In Brief: Essential Insights for Post-Military Transition
20 Nov 2023 · 6 min
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In this five‑minute solo episode of the InBrief podcast, host Jordana Megonigal (CEO of the Recon Network) reflects on the difficulty of cultivating gratitude during a time of global conflict, rising anxiety, and personal stress. She cites Anne Voskamp’s book 1,000 Gifts as a guide for shifting focus from the world’s darkness to the small, everyday blessings—light through leaves, the scent of roses, crickets, a pet’s calm, etc. Jordana explains that noticing these minor gifts not only counters cynicism but also creates space for joy, because gratitude requires stillness and mindful awareness. She concludes with a practical weekly challenge: several moments each day to pause and reflect on food, breath, movement, and the origins of everyday objects, encouraging listeners to become both recipients and sources of light in a dark world.
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This is InBrief. Let's get to it. Hey there, and welcome back to the InBrief podcast. My name is Jordana. I am the CEO of the Recon Network, and this podcast is dedicated to giving you just 5 minutes of something new to consider this week. Hopefully it's something that helps you through a period of transition or just another area of your life. This week we're talking about gratefulness. This life is hard. As I'm recording this, there's a war going on in Asia and another in the Middle East. Anxiety and depression are up 25% over the last few years in most Americans. Money doesn't go as far as it needs to. Everyone around us is on edge and angry, and we end up burnt out, worn down, and beaten. A lot of the time it just feels like we're up against the world itself, and as a result, we end up cynical and skeptical. And then after all of this, day in and day out, we're expected to be grateful? If you're anything like me, you get how hard it can be to shift from daily life and the endless negative news cycle into a mindset that focuses on being thankful for what you have. If you're not used to thinking along that vein, it can be hard to shift focus away from the threats and dark spots and over to where you can see the bright lights in your life. Sure, you know they're there, and if someone asked you, you could easily say that you're thankful for your friends or your family or for your home. When something great happens, we can instantly feel that thankfulness and the relief that comes with it. But soon enough, we get bogged down again in all the other stuff going on. And we forget how much we really have. And it's not that we really take it for granted, it's that we really just don't consider it at all. One of my favorite authors on the concept of thanksgiving and gratefulness is Anne Voskamp, who wrote the book 1,000 Gifts. In it, she addresses the dark weight that the world can bear with an idea to fight back against the darkness with light. She writes, I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell. I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves, and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July, and the song of crickets on humid nights, and the rivers that run, and the stars that rise, and the rain that falls, and all the good things that a good God gives. Now, when's the last time you were grateful for the noisy worrying of crickets or the cool air that blows in during the fall? When's the last time you stopped and considered sunlight or your favorite smell or the simple calm of a pet sleeping on your lap? Sure, it's easy to be thankful for the big things, things that are easily seen and would impact our lives incredibly to lose them. But it's in all the little things, Voskamp notes, That we can overwhelm the dark of the rest of the world. Think of it this way: when you find gratefulness for the light shining in your window, you aren't just thankful for the light. You're thankful for sight. You may be thankful for the warmth it brings on a colder morning. But by default, and probably subconsciously, you're grateful for it because it doesn't have to be like this. It could be a dark, dreary day, but it's not. And for those of you who like dark, dreary days and thunderstorms like me, you learn to appreciate those more when they aren't always around. Because here's the thing, and it's something that Voskamp explores more fully in her book than I could ever hope to do here. But when we become more thankful, we also set ourselves up to find more joy. We begin to realize that the deck isn't stacked against us. We actually have so much if we are willing to take a minute and recognize it. But that, my friend, is the secret of it all. In order to recognize what we already have, in order to be grateful for the small things, we have to be still enough to see them. So my challenge to you is this: this week, find time to stop. Do it a few times a day and work your way into being more and more mindful at every minute. When you eat, take a minute to reflect on the food. The people around you, the table. When you work out, take a minute to reflect on what it means to have a beating heart and to be able to take big breaths of clean air. When you're cleaning up for company this week, take a moment to reflect on all the things that you have that must be cleaned, and even think back to where certain items came from or who gave them to you. If the secret to joy is being grateful, And the secret to being grateful is being still. We will only be able to fight back against the dark when we are still enough to see what has been given to us already. So this week, my challenge to you, take a bit of time to be still. Even in the chaos of holidays and family and things that have to be done and bad news from all over the world, we can find the light. And not only that, But we can become the light in a dark world that someone else may need to see their way out.
