Episode 126: Finding Gratitude in Difficult Times

Recently, my dog took off running while I was still holding onto the leash and I fell on my face. It was very scary and painful, but I have found things to be grateful for in the midst of recovering. If you are going through a hard time, finding gratitude is a great way to help you get through it. Even if things are going well for you right now, practice gratitude now so that it’s a muscle built up and ready for when things do get hard!

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Transcript

The Dog Walk Accident

The Choice To Refocus

Finding Specific Gratitude

Staying Real About Healing

Practice Gratitude In Good Times

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Are you going through a tough time? This is a question today on the Giving Your Best Life podcast. I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. So recently I was outside walking my dog, and my husband didn't realize I had him on a leash, called for him, and my dog just took off running. And I fell, I faceplanted, and it was just a bad situation. And after I freaked out a little bit and cried and all of that, like the the difficult thing that happened, I was able to reset my mind. I could continue to focus on what happened and you know, the pain, all the scrapes, all the scratches, the suffering. I had to basically take two days off work, uh, which I had a lot of stuff to do, like just everything, all the negative stuff that comes along when something unexpected happens. But as I was laying in bed, I realized I had a choice. I could continue to sit and think about everything that happened and kind of this woe is me, where, you know, like it was a serious situation. So I don't want to say like whatever you're going through is not a serious situation or it isn't um like it's not tough. It's not suffering, but we do have a choice of like how do we move through that? What do we think about? How do we process? Um, especially, you know, it's harder in in the moments after, but like as we get farther from whatever the event or whatever we're in or going through, how do we start to make the choice of what we focus on? And so for me, in that situation, it was okay, let me pause and what can I be grateful for? And I literally started to think about one, um, when this happened, my neighbor was there and my husband was there. So what if this would have happened when I was by myself? Um, so I was grateful that people were there. I was grateful that uh one of my friends is a nurse. And so I text her a picture of my face and she immediately called me and one, calmed my nerves, but also just like, hey, these are things to look out for. And so having a friend that had the expertise that I needed for what I was dealing with. Um, three is my husband went and got me a blizzard, and so I got some ice cream, and that was pretty good. Um, four was, you know, I probably needed some rest and to slow down a little bit. I had a bunch of my bunch of stuff like on my agenda for that weekend. Um, but basketball was on, and so I was grateful that it was basketball season. We were in the March Madness tournament and I could rest. And then finally, is that I wasn't injured. I mean, you know, yes, I had a lot of like bumps and bruises and scrapes, but I could have knocked myself out, I could have had a concussion, I could have easily broke my nose. I thought I had broken my finger, it's not broken. And so I was just grateful. Like, even though it was bad and it was scary and it was hard and it was painful, is at the end of the day, it could have been um much worse. So, all this to say is I want you to think about maybe something that you're going through right now. And how do you, you know, still it's whatever you're going through is you're going through it. So we're not talking about like avoiding or just acting like, nope, this isn't even happening. But go, hey, when I have those thoughts that come in, is there anything that I can be grateful for in the situation or the day, whether it's people that surrounding you, things, something good, because that physically changes how we move forward, how we don't stay stuck of where we're at. And not to say whatever we're going through isn't going to stay with us because um I'm a week and a half out, and you know, like I still have some pains, I still have some bruising. Um, but the farther I get out from that incident is you know a little bit easier that it gets. I also want to say is it doesn't mean that it totally goes away. And some days maybe we'll have easier days. So it's not to say, like, even though I'm practicing gratitude, everything's great every day. Like last night, my knee started hurting really bad. Um, and I just researched it and it's kind of the healing process when we go through something. And so know that a lot of times when we're going through tough stuff, is we might have some good days, we might have more better days than maybe bad days, uh, but we also might have setbacks and things that's like, oh my gosh, that that still hurts, that's still here. Um, and that's okay and that's normal. Um, but then how do we reset our frame of mind, not stay in it and go, okay, what can I be grateful for in this situation? So I hope this lesson today on giving your best life just helps you out a little bit if you're going through a tough time. And I do want to challenge you that if you're not going through a tough time and life is grand and everything is beautiful, is now is the time to also be practicing gratitude because you're gonna build up that gratitude muscle for it, you know, it's not gonna come natural if you wait to do it uh when you go through a tough time. It's in the good times that you take um to pause and go, okay, what can I be grateful for today? I always love to write out in the morning, but you can do this in the evening. And it's also just a habit throughout the day that you bring along with us. So I hope today uh this, you know, podcast episode helps you to get to giving your best life a little bit better. Thank you for listening to the Giving Your Best Life podcast. If this episode encouraged you, would you please share it with a friend or family member? Also, we'd love it if you would rate and review this podcast. Finally, if you want to connect with us, subscribe to our YouTube channel or follow us on TikTok and Instagram at giving your best life. Have a fabulous day.