stephanie Olson. I'm here with Rebecca Saunders. We wanted to talk about gratitude today. I think that is an important topic every single day, but I think it's also important to kind of define it and then have caveats around it and what that means. So when we think gratitude, what are your thoughts? What comes to your mind?

Rebecca Saunders: 0:44

I think just having that attitude of focusing on the good in your life rather than, you know, maybe the more unfortunate part so just being thankful for the good that you have.

Stephanie Olson: 0:55

Yeah, I agree. I agree 100% and and I don't think that having gratitude means that everything's going right all the time, or that you've had a charmed life. Sometimes gratitude can mean I am grateful that I have milk in my refrigerator. I'm grateful that I have a refrigerator. I'm grateful that I have a house to put a refrigerator in, because it's realizing not everybody has that yes,

Rebecca Saunders: 1:24

and I think sometimes we forget, especially, you know, us as Americans. I mean, we have so many things that I think we can take for granted if we're not careful, just all of these privileges that we have in our lives, from small things to big things. You know, I went to

Stephanie Olson: 1:40

church on Sunday, and the pastor actually spoke about his experience in Cuba, and he made the comment that in Cuba, the average wage is $40 a month, my goodness. So when you think about that. You know, we talk about America being such a wealthy nation, and I know that we have poverty here, and definitely people who are certainly walking in poverty. I don't know if we know what that looks like. You know, there's a story about gratitude for having shoes, and I think it's something like a person who was not grateful for the shoes that they had, was reminded about a man who had no legs, and so then started to be thankful for the ability to walk and and that they had shoes, even though their shoes were old. So that's kind of what I'm talking about. There's always something that you can find to be grateful about. And I think that's an important thing. I had a boss years ago. I always think of it. She was just a negative person. I mean, every every sentence had a negative bent to it, and so she would walk up to people, and instead of saying, Hey, what's going on, she'd walk up to people and say, what's wrong. I mean, literally, like always, every piece of conversation had some sort of negative bent to it. And one day I came to work and I wasn't wearing any lipstick. And I am a lipstick gal. I love lipstick, but I wasn't wearing any lipstick, and she said to me, you are the type of person who should always have lipstick on. You need it. What a mean thing to say, and I'm okay not wearing lipsticks. Yes, exactly. But I think that's kind of that mindset, that that Eeyore mindset, like, oh, everything's terrible, you know. And I know that people go through traumatic life, and I know that we have all had those moments where, if it could go wrong, it's going wrong, and there are things that are not turning out well, and people experience loss and horrific things, and yet, even then, it's just amazing When people can find gratitude through those things, because it changes their whole perspective.

Rebecca Saunders: 4:25

Well, you know, I heard this several years ago, and it's just stuck in my brain, but just thinking about how the mind works, and how whenever you focus on something, you're going to see more of that. That's true. Make for perspectives if we choose to focus on the blessings and focus on, you know, what has gone right today?

Stephanie Olson: 4:45

Yes, that's a really good point. Well, it happens without you buy a car, and now all of a sudden, you know, you buy a Ford Taurus. Now you're seeing four Tauruses everywhere you go. And I think that's a really great point, if your focus is negative. Negative and on the negative, and everything about your life is negative, then you will see the negative. It's kind of like that old saying that what you feed will grow, and it's, it's the same type of thing if you are constantly looking for, well, gosh, this I my husband, I were going through really, really, really difficult time in our life, and it was a difficult time with our children and with our I mean, it's, it was just one of those things that, if it could go wrong, it went wrong, but it was deep stuff. And I remember talking to my husband once during that time, and we were both just lamenting on how horrible things were. And I don't remember who it was, but one of us said, you know, let's count the blessings that we have. Let's actually sit down and list all of the things we have to be grateful for. And one of them was just going through a very horrible, difficult trial with one of our kiddos, and we're like, you know what? We've got an amazing we've got amazing children that will get out of this, or whatever the case was, but there are always things you can find to be grateful for,

Rebecca Saunders: 6:17

and it's so important to remind ourselves of that, because I think in times of great stress, we can forget, you know, I know that I've been at different points in my life where grief or just, you know, something going on just feels too big, yes, but there's

Stephanie Olson: 6:31

something Yeah, and I think that's where our support system comes in. Sometimes our support system can remind us of those things. Now, I'm not saying that when we go to, you know, if somebody comes to you in distress, you're like, hey, look up, find something. No, that's not, that's not the best response. But I agree with you that there are, well, even the loss of someone special in your life. You know, really, of course, you're going to grieve, and there will be loss. But then thinking about, let me think about all of the amazing things that I experienced with that person, or, you know, the things that this person brought into my life, and that's hard. And I would say that it doesn't always happen immediately, like there are times to grieve and to mourn and to, you know, sometimes you sit in that little pity party that is okay. You know, go ahead and sit there and grieve and eat a bunch of ice cream. That's what I like to do. But that doesn't mean that that's what we have to do all the time. So I actually just got in my inbox adorable thing called 100 plus teachers share what they're really thankful for this year, and I know I love this gratitude list of teachers and so you know you could hear something like, thankful for my amazing students who inspire me every day, grateful for the opportunity to shape young minds, blessed to do what I love. But here are the real gratitude things I'm thankful my car started this morning. I can relate. I'm thankful the fire alarm didn't go off during my observation, during testing. I'm thankful for the teacher who covered another person's duty so they could have a breather. I love that. I'm thankful my principal forgot I exist this week. I love that you can apply these to all the things I'm thankful. Yes, I'm thankful. It's not December yet. I'm thankful. I love this one too. I'm thankful for the student who said you look tired, because at least someone noticed. I'm thankful for whatever is in my purse that passes for breakfast, and I'm thankful the copier worked on the first try. I'm thankful for the colleagues who brought coffee without being asked. I mean, there's so much I love that. Yes, exactly. And you know, sometimes it's just I am thankful that I made it through the day and I'm still here and I have a soft bed to sleep in, you know, whatever. Sometimes it's the simple, the little things, but I do think that finding something to be thankful for is really important.

Unknown: 9:18

And I love that you read those because that is just realistic. I think sometimes we built it up in our brains of, oh, if I'm going to be listing what I'm saying before it needs to be this big, elaborate, yes thing or sound perfect, it doesn't.

Stephanie Olson: 9:30

No, I couldn't agree more. And I think that those are really important things. And I will also say, you know, we know that there are real things. We know there's depression, we know there's clinical depression, we know there's trauma. I mean, we work with people with traumatic situations all of the time, and yet, even with those things we science has showed us that, for example, feeling. Does actually follow our behavior, as opposed to just, Oh, I feel so amazing. It follows our behavior. So they say that just putting a smile on your face will almost trick your body into feeling like it's happy and so yeah, and it will also help stop you from vomiting. I don't know if you know that, but yes, and that's the whole thing. Like it Well, I mean, obviously, if your body really needs to get something out, it's probably going to happen. But it is true that you can actually affect certain things by the certain things you do. So a smile can affect how you feel. I found a study about gratitude journaling where it has an effect on your brain too. So it was from Indiana University, and essentially they had participants just gratitude journal for eight weeks, and what they saw is that there were changes in the structure of the brain, so, like totally rewiring, which is so cool after eight weeks, that's not very long, that is amazing. So literally, just listing what you're thankful for, right? And so what it ended up doing, what they found is that regular gratitude journaling had big impacts. So the amygdala, which is the part of your brain that is like detecting threats, right? It calms down so you're less reactive to stress, feeling calmer in general by regular gratitude journaling, they also found that things like empathy, emotional regulation, reward processing in the brain increased, so actually feeling happier just by listing the things you're thankful for amazing. I love that. And if you think about it, I mean, have you ever spent a lot of time around a negative person? You start feeling that negativity, it starts to seep in. And I think about just anger. There's so much anger in our society right now, when you hang around anger consistently, you start to get angry, and so imagine if you hang around people who are positive, who are upbeat. I'm not saying faking it, and I'm not saying that you're never going to have or experience anger or frustration, but it really does change your attitude. I love that, and it changed. Obviously, it can change your brain chemistry and what is going on there. So that's a great. We should do that. We should have our entire staff just do a gratitude journal for eight weeks. I think that's a great. You don't have to, I love it, and you don't have to share it with anybody, right? But I wonder what that might do to even our work. You know how to inspire somebody to get more creative, more imaginative, in the direction that people are working? Interesting experiment for us, we should do it. I recently worked with a survivor who was getting out a really horrible situation. And it was pretty incredible to have some conversations with this person, because there was so much gratitude in the little things. She was scared to death. She was terrified, but in every step that we took with her, there was so much gratitude, and it was just amazing to witness that and to experience that from her point of view. And I think those are the kinds of things that I'm talking about. It's not that everything's going to be okay, but, gosh, you can find goodness in something. It's inspiring to see. It really is so on that note, anything else you want to add on the whole gratitude chain? Train, I know gratitude, gratitude, but yeah, we'll call it a train, gratitude train. I don't know

Unknown: 14:02

what I'm saying podcast today.

Stephanie Olson: 14:04

Yes, exactly. Thankful that we have the technology to be on a podcast today. And that's the other thing. You know, it's so funny because we are a completely mobile organization. We all work from our homes, but we are also all in a number of different states. And somebody actually just said to me the other day, boy, that is really hard because you don't have that connection. And I said it is, but you have to be intentional about it. There is a certain level of intentionality, and I think we have really done well with finding that intentionality and connecting with each other. You know, I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the technology that allows us to be a national organization with our staff and our board everywhere in the world, and yet we still have the ability. Connect and work together and be a strong team. It's a pretty amazing thing. It really is. So on that note, I would ask, what do you have to be grateful for? And that's a really good challenge. Let's just challenge people, because I definitely want to do do it as well, to have a gratitude journal, and it's just a list, right? That people just list out, okay, list type of things you have to be grateful for for eight weeks. And let's hear how it went. I am going to start that today. Actually, I love that. So, Rebecca, I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for you too. Thank you, and we are all grateful for you as well. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Get some RNR you.