Ep 213 Gratitude

Episode Notes:

Happy Thanksgiving to our US friends.  This is a short episode talking a bit about gratitude, being ok with not being ok, and what I missed for years in my gratitude practice.

Have a happy and safe holiday.  

Thank you for being here – I am truly grateful to be part of this with you.

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Episode Transcript: (Transcribed by OtterAi with minimal edits)

You are listening to the richer time podcast and I’m your host certified life coach Michelle Arnold Bourque and today’s episode I’m discussing gratitude.

 

 0:10 Welcome to the It’s Your Time Podcast, the podcast, were busy professionals, like you get the practical solutions and support you need to gain control of your schedule. So you can strive to be the best in your career, but without the stress and overwhelm. If you’re looking to increase your energy and decrease your stress, you are in the right place.

 0:32 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast friends. Happy Thanksgiving. It’s Thanksgiving here in the US. And I’m going to keep this episode pretty short. Because I’m guessing many of you are busy today. And I just want to check in and share a few ideas around gratitude with you. This is the time of year that we hear a lot about what everyone is grateful for. And I am in this camp. I try to be grateful every day, not just Thanksgiving. But it’s also important to recognize that not everyone feels the same. And I think recognizing that might help to allow any extra layers that we put on ourselves, if things might not be so great. And I always say life is not about rainbows, daisies and butterflies every single day. And just because you might be in a place that isn’t necessarily where you want to be today, you don’t have to add that extra layer of thinking that it should be different. When we argue with reality, we lose as Byron Katie says, but only 100% of the time. So I like to meet you where you are at. And I hope that you can meet yourself there too. When we accept where we are, we are more empowered to make changes. And feeling gratitude is a practice. I’ve mentioned this before. For years, I followed what Oprah said to do. I mean, didn’t everybody back then write down five things that you’re grateful for. I’m sure if I go back, I will tell you nachos might have been one of the most repeated things that was grateful for but I was missing one component on most of those days. And it’s a super important one. And that is actually feeling grateful. I treated that like it was an activity. I know, you know what I mean? One of the things that we most feel grateful for for our high achieving friends here listening is to be able to cross off your list of things to do, right. And that’s how I treated my gratitude practice. Actually, making that cross off of my list of things to do might have had me feeling gratitude every single day. But I didn’t always take the time to feel grateful as I was writing down all of my things. Do you do you really take the time to check in with your body? Do you maybe feel your heart kind of expanding or like a warmth in your body, it’s different for everyone. But when you’re able to feel into it, that is energy and energy is magnetic. So if you can attract the energy of gratitude for yourself, if you’re feeling it, then you are attracting more. You guys, there is research out there that talks about doing brain scans, and seeing changes in the brain makeup when looking at gratitude as like a benchmark, right? Or the thing that they’re studying. It’s so fascinating. And gratitude can for sure be something that you keep to yourself, or you can do the old pay it forward. Let’s face it, I was just talking to a girlfriend about this. Think about when we do things for others. How great it feels for us, wasn’t it? Like a friend’s episode years and years ago, we’re Phoebe was worried because she felt so good when helping others. I think that’s what it was. I may have that story totally wrong. If you know me, you know that I often have stories that are just a little bit off, right? I kind of give that head turned for many folks. Like What Did she just say? But usually, you get the point, right? You know what else I do when we’re getting back to gratitude, aside from my storytelling, lack of skills. As far as gratitude goes, I love to and you can go ahead and laugh but I get out of bed in the morning and one foot goes on the floor and I say thank and then the next foot hits the floor and I say you and then all the way down the stairs, foot after foot. I say thank you think you totally cool to say whatever works for you. You can say thank you or you could say Thank God you could say Thank you universe spirit. Heck, you could be thinking yourself if you Unknown Speaker 5:00 You want, right? Whatever works. The gratitude also doesn’t have to be for big things. Of course it can be. But there are days when I am just grateful that I woke up. And you know what that is okay? Again, you don’t have to judge what you’re going through on any particular day. You don’t have to buy into the toxic positivity culture that we often see on social media all around us. And you don’t have to think that you’re doing it wrong. If you don’t feel happy, happy every single day, give yourself a little permission slip, to feel what you feel, and then decide if you want to keep feeling it. It’s super simple friends, I am so grateful that you are here. And that you listen, truly, I love hearing from you when you reach out. And I love thinking about you implementing some of the ideas that we talked about on the podcast. I love when you share ideas. This is so much fun to do. And it’s so exciting when I can see that you are making the changes, that we are here helping more women step into more of your power, and your unique energy to be able to succeed in what is often a male dominated industry without the stress and overwhelm, so that you can truly do what you want. And when you do that, you can’t help but feel more grateful. And listen, if you’re in a place where you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, and you think the only answer maybe if it’s around work is to leave your job, I want you to first go to Michellebourquecoaching.com and click on the button to get started. That is step one, check out the guide and it will give you three simple steps to help reduce some of the stress for you. And then once you’re on the email list, you can always email me directly with any questions that come up. simply reply to any message that I send you and I will personally get back to you. Okay, friends, that’s what I have for you today. Let’s circle back next week but for now, make it a great day. Take care

 7:21 Did you know you can take this work to a deeper level with me one on one, go to MichelleBourquecoaching.com, and click on get started to begin