A Healthy Mindset App podcast episode in which host Mike Hartman interviews Coach Linda Elie about gratitude. Linda describes growing up with a perfectionist mother and a habit of focusing on flaws until a coach suggested a daily gratitude practice. She explains a practical technique—refocusing from negatives to positives and writing 3–5 things to be grateful for before bed—and shares two major personal examples: her mid-1990s divorce (which she later reframed as a blessing) and forgiving another woman whose involvement catalyzed that divorce. Linda gives contact info (alwaysfollowyourbliss.net; Instagram: Always follow your bliss).
Questions this episode answers
May 2, 2024
Write down at least three, preferably five, things you are grateful for before bed each night.
In the mid-1990s.
Chapters
Welcome to the Healthy Mindset App Podcast where host Mike Hartman, a performance coach and former professional athlete, brings his passion to help athletes and workplace athletes achieve their dreams and goals while being mindful of everything else in life. Mike also uses this platform to share his targeted assessment application Healthy Mindset course meditation and goal setting technique for the athlete and workplace athlete. We're glad you're here. Now let's dive headfirst into this episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.
I'm so happy that you asked me to share some thoughts and stories on gratitude. There are many places that I can could go with this, but two things come to mind. First, I was a person who always looked for what was wrong with the situation. And believe me, the more I looked for what was wrong with something, the more I found what was wrong with something. That was something that I learned in childhood because I had a perfectionist mother. And if what I did was not absolutely perfect, I may as well not have even done it at all because in her eyes, it didn't count. The downside of always looking for what's wrong with the situation is you're not a very fun person to be around because you're constantly criticizing and finding fault with everything that happens. Think about it. I'm sure there are people in your life that you might call Debbie Downers because they're constantly have a negative outlook on everything that's going on. But then I was introduced to a coach and one of the things they suggested was the practice of gratitude. You know, to write down the things that you were grateful for every single day. And I started doing that, though I wasn't very consistent with it at the beginning. But I did end up with an informal practice that whenever I found something that was negative and drew my attention to the things that were wrong, I would then refocus and and make myself find something that was right with the situation. Sometimes that right was just how the person was holding themselves in their character and they had just made a mistake. Other times it was the blessing that you found a problem sooner rather than later and you could correct the situation before it got too out of hand. That totally changed my outlook on life. Now, of course, there are situations where finding something to be grateful for is a lot more challenging. As an example, I was divorced from my husband back in the mid-1990s. Divorce is never an easy thing, no matter what the circumstances are. But in this case, he walked in one night and announced he didn't want to be married anymore and literally packed his stuff up and walked out the door. No discussion, no notice of anything coming up, no marriage counseling to try and work anything out. He was done and that was it. Needless to say, when that happened, I was devastated. You know, I was doing my best to be a good wife and to build a life and what we needed together, but I couldn't understand how he could just walk out without even trying to fix things that might not be working. But about two months later, after some counseling and also some advice from a very good friend, I started to realize I was happier without him than I was with him, because we actually weren't a very good match as far as that goes. And it took that two to three month period for me to realize that I should be grateful to him because he had the courage to end the marriage. Maybe it wasn't courage on his part, but he had the strength to end a marriage that wasn't working that I would probably not have ended because I would have done my best to go along and make other people happy. So I, at that point started being very, very grateful for him doing that so that I could then start to live a life that was happier and more aligned with the person that I was. To take that divorce situation one step further, there was another woman involved in the mix. It took me a very long time, we're talking many years, for me to realize that her involvement was the catalyst for him to leave the marriage. When I was able to forgive her and be grateful for the fact that she had been that catalyst, all of a sudden all of my relationships improved because I was no longer holding that grudge. So gratitude can come back in so many forms that you necessarily track unless you're looking for it. I highly recommend a practice where right before you go to bed, you write down a list of at least three, preferably five things that you're grateful for that happened that day. Because when you do that right before bed, you go to sleep with a mindset that's geared toward gratitude, and it makes you wake up in the morning looking for things to be grateful for rather than for things that are going wrong or to criticize. So thanks so much for giving me this opportunity. If you want to learn more, I can be found@alwaysfollowyourbliss.net or on Instagram at Always follow your bliss.
We're so glad you joined us for this episode of the Healthy Mindset App podcast with your host, Mike Hartman. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. To dive deeper and learn more about the Healthy Mindset program or to get in touch with Mike, please Visit our website healthymindsetapp.com thanks again for listening and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast. Until then, be well.
