Speaker 1: Gratitude waits to receive something. Gratefulness just waits for us
Speaker 1: to recognize that if life is a gift and we're
Speaker 1: always receiving it, every moment that we're alive, we're receiving something. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Christy
Speaker 1: Nelson on the show. Christy is the executive director of
Speaker 1: a Network for Grateful Living. Her life's work in the
Speaker 1: nonprofit sector has focused on leading, inspiring and strengthening organizations
Speaker 1: committed to progressive, social, and spiritual change. Being a longtime
Speaker 1: Stage four cancer survivor, moves her every day is to
Speaker 1: put others in living and loving with gratefulness of heart.
Speaker 1: She's the author of a really great book called Wake
Speaker 1: Up Grateful, The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted.
Speaker 1: This book really touched me, which is why I reached
Speaker 1: out to Christy and in this episode I talked to
Speaker 1: her about this a concept she has called gratefulness. She
Speaker 1: differentiates gratefulness from gratitude by describing the former as an
Speaker 1: orientation towards life without being dependent on internal or external circumstances.
Speaker 1: Christy shares with us the practice of Stop, Look, Go,
Speaker 1: and her five guiding principles that can inspire you to
Speaker 1: live a life of gratefulness. We also touch on the
Speaker 1: topics of positive psychology, mindfulness, play, and self compassion. Christy
Speaker 1: has one of the biggest hearts I've ever seen, and
Speaker 1: you can just tell in this podcast that she really
Speaker 1: wants to help everyone lead a really grateful life and
Speaker 1: meet life on its own terms, regardless where they are
Speaker 1: in their own journey. So, without further ado, I bring
Speaker 1: you Christy Nelson. Christy, it's so exciting to talk to
Speaker 1: you today on the Psychology Podcast. Scott. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to be here with you. Really truly, I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to be here with you as well. And what a
Speaker 1: tremendous book. Wake Up Grateful? Do you still wake up
Speaker 1: grateful every day? After all these years of having that mantra?
Speaker 1: I actually do really well. I'm not sure I go
Speaker 1: to bed grateful every day, but I wake up grateful
Speaker 1: every day I do. It's much easier for me. The
Speaker 1: waking up. Honestly, I find waking up in the morning
Speaker 1: sometimes is really tough. I really just want to go
Speaker 1: back to bed for the rest of the day. Does
Speaker 1: wakeing up grateful? Does that energize you to get out
Speaker 1: of bed, we have to hang out more often. Honestly, yes,
Speaker 1: it does. I mean for me, I kind of get up,
Speaker 1: and I think people who have almost died wake up
Speaker 1: and they have that sense of poof another day, like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, here I am, it's another day. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I get another day. So there's something about
Speaker 1: not taking the day for granted, which is huge, and
Speaker 1: I think it's easy to do that. And so that's
Speaker 1: something I think that we can cultivate and culcate and learn.
Speaker 1: It's not just an organic state of being because it
Speaker 1: wasn't how I was. It's much more so now. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to say it, but facing the
Speaker 1: possibility of not being alive makes people appreciate life a
Speaker 1: whole lot more. Yeah, you had an experience at age
Speaker 1: thirty three, you're diagnosed with stage four hodgkins On foma
Speaker 1: that had fantastasized to your spine. That doesn't sound good.
Speaker 1: That really wasn't. It's not like I feel like that's
Speaker 1: not the kind of news i'd want to hear. No,
Speaker 1: especially when you know that stage four. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like there is no stage five. When I learned that,
Speaker 1: I was like Uh, okay. So it's also called kind
Speaker 1: of end stage. Yeah what do you do with that? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you do with that? That's what the book
Speaker 1: is about, really honestly, and what do we do every day?
Speaker 1: Because in so many ways, I mean not to be
Speaker 1: too trite about it, but it reminded me that I
Speaker 1: was mortal in a big way at a young age,
Speaker 1: at an age where a lot of people are really
Speaker 1: taking for granted. They've got a ton of life left
Speaker 1: to do what they want to do and live the
Speaker 1: way they want to live. And I'll be grateful when,
Speaker 1: I'll be grateful when, And instead it's like whoa. If
Speaker 1: everything's shrunk down to this very small the aperture gets
Speaker 1: very small all on the lens, then I think it
Speaker 1: shifts how we experience our capacity to be grateful for
Speaker 1: what is and for the moments that we're here. I
Speaker 1: love that spirit. It's a little bit of a different
Speaker 1: thing than the research literature on gratitude. Could you kind
Speaker 1: of talk a little bit about the difference between gratitude
Speaker 1: and your concept of gratefulness. So gratefulness, I wish it
Speaker 1: was my concept, but it's one that I've borrowed heavily
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are kind of big existential
Speaker 1: thinkers and mystical thinkers and spiritual people, you know. And
Speaker 1: so our website is gratefulness dot org. It's great url,
Speaker 1: but I really love I was so excited to be
Speaker 1: in conversation with you because I love to use the
Speaker 1: word hedonic, and you demonic those terms. To me, gratitude
Speaker 1: is very heydonic. It's self satisfying. It's in the moment,
Speaker 1: it's pleasure seeking. We want to feel gratitude because we've
Speaker 1: gotten exactly what we want. Oh yeah, I got exactly
Speaker 1: what I want. But it's super fleeting. It's highly conditional
Speaker 1: and very susceptible to all kinds of things, and so
Speaker 1: it comes and goes, you know. And to me, I
Speaker 1: equate that with happiness. Honestly, I think happiness is a
Speaker 1: similar phenomenon. I think it's really very conditional. So grateful, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. Oh I love that. Yeay, reasonable, got it.
Speaker 1: So Gratefulness, on the other hand, is kind of a
Speaker 1: deeper proposition. It's something I call an orientation to life.
Speaker 1: It's something that comes from the inside out. It's not
Speaker 1: conditional on external circumstances that come and go. So when
Speaker 1: we can cultivate that as a practice, like mindfulness, when
Speaker 1: we can you know, situate ourselves in gratefulness and learn
Speaker 1: that it's a musculature that we can build. Actually, then
Speaker 1: we become way more resilient and it's a much more
Speaker 1: robust way to go into life, because gratitude is not
Speaker 1: robust at all. I would even amend your gratefulness definition
Speaker 1: say it's not dependent on external or internal circumstances, right,
Speaker 1: because you can be grateful even if you're not feeling
Speaker 1: like you want to get up in the morning. I
Speaker 1: may have nothing to do with any external circumstances, but
Speaker 1: your neurochemistry is like forget it. Yeah, there's often a
Speaker 1: little bit of a you know, a little battle internally,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes between those parts of ourselves that are
Speaker 1: accustomed to I you know, we all struggle with it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the all the emotional dwarves you know that
Speaker 1: follow us around, you know, the grumpy and cranky and
Speaker 1: whiny and all those ones that we all have. But
Speaker 1: I think gratefulness is able to say, oh, okay, here
Speaker 1: I am and I'm feeling really blue, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting, Like, isn't there something interesting about feeling blue, Like,
Speaker 1: what's that about? And it's engaged. It's a way of engagement.
Speaker 1: It's about embracing something and trying to befriend rather than bemoan. Right,
Speaker 1: So that for me, that's one of the places I
Speaker 1: try to start, which is, Gee, let's look at you,
Speaker 1: you know, crankiness. What are you here to teach me?
Speaker 1: What do you want from me? What am I supposed
Speaker 1: to do with you? Because nobody's grateful everything all. We're
Speaker 1: not grateful about all the things in life, and we're
Speaker 1: not grateful easily all the time. But it's a practice
Speaker 1: that we can be grateful in every moment. But I
Speaker 1: think that's something that we develop, Yeah, and we have
Speaker 1: to keep exercising. In your age thirty three and you
Speaker 1: had that experience, you did go through a period where
Speaker 1: you had a lot of gratefulness. But then you had
Speaker 1: something I thought was a really interesting phrase that you
Speaker 1: just casually throw in your book. But I was like, ah,
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting phrase. You said, gratitude tolerance. You
Speaker 1: said at a certain point you started to develop gratitude tolerance.
Speaker 1: So even you, even you, oh, yeah, you can have
Speaker 1: this kind of start to take away for granted, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's easy. I mean, I think the honest truth is
Speaker 1: that it's a wild roller coaster. And I think there's
Speaker 1: so many things in life that steal our perspective, that
Speaker 1: we steal ourselves against in that particular way of using
Speaker 1: the word steal, and then also are stolen. Like it's
Speaker 1: like there's so many ways in which we give ourselves
Speaker 1: a way to things and things that catch us. You know,
Speaker 1: we're living in a in a wild culture that has
Speaker 1: huge amounts of influence on us. And so all those
Speaker 1: kinds of practices about being aware and awake, attentive, alert, alive,
Speaker 1: all those things, those mindfulness and the things that we
Speaker 1: do to try that for wisdom, for well being, they
Speaker 1: are vulnerable to so many things in life outside of
Speaker 1: us and inside of us. What were you doing before you,
Speaker 1: like age thirty three? What were you? What was your job?
Speaker 1: Who are you? Apart from the gratefulness dot org stuff
Speaker 1: like okay, who was Christy Nelson? Such a big question.
Speaker 1: I was living in Manhattan. That was an interesting spate
Speaker 1: of time. What part Lower East Side? It's important to
Speaker 1: get all the imagery here. It is really yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: And I walked, I walked down to Soho every day
Speaker 1: for my job in the Eastern re Savings Bank building
Speaker 1: and so I was working in a nonprofit organization. I
Speaker 1: was executive director heading up this organization focused on food safety.
Speaker 1: I'd always been concerned about environmental issues and was a
Speaker 1: was kind of an activist when I was, you know, younger,
Speaker 1: pretty active activist, but I was you know, it was
Speaker 1: also so interesting because, to be honest, I was one
Speaker 1: of those people who people said, if you could get cancer,
Speaker 1: you could get cancer, because we had beliefs about cancer.
Speaker 1: Then I think that it was much more a punishment
Speaker 1: for something. You know. It was the days of Bernie
Speaker 1: Siegel and Louise Hay and a lot of people who
Speaker 1: said you kind of ow bad things befall, you only
Speaker 1: if for bad behavior or for bad choices, and that
Speaker 1: you can work your way out of it. So for
Speaker 1: me to end up with this terminal cancer, I did yoga,
Speaker 1: I was a vegetarian, I was passionate about my life, job,
Speaker 1: I had great love and community and friends and family,
Speaker 1: and so it was like, I think it blew people away.
Speaker 1: It demystified this idea that we had of cancer, which
Speaker 1: was something I think at that time was pretty dangerous,
Speaker 1: which was if you didn't want to get cancer, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't get cancer. Wow. Wow, So that really had to
Speaker 1: completely violate your expectations in the world. Like, that's just
Speaker 1: what we talk about in the field of post traumatic growth.
Speaker 1: That idea is really powerful. I think that. I think
Speaker 1: people in there's a lot of danger in positive psychology. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I think where people are able to say to themselves,
Speaker 1: if you just think right, if you get your attitude right,
Speaker 1: nothing's going to befall you. And oh, if it does,
Speaker 1: you're going to be able to survive it. And if
Speaker 1: you didn't, if you don't, it's because you didn't want
Speaker 1: to live enough. And I heard that a lot until
Speaker 1: I started to get to know a lot of people
Speaker 1: who didn't make it through these journey and I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a really dangerous fallacy that our
Speaker 1: attitude is entirely in charge. You know, that's sacrilege to
Speaker 1: criticize positive psychology and allowed to do that. Do I
Speaker 1: get to do that here on this show? Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course you can. At Arawan Organic Grocery in Venice, California,
Speaker 1: they have the sign Big Sciences have the best day
Speaker 1: ever when every time you walk in. If you could
Speaker 1: change that sign to one thing, what would you change
Speaker 1: it to say? Have a grateful day? Yeah, yeah, a
Speaker 1: whole lot more promising brand. Thank you, but the best ever,
Speaker 1: I mean, And people do say that, and I have
Speaker 1: a lot of people I love who say that to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, man, so just has to keep
Speaker 1: getting up and it just makes it hard. It makes
Speaker 1: it hard on all of us. You know, it's hard
Speaker 1: enough to go through life. Man, things are tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really challenging. The world is not, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think that there's a lot of things to
Speaker 1: be said for facing squarely what is in life and
Speaker 1: figuring out how to be grateful in the face without
Speaker 1: all of that. And that's to me different than being happy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's a very important distinction. Where where
Speaker 1: does the idea of humor come into play? Do you
Speaker 1: see a link between humor and gratefulness at all? It's
Speaker 1: so important? Yeah, Brother d Yeah, well, humor is just
Speaker 1: it's everything. Brother David standel Rass who founded this organization,
Speaker 1: and he's an incredible Benedictine monk and this thought leader
Speaker 1: and interfaith extraordinary leader, and he is one of the
Speaker 1: funniest people. And he really believes that the more grateful
Speaker 1: we are, that the more childlike we are in any ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the eyes of the eyes of wonder, those eyes of
Speaker 1: wonder which see everything new in a way, right, bug eyes, curiosity, play,
Speaker 1: those kinds of things that kids have so much more
Speaker 1: intact than we do when we're older. How do we
Speaker 1: reclaim some of that energy? Because I think when you
Speaker 1: also realize that life is precious and it's short, that
Speaker 1: we have no idea how long we're going to live,
Speaker 1: that how do you want to live those days? And
Speaker 1: I think there is something that shifts, which is for me,
Speaker 1: there's some throwing caution to the wind, and being playful
Speaker 1: in ways that I haven't been playful, being loving in
Speaker 1: ways that I haven't been loving before, being bold and courageous,
Speaker 1: And you know, I think taking life for granted puts
Speaker 1: a big squelch on all of that. Yes, well, they
Speaker 1: say that mind and body are deeply interconnected, deeply intertwined.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like cultivating this gratefulness practice helped you
Speaker 1: delay the cancer from evading and further invading your body?
Speaker 1: And I don't. It's a good question, and I don't
Speaker 1: believe in formulas, you know, in those kinds of ways
Speaker 1: like people say, just do this and think this, And
Speaker 1: I think it's way more complex than that. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: think life is way more complicated than well, how are
Speaker 1: you alive? That's a really wild question. I think there's
Speaker 1: so much mystery and it's I think it's not like
Speaker 1: rewards get doled out in direct proportion to your goodness,
Speaker 1: to your good attitude, to the good deeds you do.
Speaker 1: I think you know their life is a lot more
Speaker 1: wild and unexpected uncertain than that. So I'm in this
Speaker 1: wild dance honestly, of continuing to be alive Scott and
Speaker 1: I have no idea how long that's going to live,
Speaker 1: how long I'm going to live, and how long that
Speaker 1: will last. And that has helped me live more fully
Speaker 1: so that no matter how long I'm around, I feel
Speaker 1: less regret. I'm more able to go. I think, honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go. I want to be here.
Speaker 1: But those living that way is pretty powerful. Wow. I'm
Speaker 1: grateful you're here. Oh, you are grateful, grateful, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful to be here with you. Such a special
Speaker 1: book you wrote, and well, I actually encountered your articles
Speaker 1: and interviews before I read the book, so that that well,
Speaker 1: that's special to me as well. And uh, I just
Speaker 1: really well, well this work you're doing, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the five guiding principles. Is that okay? Can we do that? Yeah? Please? Yeah.
Speaker 1: One is life is a gift. Talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about about how how is life a gift? Doesn't always
Speaker 1: feel that way, it doesn't, doesn't. I'm sure right, Well,
Speaker 1: you didn't do anything to get here. You didn't do
Speaker 1: anything to get here. Necessarily, it was given to you.
Speaker 1: It's a given and it is You didn't have to
Speaker 1: earn it. You didn't have to It just is here here.
Speaker 1: It is so everyday life it's like here we go here,
Speaker 1: It's given to us every day. And I think all
Speaker 1: the things that like, often we have gifts in life.
Speaker 1: I know that, you know. The article that you wrote
Speaker 1: for The Atlantic also acknowledges this that sometimes there are
Speaker 1: gifts that come out of really difficult things in life.
Speaker 1: We rarely recognize it in the moment. But life is
Speaker 1: a gift. Every moment is a gift of life that
Speaker 1: we get given and we have no idea how long
Speaker 1: that gift is going to last, so we're not in
Speaker 1: charge of that gift, which part is part of what
Speaker 1: makes it be the experience of being gifted. And I
Speaker 1: think I'm not saying life is easy. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: life is always great. I'm not even saying life is
Speaker 1: a blessing. Necessarily, life is a gift. What you do
Speaker 1: with that and how we work with receiving and so
Speaker 1: what I say then afterwards. The other part of that
Speaker 1: is when you greet each moment gratefully, you're always receiving.
Speaker 1: So part of what that's about Scott for me is
Speaker 1: that gratitude waits to receive something. It's a response to something.
Speaker 1: So this was check this out. Gratitude waits to receive something.
Speaker 1: Gratefulness just waits for us to recognize that if life
Speaker 1: is a gift and we're always receiving every moment that
Speaker 1: we're alive, we're receiving something, we're able to breathe, we're
Speaker 1: able to be here. So it's like more like instead
Speaker 1: of construing it as something outside yourself, it's like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: here it is. I can be grateful right now. If
Speaker 1: I stay open and feel grateful for the moments I have,
Speaker 1: then gratitude is not elusive. It's not pinned on something,
Speaker 1: it's not pin in the future. It's not so conditional independent, good, good, good. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go down the list. Everything is surprised everything pretty much.
Speaker 1: But isn't it well, you know, I mean I think,
Speaker 1: I know, I liked it, I got it. Actually it's metajoke.
Speaker 1: So I think that life is uncertain. I think that
Speaker 1: life is really really the truth is, there's so much
Speaker 1: mystery and we have no flipping idea where life is
Speaker 1: going to go and what's going to happen next. So
Speaker 1: instead of being surprised when things happen, to just say
Speaker 1: everything is surprised. Here, I am available for what it
Speaker 1: is that's going to unfold. And when you open to wonder,
Speaker 1: that's what the idea is. So open to wonder, opportunities abound,
Speaker 1: So everything is surprise. Can we stay open to surprise
Speaker 1: in life and be much less like, Oh I had
Speaker 1: these expectations. Oh I thought I was entitled to this.
Speaker 1: Oh it's supposed to go a different way. You know.
Speaker 1: Those kinds of things are harbingers of as you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of disappointment, a lot of being incredibly bummed
Speaker 1: and incredibly anxious, and you know we all suffer that.
Speaker 1: But the more I can cultivate the attitude of you know,
Speaker 1: life is full of surprises. Life is basically a mystery,
Speaker 1: a huge mystery to so much of us. Isn't there
Speaker 1: a Madonna song? Yes? I was just going to break
Speaker 1: in and right home, we'll see. I'm sorry, where did
Speaker 1: I just go? Can we dance later? Later? Yes? Later? Right? Wow?
Speaker 1: Madonna is either really deep or really superficial. Dancing is
Speaker 1: such a gratefulness practice. Hello, I agree. What's the relationship
Speaker 1: between dance and gratefulness? I mean it's a different so
Speaker 1: humor dance. All the things that you like, the more
Speaker 1: grateful you are for them, the more you're going to
Speaker 1: be in, the more you're going to be enlivened by them.
Speaker 1: Right Like if you just say, if you say, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I love you, put on music, and you're
Speaker 1: enlivened by music because you love it so much. Otherwise
Speaker 1: it's just like this thing in the background, but be
Speaker 1: enlivened by the things you love. Love that. Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's continue this list, because a great list. The ordinary
Speaker 1: is extraordinary reminds me of Abraham Maslow's notion of the
Speaker 1: Plateau experience as seeing the miraculous in the every day
Speaker 1: and how that's a great roof root to transcendence, even
Speaker 1: more so than the peak experience. So it seems to
Speaker 1: seemed relevant to that, you're thinking, you being the expert
Speaker 1: on that all those things in your beautiful book too
Speaker 1: and transcend So I think the ordinary is extraordinaries is
Speaker 1: one of my It's the core principle, it's the central
Speaker 1: principle on so many levels, which is it's extraordinary to
Speaker 1: be here. It's extraordinary to be able to breathe, it's
Speaker 1: extraordinary to have a body, it's extraordinary to be able
Speaker 1: to sit here in this conversation with you with the
Speaker 1: aid of this technology. And what we have come to
Speaker 1: take for granted is so tragically ridiculous. Honestly, we just
Speaker 1: take these things for granted, and more and more extraordinary
Speaker 1: things can cut our way, and then we keep needing
Speaker 1: more and wanting more. And yet there's something about being
Speaker 1: able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary that is
Speaker 1: so joy producing, and so it's kind of it's it's
Speaker 1: dangerous and radical a little bit actually, because I think
Speaker 1: that it is a contentment producer in a way that
Speaker 1: our society is pretty hell bent on not having us
Speaker 1: be content and having us operate on scarcity. If you
Speaker 1: see the ordinary as extraordinary, it can kind of blow
Speaker 1: your mind. I mean I sometimes feel like, and I've said,
Speaker 1: you hardly want to leave the house. It's like everything
Speaker 1: is so mind blowing, mind blowing on inspiring because it is. Okay,
Speaker 1: tell me what you see when you look at this
Speaker 1: glass of water? I see a glass. I see a
Speaker 1: glass that is four fifths full of water? Approximately? What
Speaker 1: else you see? What's extraordinary about this that you have
Speaker 1: a glass at all? I think the fractals shape of them,
Speaker 1: all those things that crystals, it is an incredible and
Speaker 1: there's lines that go up from them. And when you
Speaker 1: hold it in front of your luminescent brain behind you,
Speaker 1: you should see the light that comes through. That is crazy. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's psychedelic. I think it's really all inspiring. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you think about these things, I'm just going to say,
Speaker 1: because I dare to hear that, you know there are
Speaker 1: people who have been having psychedelic experiences for a long time.
Speaker 1: These principles also stand in that way, or you know,
Speaker 1: the ordinary is extraordinary? What else gets illuminated in these
Speaker 1: kinds of experiences and mystical experiences. Everything is surprised like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, everything is all inspiring. Life is
Speaker 1: a gift. So these are really core essential principles and
Speaker 1: I think they awaken us to living in a way
Speaker 1: that is way more enlivened and enhanced and attuned then
Speaker 1: we live most of our days. Yeah, so let's go
Speaker 1: number four. Appreciation is generative. What's that mean? I mean
Speaker 1: it actually makes stuff happen, like when you appreciate things,
Speaker 1: when you appreciate people, when you appreciate what you have,
Speaker 1: you know it is our world. So much thrives in
Speaker 1: the space of appreciation. And you know when you when
Speaker 1: we take care of the things that we love. So
Speaker 1: the second part of that is when you tend what
Speaker 1: you value, what you value thrives. So appreciation is attention
Speaker 1: focused through gratitude, right, So grateful at tension is appreciation.
Speaker 1: And so when you appreciate people out loud, voraciously, unabashedly,
Speaker 1: when you appreciate the things, all the things that you have,
Speaker 1: it makes you need less in life. I think we're
Speaker 1: much more cognizant of than what is what is extraordinary
Speaker 1: and miraculous about what we have and what we have
Speaker 1: tends to thrive much better in the field of appreciation
Speaker 1: than neglect. And just say that that's pretty basic. That's
Speaker 1: a cycle. So like, the more you generate, the more
Speaker 1: you get appreciation in your life. Like ist it, it
Speaker 1: seems like a cycle. Like the what if you're like
Speaker 1: your life is really you're not generating a lot and
Speaker 1: you're constantly reaching failures. Isn't that likely to downward spiral
Speaker 1: and to deappreciation of life of your life? These things
Speaker 1: things like like they're upward and downward spirals. It's such
Speaker 1: a good question, right, Like, the more you take for granted,
Speaker 1: the easier it is to go down. The more you
Speaker 1: appreciate what is and what you have, it's easier to
Speaker 1: go up. Yeah. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: think is interesting is, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you talk much about kind of the law of attraction model,
Speaker 1: but you know, there are people who believe that if
Speaker 1: they appreciate things, they they appreciate things in order to
Speaker 1: get more. Do you believe in that? No? Not very scientific.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't want to you know, marginalize
Speaker 1: myself here from a lot of the people who But
Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting motivation. I think that there's
Speaker 1: a there's I mean, it's not very scientific, but also
Speaker 1: it's not very it's not based in reality. In exactly,
Speaker 1: it's just like I usually equate the two. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: So you call it science, I call it reality based.
Speaker 1: But I think and grounded, you know, in this way,
Speaker 1: which is I don't think just because you want something
Speaker 1: like that's what I said about life, just because you
Speaker 1: want to be alive. That's the danger people who say
Speaker 1: just because you want if you want to be alive enough,
Speaker 1: you will live. Right. What that means is everybody who
Speaker 1: dies didn't want to be alive enough. I don't like that.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have a boat, and you don't
Speaker 1: have a house, and you don't have a car, and
Speaker 1: you don't have a you know, a gorgeous lover, then
Speaker 1: it's because you didn't manifested adequately and you didn't want
Speaker 1: it enough. And I just don't think that's the way
Speaker 1: that the world works. No, I agree, But you do
Speaker 1: have a philosophy in your book Say Yes to Your Life,
Speaker 1: which is very Victor Frankel. In fact, that the humanistic
Speaker 1: existential psychotherapist Victor Frankel has a whole book called Say
Speaker 1: Yes To Say Yes to Life. Your model of gratefulness
Speaker 1: is very what's the word I'm looking for akin to that? Again,
Speaker 1: it's related, it's highly related. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: through your article, I learned about existential gratitude, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's fascinating and Frankel's tragic optimism. You know, how
Speaker 1: do we make how do we work through and work
Speaker 1: with what is what befalls us in life and that
Speaker 1: we don't get to be in charge of everything and
Speaker 1: things are really hard in the world right now, Like
Speaker 1: I you know it, I have to make sense of
Speaker 1: it by the idea that that I've always felt like
Speaker 1: if I'm in joy or I'm in appreciation in some way,
Speaker 1: or I'm really in a space of great love, that
Speaker 1: it's a betrayal to all the suffering going on around me.
Speaker 1: I've had to reconcile that for myself in a way
Speaker 1: that I think is it's very significant for me, and
Speaker 1: it's something I have to continually work at. Is because
Speaker 1: there's some way in which I've had to make sense
Speaker 1: of the fact that when my heart is more joyful,
Speaker 1: when I feel more grateful. And when I have more
Speaker 1: love in my life, I don't betray my concerns for
Speaker 1: the world. I actually nourish my capacity to attend to
Speaker 1: them effectively. I'm more able to be present, I'm more
Speaker 1: able to be of use of service. Because the truth is,
Speaker 1: it's like I learned that grieving for my mother. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to work through grief for my mother
Speaker 1: when she died, and she died yeah, pretty young. And
Speaker 1: when I was writing the book and learning how to
Speaker 1: hold grief and gratefulness and realizing that they honored each other.
Speaker 1: It's really important. Yes, So it's the same, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And you mentioned presences. You know, it seems so important
Speaker 1: for gratefulness is to have a mindful attitude towards whatever
Speaker 1: is in front of you. Do you do? You do
Speaker 1: you have a mindfulness practice yourself that absolutely you do.
Speaker 1: Have long, long, long standing studying with John Cabots in
Speaker 1: Forever Ago. Wow, Wow, the legend, legend, it's a beauty.
Speaker 1: It just does seem like it's very hard to cultivate
Speaker 1: this gratefulness without without cultivating, cultivating the mindfulness and in
Speaker 1: a really sustainable way. Totally agree with you, and I
Speaker 1: know you. You know you're around a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are mindfulness practitioners, teachers, and you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot to look up to there. I think great gratefulness
Speaker 1: owes a huge debt to mindfulness, right, So mindfulness is
Speaker 1: about presence and you know, I will remember though. This
Speaker 1: is interesting. Is one of the things that was challenging
Speaker 1: for me when I was studying mindfulness was when I
Speaker 1: was sick. So when I had cancer and there was
Speaker 1: period of time I could hardly walk and you know,
Speaker 1: I was so it was a challenging time for me.
Speaker 1: And one of the instructions with mindfulness was to have
Speaker 1: my eyes closed. And I had just gotten out of
Speaker 1: being in a hospital for months in a little room
Speaker 1: in Upper east Side, and so I came out and
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, I am so grateful to be
Speaker 1: able to be outdoors. How do I reconcile these things
Speaker 1: where I don't want to go sit in a room
Speaker 1: and just close my eyes. I mean, yes, the inner
Speaker 1: world and nursing, nursing in a world is so important
Speaker 1: to me, and yet I also wanted to be able
Speaker 1: to be mindful in a way that too in everything
Speaker 1: around me. The blessing the beauty, knowing that tomorrow could
Speaker 1: be my last day. So that was interesting because gratefulness
Speaker 1: also gave me permission to, in a mindful way, walk
Speaker 1: through the world with my eyes wide open. It was
Speaker 1: beautiful this passage you said that you're in You're in
Speaker 1: the hospital room, and you said, like, I can appreciate
Speaker 1: the nurses, you know, the doctors, right, you were like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not doing your quote justice. Can you
Speaker 1: quote yourself here? Because it was beautiful what you said, Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: thank you. I don't know if I can quote myself,
Speaker 1: but what I knew was I was in the hospital
Speaker 1: for weeks and weeks and weeks, and you know, when
Speaker 1: you're thirty two years old and it's summer and you're
Speaker 1: in it, I wanted to be outside. It was like
Speaker 1: it was so painfully hard, and I had to be
Speaker 1: isolated a lot because I was TV positive. My immune
Speaker 1: system was super low, and so I couldn't see a
Speaker 1: lot of people loved and people were far away, and
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, you know, this is really awful not
Speaker 1: to be around the people I love. And yet all
Speaker 1: day long a stream of people were coming into my room,
Speaker 1: taking my blood, taking care of me, you know, bringing
Speaker 1: me food, taking the trash away. So what became clear
Speaker 1: to me was, if you have no idea how long
Speaker 1: you're going to live, why would you not love these people?
Speaker 1: Why would you not make this be a source of
Speaker 1: that longing of fulfillment of that longing that you have
Speaker 1: to be in connection, you know, to feel alone. And
Speaker 1: there were people streaming all around me all day long.
Speaker 1: Was a great irony and the big eye opener for
Speaker 1: me was a wake up call. I think this segway
Speaker 1: is into number five, which is love is transformative. You know, like,
Speaker 1: what were you doing there in that moment to kind
Speaker 1: of generate love? Love changes everything, I believe, right so,
Speaker 1: and being big hearted and being wholehearted and full hearted
Speaker 1: as we live our lives, it can change everything in
Speaker 1: our midst and there's so much need for love, and
Speaker 1: it can take a very small, a small amount of
Speaker 1: love to completely change somebody's life. I've experienced that myself.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not just the long, long term relationships
Speaker 1: that change our lives. Sometimes it's chance encounters, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: an act of kindness, but it's love really can transform
Speaker 1: a life. And to believe in that and to freely
Speaker 1: embody that to be generous, I think is an extraordinary calling.
Speaker 1: And so the second part of that principle is when
Speaker 1: you embrace the great fullness of life, which is a
Speaker 1: term that I use a lot, which is the great
Speaker 1: fullness means everything. When you embrace the greatfullness of life,
Speaker 1: your heart overflows. And partly that is what for me
Speaker 1: is the truth about when I get up in the
Speaker 1: morning and I know that there is so much going
Speaker 1: on in the world that's hard, and you know, how
Speaker 1: am I going to put myself visa VI that to
Speaker 1: let my heart, to let my heart overflow is really
Speaker 1: the only way, and that means feeling a lot of tenderness,
Speaker 1: a lot of vulnerability, a lot of things that are
Speaker 1: not easy to go through the day with. Yes, broken heartedness, yes,
Speaker 1: and yet it's worth everything. So so yeah, those are
Speaker 1: the five principles. We ain't done yet. Be ain't done yet,
Speaker 1: because you know there's also the stop will go oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: then there's the name work that you're funny. There's a lot. No,
Speaker 1: there's a lot in your We could talk for hours,
Speaker 1: we won't have the time to, but there's so much
Speaker 1: in your book. There's this framework, stop will go from
Speaker 1: brother David, right, yeah, can you talk a little about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's very simple. It's basically saying, you know, brother
Speaker 1: David says, you know, what do you do before you
Speaker 1: cross the street? You stop, you look, you go. So
Speaker 1: it's basically about for me, you know how, I like
Speaker 1: to describe it as here's a way to think about
Speaker 1: it too. Gratitude, as it's commonly understood, celebrates green lights,
Speaker 1: like whoo, the best day, right, the best day is like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're going downstair, you get like sixteen green lights in
Speaker 1: a row. And yet I think gratefulness also celebrates the
Speaker 1: fact of the red lights and the yellow lights that
Speaker 1: basically we have to stop. We actually life requires us
Speaker 1: if we're going to be mindful, if we're going to
Speaker 1: be awake, if we're going to be here, otherwise we croak.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't just keep going, going, going. But
Speaker 1: our culture says, okay, just green lights, green lights, green lights,
Speaker 1: green lights. Gratitude, gratitude, keep going, you know, happiness, happiness,
Speaker 1: think on the right side. You know, it's not the
Speaker 1: way that life works all the time. So I think
Speaker 1: intentionally stopping, which can be either for a split second,
Speaker 1: or to sit on a cushion for forty five minutes, whatever,
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, ten minutes, whatever you do looking, which is
Speaker 1: to listen inside ourselves, to look, to notice, to feel,
Speaker 1: to look around us, to be present to what is
Speaker 1: it's really the yellow light, which is yield notice, look
Speaker 1: around like that's what it is, and then go go
Speaker 1: into life with the recognition of For me, it's like,
Speaker 1: what am I taking for granted? That I can lift
Speaker 1: up in my awareness and see as a privilege. So
Speaker 1: and there's no end to that. When you start with
Speaker 1: the breath. If you start with the fact that you're
Speaker 1: breathing and your body is working and you're actually here,
Speaker 1: the number of miracles, the number of ridiculously incredibly complex
Speaker 1: things that are having to happen in order for you
Speaker 1: to be alive and breathing unassisted right now is enough
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. And I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: a way that's Namby Pamby. I'm saying it's like, if
Speaker 1: we can really rest in that awareness, it's pretty awe inspiring.
Speaker 1: And then notice all the things that are happening in
Speaker 1: your body that allow you to breathe, that allow your
Speaker 1: heart to beat that are you know, the miraculous things
Speaker 1: about your body, So you just start there, start with
Speaker 1: your your very existence. Yeah. The nice thing about anchoring
Speaker 1: in your breath, Scott just to say is that as
Speaker 1: long as you're alive, you're going to be able to
Speaker 1: anchor there. So if you can be grateful for the breath,
Speaker 1: it's enough to be grateful for the next breath, Brother
Speaker 1: David says. So it's like, if you can be grateful
Speaker 1: for this breath and then just go, that's the stop.
Speaker 1: Notice that and then go, it's a pretty extraordinary thing
Speaker 1: because everything else is a bonus. Everything else comes after that.
Speaker 1: And yet we take it so for granted, and then
Speaker 1: narcissists who just feel entitled to it too, it for grant.
Speaker 1: They're entitled to more than just the breath. Yeah, oxygen therapy,
Speaker 1: men do the thing, all the stuff whatever. I mean.
Speaker 1: Entitlement is a is a big hibitter, right, So oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't go down your whole list of in hibbers,
Speaker 1: did we. We don't need to. We don't. People get it.
Speaker 1: People get it. I mean we know expectations are you know,
Speaker 1: we have assumptions, expectations. Entitlement they don't make life better. Now.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about one of my favorite sections
Speaker 1: of your book. It's called Be Yourself with Abandon. It's
Speaker 1: towards the end. Love that one. I love it. I
Speaker 1: love it, love it love. Can you integrate that one?
Speaker 1: Can you combine that one with the one befriending our
Speaker 1: full selves? I think befriending your full self and be
Speaker 1: Yourself with Abandon is they're highly interconnected, so right, I
Speaker 1: mean there's no separation, Yeah, exactly, there we go. So
Speaker 1: the hell else are you going to be? Right? So
Speaker 1: it's this is who you are, This is who we are.
Speaker 1: This is a moment that we're in. I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: were it all on your sleeve, be who you are.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of you know, I used to
Speaker 1: be so hard on myself. I you know, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, for everything that didn't feel just perfect about me,
Speaker 1: or that I compared myself to so many people and stuff,
Speaker 1: And so I think it's really wonderful to just kind
Speaker 1: of say, what are our quirks, like, what are the
Speaker 1: quirky parts about us? What are the idiosyncrasies, what are
Speaker 1: the things that we you know? And so how to
Speaker 1: be friends those? To me is also you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, literally those seven Dwarfs, it's like cranky, whiny, grumpy,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's stressy, worry. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: all the different parts of me. And to be able
Speaker 1: to go, yeah, there you are, hello, Hi, you know,
Speaker 1: like check you out. It's so nice to be welcoming
Speaker 1: to those aspects of yourself. So to me be who
Speaker 1: you are with the bandon is just you know, be
Speaker 1: the quirky, funny, oddball insecure. I'm very sure that well,
Speaker 1: truthful version of yourself. You're Yeah, you're so many things,
Speaker 1: and it's what makes you most lovable, you know in
Speaker 1: the end. And it's it's such a it's such a
Speaker 1: great way to go through life. Like Mark Neepe says,
Speaker 1: you know, our fears just want to be held. You know.
Speaker 1: We can't always have somebody else hold the parts of
Speaker 1: ourselves that we want to disavow. But maybe we can
Speaker 1: do that for ourselves. And I think it's if we
Speaker 1: can't do it for ourselves, what are we expecting somebody
Speaker 1: else to want to hold onto those parts of us
Speaker 1: with us? You know. It's like so I think it's
Speaker 1: a great it's a great lesson for self compassion, huge
Speaker 1: self compassion practice, and then also self celebration. I mean,
Speaker 1: why stop at compassion? No, I agree self celebration. I
Speaker 1: love that I'm bringing that down. Let's just end on
Speaker 1: the topic of leaving a grateful legacy. I do that?
Speaker 1: How do I do that? Well, it's really hard. I
Speaker 1: think it is living without taking life for granted and
Speaker 1: basically saying what matters most? How do I put that
Speaker 1: in motion? Now? How do I show that? Now? Who
Speaker 1: do I love? How do I tell them now? Because
Speaker 1: otherwise you're greatful? Like, your legacy is all the choices
Speaker 1: you make today. It's not something that you're going to
Speaker 1: put into on paper when you're, you know, sixty five
Speaker 1: years old and you're going to leave somebody some amount
Speaker 1: of money. Your legacy is how you treat everybody today.
Speaker 1: It's how you show up to life today. So that's
Speaker 1: the promise of not taking life for granted, is to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll do that when you know, being great peol versus
Speaker 1: doing grateful Yeah, be embody, Yeah, I love it. So
Speaker 1: that's pretty simple, Thank you, Scott. No, it's simple, but
Speaker 1: not easy. It's not easy at all. We need these
Speaker 1: reminders and just even just reading your book again. You know,
Speaker 1: got me. You have to keep you just have to
Speaker 1: keep reminding yourself of these things. You know. It's it's
Speaker 1: very easy to forget that and get lost in the
Speaker 1: stream of life. It's worthwhile, and I I always feel
Speaker 1: like it's really worth trying. What do you have to lose?
Speaker 1: What do you have to risk by trying it on? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think what's really powerful is, like you said,
Speaker 1: kind of that general appreciation is generative. The more you
Speaker 1: live gratefully, it's interesting to notice what happens. Yes, how
Speaker 1: much more grateful you can because right when you're putting
Speaker 1: yourself out there in a way, what comes back to
Speaker 1: you is always interesting? And how is that reinforcing? And
Speaker 1: so I think it's an adventure and it's a risk
Speaker 1: worth taking, and it's a great practice to build this musculature.
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate your interest in it and your
Speaker 1: wonderful attention and care. Oh my pleasure. I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to practice these five things the rest of my day,
Speaker 1: and I encourage our listeners give it a shot. As
Speaker 1: Christy Nelson says, what do you have to lose? You know,
Speaker 1: try it out. Leave a comment in the YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: or on the or on our web page. Let us
Speaker 1: know how it worked out for you. We love honesty,
Speaker 1: so ay May Christy, thank you so much for being
Speaker 1: on my podcast. I'm glad we're finally able to record
Speaker 1: this session. Thanks Scott, really appreciate the time and keep going,
Speaker 1: keep doing all the transcending beautiful work you're doing. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you, you too, You too, very grateful. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to react in some way to something you heard,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at thusycology
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page thus Ecology Podcast.
Speaker 1: We also put up some videos of some episodes on
Speaker 1: our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check
Speaker 1: that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of
Speaker 1: the show, and tune in next time for more on
Speaker 1: the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.