{"id":51175,"date":"2023-11-21T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandlawpodcast.com\/?post_type=podcast&p=51175"},"modified":"2023-11-21T08:44:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T14:44:09","slug":"how-to-practice-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandlawpodcast.com\/podcast\/how-to-practice-gratitude\/","title":{"rendered":"#132: Why & How To Practice Gratitude (Life & Law On Rewind)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_audio audio=”https:\/\/episodes.castos.com\/60369aefcec052-57549049\/56a0aa68-c345-4a03-934e-04e3bab2a151-Episode-131A-Life-Law-On-Rewind-Why-How-To-Practice-Gratitude.mp3″ title=”Episode 132: Why & How To Practice Gratitude” artist_name=”Heather Moulder” album_name=”Life & Law Podcast” _builder_version=”4.23″ _module_preset=”default” title_font=”|600|||||||” title_text_color=”#ffffff” title_font_size=”22px” title_line_height=”1.4em” caption_font=”||||||||” caption_letter_spacing=”1px” caption_line_height=”1.4em” background_color=”#003049″ background_image=”https:\/\/www.lifeandlawpodcast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Website-Backgrounds-for-Headers-1-min.jpg” background_blend=”overlay” custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”60px||60px||true|false” title_font_size_tablet=”20px” title_font_size_phone=”16px” title_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” caption_font_size_tablet=”13px” caption_font_size_phone=”11px” caption_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” border_width_all=”4px” border_color_all=”#ba9657″ border_width_all_image=”5px” border_color_all_image=”#003049″ border_width_all_image_tablet=”” border_width_all_image_phone=”” border_width_all_image_last_edited=”on|desktop” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_audio][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.23″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” header_2_font_size_tablet=”22px” header_2_font_size_phone=”18px” header_2_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n

You’ve heard you should have a regular gratitude practice. Maybe you’ve even tried it. But how often do you really<\/em> practice gratitude – and do you know how to practice gratitude most effectively?<\/p>\n

Learn how to practice gratitude and why to make it a regular thing in your life in this rewind of an early Life & Law Podcast episode.<\/p>\n

Because practicing gratitude regularly will help you to feel and BE your absolute best (something I think we all need more of).<\/p>\n

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Links & Recommended Episodes<\/h3>\n

Why My Grandfather Was Happy (Even When He Was Dying)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Episode #28: How To Deal With Uncomfortable Feelings<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Episode #2: The Truth About Lawyer Stress<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Episode #1: Welcome To The Life & Law Podcast<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Join The Get Reenergized Self-Care Challenge<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.22.1″ _module_preset=”default” module_alignment=”left” custom_padding=”||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.22.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_toggle title=”Episode Transcript” open_toggle_text_color=”#003049″ closed_toggle_background_color=”#f4ece1″ icon_color=”#ba9657″ open_icon_color=”#ba9657″ _builder_version=”4.23″ _module_preset=”default” title_text_color=”#003049″ title_level=”h6″ title_font=”Open Sans|700||on|||||” title_text_align=”left” title_font_size=”20px” title_line_height=”1.4em” body_font_size=”16px” module_alignment=”left” border_width_all=”1px” border_color_all=”#003049″ box_shadow_style=”preset4″ box_shadow_color=”#003049″ global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n

[00:00:49] Hey there, everybody. This is Heather Moulder, host of the Life & Law podcast. And for those of you listening to this from the United States on the week that this one comes, happy, happy Thanksgiving. I hope that you have wonderful plans with family and or friends and that you have a very safe and happy holiday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because this week is Thanksgiving, I wanted to come in here today and revisit an old episode – one of my early episodes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, it’s the first episode I did for the week of Thanksgiving, and it’s all about gratitude – what gratitude is, how it truly helps with your mentality and your mindset and how to practice gratitude.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I’m replaying this:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Because it was an early episode and many of you have probably not heard it.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Even for those of you who have heard it before, I actually recommend you go back and listen. Because I do find that things like gratitude are things we often overlook. And sometimes we get into a habit of practicing it in a certain way and we forget why we’re even doing it in the first place.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. And let’s just be clear and honest about what’s going on in the world right now. Things have been somewhat heavy lately and difficult, and I think there is a place for gratitude within our lives.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I especially want to note that this is not about positive thinking when there’s a lot of crud going on. It’s about something deeper than that. It’s about finding ways to be grateful, even through the very difficult times. Because there is always something to be grateful for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    And the reason for that is so that you can show up as your best. Okay?<\/span><\/p>\n

    The world needs more of us to show up as our best. I truly believe that. And I hope that today’s episode helps you to do just that today, this week, and in the future as well.<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    All right, that’s it for today. We will be back next week with a new episode, y’all.<\/span><\/p>\n

    ***Rewind Episode***<\/span><\/p>\n

    We are talking about gratitude because gratitude can be life changing. I know that sounds probably a little hokey to you. Okay, Heather, how can gratitude really change my life? But I’m here to tell you that it can. And we’re going to get into that today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    I picked this topic partly because it is Thanksgiving. Y’all, here in the United States, we are celebrating Thanksgiving, that is when this episode is airing. And so I thought it was appropriate since we are all giving thanks and having gratitude for various things.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    But I really want to challenge you to expand upon that and think about utilizing a regular gratitude practice within your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Today we’re going to get into the why and the how.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

    We’re going to talk about:<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The science backed benefits of a regular gratitude practice, and ow it rewires your brain and hence can change your outlook on life.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. Common misconceptions around gratitude that really hold people back from going all in.<\/span><\/li>\n
    3. And how to start practicing gratitude right now. You’re going to be amazed at how simple, quick and easy it really, really is.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      And when I talked earlier about what I do, helping lawyers create a more fulfilling practice, the practice that they want, and you might think, okay, that’s great and all, but how on God’s green earth does that relate to gratitude, Heather?<\/span><\/p>\n

      Well, gratitude really can be life changing in the sense that it rewires your brain to look at life very differently. And when you look at life in a particular way, it changes your actions, right? Based on your outlook on life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      I have talked about this before.<\/span><\/p>\n

      E + R = O<\/span><\/h3>\n

      Event plus response equals your outcome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      You can’t always have an effect or an impact on the events. Lots of things happen that are completely outside of your control. And frankly, even when you had some impact on the event itself, once it’s happened, it’s happened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      But what you can do and have control over is your own response. And that is what we get at when we talk about mindset. It’s all in the response.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Well, gratitude is one of those things that can really rewire your brain in a way that changes how you perceive things, which then affects the responses that you have, which then affect your outcomes. Right? So this is why I say it can be truly transformative within your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

      So no eye rolling, okay?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      I just want you to promise me you’re not going to roll your eyes and you’re going to fully and completely listen to today’s episode before you make up your mind. Okay?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Before we get into the specifics of today’s topic, I’ve got a couple of housekeeping items for you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Item number one (join my self-care challenge).<\/span><\/h3>\n

      If you have not joined the Get Reenergized Self Care Challenge, I highly recommend you do it. Especially at this time of year.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

      We tend to be really busy around the holiday season. Year end can be crazy busy for a lot of practices. I know it was for me back when I practiced law. I was in a corporate finance practice and it’s a stressful time of year, for a lot of us anyway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      We’re having year end reviews. Partners and shareholders are having compensation reviews. It’s stressful, right? And then you add into that the holidays and family and right now with the Coronavirus and people having differing things going on within their families and whether they can or cannot gather because of what’s been going on, it leads to a lot of stress.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      And so I would love for you to join my challenge. It is a seven day challenge, but it’s super simple. Y’all, you get one email per day for seven days with a lesson and a corresponding challenge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      And the way this specific challenge works is it is organized to help you rewire and shift your thinking around what self care even is and truly simplify it so that it can be transformative in the sense that you can find very simple and easy ways to really prioritize your well being and take care of yourself as best as you can without feeling guilty about it.<\/b> Okay? And also without taking a lot of time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Now, yes, some self care practices take up some time, but they don’t have to. And there’s a lot of things out there that you can do that take up very little time, and frankly, no time at all that you can couple with regular everyday activities that are already going on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      That’s really what the self care challenge is about. It’s going to get you to shift that thinking and start expanding upon how you look at self care so that you can really start prioritizing it for yourself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      And right now, in one of the so called most wonderful times of the year, that happens to be one of the more stressful for a lot of us, I think it’s important that you do prioritize it. One way to do that is to join the Get Reenergized Self-Care Challenge. <\/span>So I will have a link to that in the show notes<\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Please go do it if you haven’t already. Okay, this is for you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Number two.\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

      If you are enjoying this podcast, please do consider giving me a rating and a review. I love to hear from you. I read every one. They are very meaningful to me and it helps to get the podcast found.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      And I am always trying to grow and get this in front of as many people as I can so that I can help as many people as I can.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Number three.<\/span><\/h3>\n

      Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, please consider sharing it specifically with somebody you think it would help. You can email it to them, you can share it on your favorite social media platform, whatever it may be. Just pick somebody that you know this would help and share it with them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Okay, that’s it. Let’s dive right into gratitude.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      My Story Behind Gratitude (That Will Help You Understand Why Gratitude Is So Beneficial)<\/span><\/h2>\n

      Okay, so a little bit of truth here. I heard about gratitude for a long time before I ever, ever started practicing it. In fact, I would roll my eyes anytime I heard somebody bring it up. I thought, \u201cYeah, right, that sounds way too good to be true. It’s too woo woo for me. I’m not a woo girl.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

      What I Used To Think About Gratitude<\/span><\/h3>\n

      And so I never tried it. I thought \u201cEh, not for me. Kind of stupid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

      And it’s really interesting that I didn’t ever bother to try it because I was always kind of this – well, I wouldn’t say always but I’ve gone into this before. And if you don’t know my history and my story, you might want to go back and listen to it. I will put a link in the show notes to that episode as well. It’s episode number one<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      I wasn’t always a glass half full kind of girl. But during my college years and in law school, I kind of started to flip that switch. And by the time I was practicing, after a couple of years, I started to take control of my mentality and my mindset. I really did become a silver lining finder, I guess you could say.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      I’m not one of those people that’s just all positivity. I think that can be very toxic, but not naturally. I trained my brain to reframe things so that I would see the positives, I would understand what I’ve learned, and I would focus on those things.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      So given all of that, it seems a little crazy that I didn’t buy into gratitude. But I thought, you know, that’s just too good to be true. There’s just no way.<\/span><\/p>\n

      What changed? Cancer.\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

      When I had breast cancer, I mean, look, I don’t really remember how detailed I got about this originally, but the prognosis really was not good at first.<\/span><\/p>\n

      The Beginning of My Cancer Journey<\/span><\/h4>\n

      I was very worried that that was my death sentence, that I was going to die within the next year or two.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Because my cancer was so aggressive, it seemed that my doctors kind of presumed that it was very likely that my cancer had spread outside of my breast tissue and outside of my lymph nodes. If that had been the case, I would not be here with you now. I would be gone. The life expectancy for triple negative breast cancer patients who are stage four is, I think, like nine months. At least that’s what it was back when I was diagnosed. I don’t know if it’s the same now.<\/span><\/p>\n

      And so it was a death sentence if it had really spread.<\/span><\/p>\n

      I was terrified that was the case because people were acting as if it was very likely.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Luckily, it was not the case. Obviously, because I’m still here with you. And I did find that out within two weeks of my original diagnosis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      I had to take a lot of tests. I had to have CT scans, MRIs, a bone scan, all of these things. And I had to go through that process. Then I had to have a lymph node –\u00a0 a sentinel lymph node biopsy where they go in and they test the lymph nodes in your underarm area and try to see if there is any cancer there. And I was extremely lucky there was nothing there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      So we did catch my cancer really, really early. But up until that point, I remember thinking back on my grandfather’s funeral.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Imagining My Own Funeral<\/span><\/h5>\n

      And so something to note about my life growing up. My grandfather Charlie was the biggest guiding force in my life throughout my childhood and into my young adulthood. He passed away a week before I graduated from law school. Up until that time, he was just the person I looked up to the most.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      My parents divorced when I was really young and I adored my father and I do and did look up to my father, but I didn’t see him but a couple of times a year. We didn’t live in the same city.<\/span><\/p>\n

      And so Charlie was my father figure for a very large portion of my life, at least throughout my childhood. Now, because of that, obviously I held him in high regard and high esteem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      I remember going to his funeral and being just floored by the number of people who showed up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      The family got there early and we had our own room in the back. We did not see the people who were coming into his funeral until everybody was there. And we walked in and it was standing room only. It really impacted me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      My grandfather was truly a great human, and he affected and impacted a lot of lives in a very positive way. And that’s why people just showed up like crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n

      And it really resonated with me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      My guide was my grandfather<\/span><\/i><\/h6>\n

      I didn’t realize that it planted a seed within me, a seed to really want to live up to that legacy that he had to impact people in such a way and enough people, as many people as I possibly could in a positive manner to help them live the best lives possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

      And I felt like when I was looking at Death\u2019s door that I hadn’t really done that.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Because I sat down that first day and I couldn’t help but envision my own funeral and think about \u201cWell, how have I impacted people who would show up? What would they say about me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

      And I\u2019ve got to tell you, I wasn’t terribly happy with what I came up with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Thinking About How I Had Been Living<\/span><\/i><\/h6>\n

      Now, I hadn’t led a horrible life, right? I don’t think I’m a bad person. I’d done some good things in my life. But I didn’t think I’d lived up to those ideals that Charlie had taught me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      And if you’d like to know more about Charlie and why I hold him in such high esteem, I’ve written about him for Tiny Buddha before and so I will <\/span>provide a link to that article in the show<\/span> notes<\/span><\/a>. So that you can get to know him a little bit more. I highly recommend that you read that article.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Realizing How I Wanted To Live<\/span><\/i><\/h6>\n

      So I thought about all those things and I realized I haven’t lived the life I really want to live. And so after going through that and thinking I might die and then finding out \u201cNo, I’m not automatically dead. I can hand fight this, there is a chance.\u201d, that kind of opened me up, I think, to new things.<\/span><\/p>\n

      And one of those new things was gratitude.<\/span><\/h4>\n

      It jolted me to understand I haven’t been doing the things that I had wanted to do. I haven’t impacted people in the way that I wanted to. Where do I start?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      The starting point for me was, well, first and foremost, to live and get through this. But I also want to be able to do it in a way that shows people you don’t have to be so down. That is inspirational, that’s inspiring, right?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      That shows people that just because I am uncertain and I am potentially facing my own death, I can still live it to the fullest. I can still enjoy the simple things in life and not be down all the time about the fact that I don’t know if I’m going to make it through this. And so that is actually what opened the door for me to even consider gratitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

      How I Started Practicing Gratitude<\/span><\/h3>\n

      Somebody gave me a little book.<\/span><\/h4>\n

      I can’t remember the name of it, but it had like daily little prayers in it and lessons. It resonated with me in a way where I actually needed the lesson each day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Like, I would open up the book and I would read the lesson for that day and I would be like, \u201cWhoa, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. How did you know?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

      Because they had them based on date. So that date, you would open up a particular one and you’d read it and it just seemed like it was made for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      And I do think sometimes we see what we need to see in those types of things. But I felt like God, my higher power, my higher purpose, was speaking directly to me and helping me get through it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Wanting To Change My Mentality<\/span><\/h4>\n

      And so all of these things culminated to say, \u201cOkay, I want to change my mentality. I want to move forward with the most positive mindset that I can. Realistic but positive. How do I do that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

      Gratitude kept coming up, and so I was open to it. And so thus the transformation for me. <\/span>I truly believe that my gratitude practice was probably the number one thing that helped me get through my cancer experience the way that I did.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

      Now, let me be clear about a couple of things.<\/span><\/p>\n