A short YouTube talk by Betsy Guerra distinguishing saying "thank you" from practicing gratitude. Guerra shares personal stories (early entitlement as a new parent, enduring pain) to illustrate that gratitude is an active practice and leads to joy even amid suffering, and encourages listeners to cultivate a grateful heart.
Chapters
If you think that by saying thank you a lot that means that you're grateful, think again. Since we're little, we're taught say thank you. What do you say? What do you say? Thank you. And we think that that's being grateful. But saying thank you and being grateful are two different things. Thank you is just words that we're taught when we're little. Gratitude is a practice. I love the saying, it's an attitude of gratitude. But really it's not an attitude, it's a practice, it's an experience. When you're grateful, you don't have to say thank you because the other person knows how you feel. When I had my first kids, I. I don't like to confess this, but I was a little entit. I felt that my mom had to help me, that my mother in law should help me. And I would always say thank you because I'm very educated but I would have this energy of like, you know, things weren't done my way and this is not how you. I wanted you to feed my baby and you put her to sleep five minutes after I told you or you changed the diaper three times instead of four. And when I questioned all those things or I had that energy or, or I wanted things to be my way, I wasn't being grateful. I wasn't expressing gratitude. So even though I was saying thank you a lot, the message wasn't getting across. Fortunately, I caught myself and I've learned to live gratitude. And I feel that the main reason I have such a grateful heart is because I've endured pain. When I was going through pain, I wasn't too fun to hang around of and I felt so grateful that my friends wanted to still be with me and my husband wanted to hang out. Even though I was always crying and that people stuck by me, even though I was a little apathetic at times, I felt so undeserving of love and support that when I received it anyway, I couldn't help but feel this gratitude that I didn't expect. And I think that's the problem that when we're entitled and we think we deserve everything in this world and we expect others to do what we want them to, we forget that nobody, nobody has a responsibility with us. What people do for us, they do out of the goodness of their hearts and we should be more appreciative of that. So I feel that my heart is about to explode with gratitude. With everything that I experience on the day to day with the sun and the brain and the support and the people. I find gratitude in everything. And I know, I know that when you have a grateful heart, you can experience joy even amidst the pain. So be grateful. Show gratitude. Don't just say thank you. If you enjoyed this, please like. And if you want more, subscribe. Share with somebody that you feel would benefit from a grateful heart. And for more resources, go to my website, betterwithbetsy.com.
