102 – Power Of Gratitude

Foreign.

You're listening to the Pure Desire podcast. Your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal, and relationship issues. Hey, hey.

Hey.

This is your host, Trevor Windsor, and you are listening to episode 102 of the PD podcast. I am sitting here as always with my co host, Nick Stumbo.

I come to you now at the turn of the tide.

What on earth? What's that from?

Do you know?

No.

Okay.

I wouldn't ask that question if I knew.

Well, then you must not be a tried and true Lord of the Rings fan. That is Gandalf in the Two Towers. Talking about the tide changing, I thought it was appropriate because, you know, we've just passed 100. We have, you know, now we're on 102.

And.

And also we're focused on changing the tide of sexual devastation in our culture. So, you know, maybe we're. We're changing the tide and we'll use Gandalf as our theme master.

So here's. Here's my take on Lord of the Rings. I love Lord of the Rings, and I'm a little. My pride's a little hurt that I didn't know what that was, but maybe accent? No, but there's a lot of, like, obscurity in the world that Tolkien created. Like, there's a lot of stuff that if you. Even if you've read the books and seen the movies and love it, there's still a lot that you could miss. There's a lot that goes on. So that's what I'm telling myself right.

Now as a many layered story.

Yeah. So speaking of Lord of the Rings, things we're grateful for, on today's episode, we have Heather Kolb come in and sit with us and talk about really the power of gratitude.

Yeah. Well, maybe like the illustration of the Lord of the Rings, it's many layered. It's more complex than we imagine. As we get into gratitude, it might be one people think you just say thank you more often. Right. But to understand it's much more powerful than we realize. There's more to it. And I hope today's episode really gives people that perspective to lean into gratitude, maybe more than they ever have before.

And it's a short and sweet one. So we hope that you guys enjoy the podcast. Heather, welcome back. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Trevor.

Yeah, so today we are going to, as you heard in the intro, talk gratitude. So let's just real quick. Gratitude is something we talk a lot about at Pure Desire. And so let's just define it up front. What is gratitude?

So in a very simple way, it's being thankful. If you wanted to take that on a little bit of a broader scope, it really has to do more with awareness, having a very conscious awareness of the good things or the goodness in our lives. It's interesting, too, because developing gratitude doesn't necessarily come from a place of comparison. So, for example, like, when I see.

This person has money, I don't have money.

Exactly.

I can't be grateful.

Well, yeah. Or the opposite would be something like, you know, I see somebody in a wheelchair, and I think, oh, my gosh, that would be such a hard gig. I'm so thankful. That's not my life. That really isn't gratitude. At its core, gratitude really comes from a place of being more present, being aware of what's going on in your life, good and bad, and still having this really attitude of thankfulness.

Yeah. And I'm really excited we're doing episodes on this, and I know it's come up in other episodes because I find that in my life, I do not have to work or focus on complaining or grumbling or negativity. You know, the other day, like, I was trying to build shelves in my garage, and I didn't use long enough screws, so I thought they were anchored into my ceiling, and they were only anchored into the drywall. And when I pulled on it to make sure they were secure, it just all ripped right off. And, man, I was grumbly, you know, and it's like when you're sweary.

Yeah.

You know, there were quite a few things, but not just in that moment. Probably for the next couple of hours, it was like my life just was bad. Everything. Why isn't this working? Why is that broken? Why won't this work? What's wrong with me? What? And I wasn't even trying to see or focus on those things in my attitude. They just would keep popping up one after another after another.

And.

And I wish it was the same with gratitude like that. You just walk around like, oh, I'm so thankful for that. But I find that for me, I have to focus on it. I have to be intentional. I have to think about gratitude and focusing in on those things. And the more I do, then it does become more of a natural response. But I think for all of our listeners today, my hope is these concepts and ideas will get them thinking, because if we just pick up our feet and go with the current, the current takes us towards grumbling and complaint. But gratitude is life changing.

Absolutely. What? Just as you guys are talking about it. What's the opposite of gratitude? Is it complaining? Is it being someone who's pessimistic all the time? What's the opposite?

I would say so. I think that it is really taking more of a. If I can say, an Eeyore approach to life, that even when. Exactly. And even when something is good in your life, it's more of this woe is me. This isn't going to last very long. I can appreciate that. You know, it's really having more of that negative attitude.

Yeah. It's so interesting. I don't know if anybody has watched it, but Brene Brown just came out with a Netflix special, and she talks about that. And she uses some language that I won't use on the podcast, but she talks about that idea. When something good happens, a lot of our default kind of preference or filter we bring in is like, okay, if something good is happening now, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm just waiting for something bad to happen, for this to get ruined. And I do think what you're talking about, Nick, is a lot of us have that default posture. Really just going throughout the day without thinking about it.

Yeah. In my simple definition, I think of gratitude as focusing on what I do have. And the opposite of it would be to focus on what I don't have. Why don't I have this? Why doesn't this work? Why don't I get these kind of things? Why don't people notice me? So that's kind of an easy distinction in my mind. What do I have versus what I don't have? And the attitude that comes with those two things.

Yeah.

So as we think about gratitude, I mean, gratitude is important for anyone, anywhere in any walk of life, but specifically in the realm of addiction and recovery. Heather, why is gratitude so important?

You know, we talk a lot at Pure Desire about the way that our dopamine system in our brain is hijacked because of our addictive behaviors.

It's the chemical, the pleasure chemical in your brain.

That's right. The neurotransmitter. And it's interesting because a lot of the work that we do in recovery is trying to figure out healthy ways to stimulate the production of dopamine. And so, really, based on research, gratitude, just that simple mindset stimulates dopamine in our brain in a very healthy way. Other things that it does for us is it contributes to the quality of sleep that we get. It decreases the amount of stress, anxiety, depression that we experience. It really is interesting the way that gratitude allows us to take the focus off ourselves and our situation and to put it on something else, to focus on the Lord or on other people, which is really. All of those things are coming from this extra stimulation of dopamine in our brain.

Yeah. Well, an addiction is always a response to the negative stuff in our life. Right. As we've talked about a lot on this podcast. And so gratitude really counteracts it, even just on a practical scale. I'm trying to. Instead of escape the stuff that I don't like or the things that hurt me, I'm actually trying to identify what's already in my life that are good things. And I just love, like, when gratitude. I just think that. I mean, obviously at a chemical level, it's true, but I think just the emotional experience of when I'm grateful and I'm in those spots, life is much more enjoyable for me at those moments. Like if I. And it's not just something great has happened, but I just have this overwhelming sense of, wow. Like, this is a really cool thing that I have. Like, there are times where my kid really, really makes me upset. And then there are pockets. There are a lot of pockets in my life where I realize I'm a dad and my kid is awesome, and I love it. And there's this. There's just this sense that's almost like this re. Engaging or reminder of this is a great thing. Like this. He's an awesome kid. Being a dad is amazing. It's a blessing from the Lord. And so I just. Like, even just the. I mean, obviously it's physiological, but that emotional kind of strength switch, when it's flipped, it feels great.

Yeah. And to think about that idea of escape, you know, that every addiction is a form of escape. And so it means. And I've always liked this definition of an addiction, that it's an inability to be fully present and okay with what's happening in this moment, with what's going on in my life right now. And so that's the power of gratitude in terms of recovery, is it teaches us how to live in this day, in this moment.

Right.

Regardless of what's going on in our circumstances that might be bad or challenging or negative to say at 10:30am on a Friday morning, what in my life am I just grateful for? Do I find contentment in. And as I can live in that place of gratitude that keeps me present as opposed to always thinking about the future, the fears, what I don't have, what I need, what I Wish I had, because then I'm quickly giving into escape, and that tends to lead into addiction.

Well, and gratitude, really think of it this way, is that it frees us from those negative and toxic emotions that we often carry, like you were mentioning, that become our default setting or based on a core belief.

So I think that gratitude is a word that I think people understand in nature, but not necessarily always very clearly. I know growing up, when you hear stuff like. Like just be grateful for what you have. It's like, okay, Lord, thank you for my left sock that I have. Thank you for my right sock. Thank you for my left shoe and my right shoe and the belt that I'm wearing. And I'm not saying that can't be gratitude, but what does gratitude actually look like? What does it mean to practically on a daily basis, like, give us some examples maybe from your life, Heather, that this was gratitude in your life.

Okay. And so gratitude, keep in mind, is a. It's not learned behavior.

It's.

It is learned behavior. It's something that we need to.

You're not born with gratitude.

You're not born with that. Nope, not at all. It is something that you have to practice the same way that you would practice developing any new skill. And so a lot of people start with keeping even like a gratitude journal, something that they write in every day that helps them, again, to focus on the positive things in their lives. Another thing that I love this exercise is to write a letter to somebody who did something significant for you in your life is something that is so powerful. We use this exercise in the new women's resource that we have coming out unraveled, that we have women who, you know, if you. If there's somebody who you didn't thank for something or you don't feel like, you know, that you thank them enough or what they did for you still is impacting your life today, that we have them just write a letter of. Of gratitude, thanking that person, whether or not they're going to send it, because that's a secondary step. But even just writing it out does amazing things for your brain and really prolongs release of dopamine and prolongs this feeling of gratitude that we have. It's awesome. So awesome.

Yeah. When I think about the real practical side of gratitude, it's taking time to be aware of the moments that I might be tempted or likely to overlook. Because in my world, what I tend to focus on are the problems I need to solve, the challenges I have to face, the things at work that need to be get done, the lawn that needs to be mowed. It's all very project and challenge oriented. But gratitude things are typically not challenges. And so, for example, this week, part of my commitment to change has been doing the five five things I'm grateful for each day. And it's been things like one of my kids gave me a hug this morning when they got out of bed and came into the kitchen.

Yeah.

And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But usually I don't think a whole lot about it.

Right.

But as I thought about it was like, that was neat. There's just that feeling from them. They wanted to hug their dad totally. And in thinking about it, I appreciated the moment for what it was versus had I not done that exercise, I might not have thought about it at all. Or other things that have come up this week is finding gratitude over the many roles my wife plays that I don't see or always take time to appreciate. Gratitude for the job that I have and the security it provides my family. Just a lot of the basic things that have become part of the background of our lives. It's pausing to notice them and then really feeling that appreciation for, wow, things are good. Yeah.

I think for me, what comes to mind is identifying the places of grace in my life too. Where, like you said, like, it's very easy, Nick, as you said, it's very easy to look at life and be like, here's where God isn't showing up. Or I feel like he's not showing up. And then flipping that to be like, here's where God is showing up in my life. That I have a great community of believers around me. I have a family that's healthy. I am able, like, and it could be small, it can be large. You know, it's interesting just, you know, a little, a little thing here. Like, I recently read the Marie Kondo book about just cleanliness, like, the art of cleanliness and that idea of joy. And one of the things that really struck me was that she, like, on a very practical scale, it communicates gratitude for, like, the shoes she wore that day, like, the house that she lives in, the car she drives in. And I, like, there's a piece of me. And I think maybe everybody who's hearing this is like, well, that's kind of weird. And it is kind of weird because like you said, we're not born with it. But I think that being able to do that, to be thankful for the things that we have and not in a way where we're comparing to other people or whatever, but finding out where is God showing up in my life? Identify those which really, I think oddly enough will also help you walk better with the Lord each day. If you're identifying where he's at, then I think it's a lot easier to really walk in step with that.

If gratitude is so important, let's ask this question.

Yes.

Is it possible to increase gratitude in our lives?

Absolutely. This is really a matter of training your brain. Our brain is so powerful, but it tends to not be able to focus on both positive and negative things and at a time. And so at one time, and so what we tend to focus on, like Nick, you were saying that if your brain almost automatically goes to the negative, then that's really going to become your default setting. But if we train our brain to focus more on the positive, and again, it takes practice, but focusing on the positive things in our lives, even if they are small things to start with, then that again is redirecting our focus in a really amazing way. In fact, it's. It has a lot to do with being proactive in our thought life. You know where scripture talks about taking every thought captive and again having that awareness that okay, I'm feeling grumbly or something has gone sideways in my world, but wait, I can change that. I can choose to bring my brain back to a place of gratitude and refocus the direction that my attitude is going to take.

Something that I've been thinking about. Well, I mean, what you just said, Heather, sparked it on that I find that writing stuff down helps me as you, as you talk about the difference between or that our inability to focus on both positive and negative. When I'm writing in my prayer journal and I'm like, there's a little tool that I use called acts, you know, and it walking through four kind of phases of prayer. And one of them, the first one is adoration. So that idea of praising God, thanking God for what he is, what he's doing, all that. For me, when I'm writing it down, I have to focus on what I'm writing down or it's not going to happen. And so for me, it has a singular focus. And for me, for any of you enneagram people, I'm a seven. So I'm just like off the wall 24 seven. And I can't figure out where I'm going. I've got six different ways I could go with this line of thinking right now. But it helps me focus on the here and now, what I'm doing. And as I'm writing out and being thankful, it helps my mind to just latch onto that and stick with it. That'd be on a practical level for me that's helped me increase gratitude in a way that I didn't expect would help.

And I think it's really important that we recognize we can increase gratitude without connection to increasing our circumstances. Because I think that's a falsehood we can believe is that, well, when I have this, then I'll be more grateful. Like when I have the job or the marriage or the kids or the career or the car or whatever it is we kind of get fixated on. Because it strikes me how I struggle with a lot of the same negativity or complaining now as when I was a 21 year old college kid that had almost nothing and was struggling to pay bills. So now I have a wonderful wife and family and home and job, and yet I can still fall into negativity. And from an outside perspective, it's easy to say, how could you ever be negative? Look at all you have. But gratitude doesn't grow in proportion to what we have in our life. It's a trained attitude. And so being proactive to look at those things is where we increase, not waiting for our circumstances to grow and increase. And I think that's coming back to our question about recovery. It's so important because when you're in the middle of recovery, you're likely there because something isn't going right totally, or you faced a crisis or a relationship has ended and it's like, well, what do I have to be grateful for? Well, the truth is a lot. And it's not always just what you have that you can tangibly see and feel. This is something Dr. Ted is talked a lot about, just how some of it is the gratitude of what we know we have through Christ and our eternal hope. And even the fact that I have breath today and it's a new day, I can be grateful for that even if my whole world is in chaos. So just for all of us to think about, how do I grow in gratitude without respect to my circumstances getting better also.

Yeah. So something I think about as a parent because I think about this idea of gratitude and I can think of, you know, a handful of times where I felt like one of my parents said to me, like, you need to be more grateful for what you have. And I remember in those moments feeling like I was doing something wrong, like I was being told to be grateful rather than. And this is not a shout, like a shout, you Know, to my parents or anything. But that idea of teaching gratitude, how do you do that without telling someone what to do and having kind of that negative, like, tip, if you will, to it versus just like, is it modeling? Like, what does that look like to teach your kids how to be grateful?

That is a great question, because a lot of it does come from modeling. And so I always encourage parents to make it part of your language, especially because. And usually if you have little kids, this is easier. But it's one of those things that as a parent, you can say, you know, I am so thankful for blank, and fill in the blank. It could be mommy or daddy or pizza or the backyard, anything. But then also as part of that, to tell your child, you know, after you've made that statement, what are you thankful for? Because this helps them to learn that this is just part of relationship, really. It's part of being in relationship and expressing our thankfulness for others. Another thing that is really helpful. And, you know, if you have more than two kids, then maybe you've seen this up close and personal. But when kids are arguing or not getting along, sometimes part of the remedy could be, okay, I want you to write a note to your brother or sister and tell them what you're thankful for about them, because, again, it's kind of expanding their worldview. But taking this context of gratitude and putting it in relationship, which I think is a really helpful tool not just for children, but as we get older and we face other struggles, it's an important piece to relationship.

Hmm.

Well, going back to something you said at the beginning of this episode, Heather, that gratitude's not necessarily about in comparison to others. Because I think as parents, that can be our default teaching mode. I mean, just the other day, my daughter is in the kitchen going, we have nothing to eat. I'm like, if our child we sponsor in Africa heard you say that, how do you think she would feel? And I was trying to make a valid point, but it's like, there, again, I'm trying to teach her, you should be happy because you have more than someone in Africa. But I consider the attitude I often have after a busy workday, or it's like, oh, I'm tired. How come this isn't working? That I'm saying a lot more about contentment in those moments than teaching her about kids in Africa. And so I think it is valuable that we recognize what I'm hearing from my children. I need to be willing to say, is it a reflection of what they're hearing from me? And that can't be 100% of the time because no one's perfect. And we could do it perfectly. And our kids might still complain now and then, but having that willingness to see the attitudes of our kids are in some ways a parroting back to us of what they've heard from us. And so guarding our hearts and minds and being grateful people, I think, will make the biggest difference in their lives.

This is good. I'm taking notes right now, what to do, what not to do.

Because we're all used the Africa line, right?

Oh, totally, totally. I mean, I use that on myself every day.

So as we think about gratitude and hopefully really helping people apply this and do something with it, what are some tips that you would give people who want to increase their level of gratitude?

So I am all about changing behavior, which I love. I love the personal challenge of that. But I also know that we can only change ourselves. That's one thing. And we can really only work on one thing at a time. So I always encourage people, pick something, even if it's something starting small, starting simple, like creating a gratitude journal. And even if that means that. That once a day you write one thing in it, then that's great. And do that for the next month. Or if it is writing a letter to somebody to thank them whether or not you send it, but just writing it out, that is another great place to start. Another one that is kind of interesting. And I find this just so fascinating because human behavior is fascinating. But start using thank you. Start thanking people around you. I mean, keep track of the amount of times that you have the opportunity to thank people.

Thank you for locking the bathroom.

Exactly. Yeah. Thank you for unloading the dishwasher, whatever it is that you can take the opportunity to thank somebody that's gonna stimulate the production of dopamine. That's going to also change your language, change the language of those around you. But it is really gonna put into practice developing an attitude of gratitude.

I think one of the things you mentioned too, just kind of going off on that is start really, really simple. Like if it. Because I think. And it's this way we talk about this with our commitment to change. You know, it's like, I'm gonna get up tomorrow morning at 5am and read my Bible for an hour. Okay, sir? Have you ever done that in your life? No. Okay, well, then that's probably not gonna work. And it's just. I think it's similar to gratitude. Don't say, I'm gonna be grateful for 49 things tomorrow. I'm gonna get up at 5:30 and write them all down. Just start with one thing. Spend two minutes. Not even that. Spend 30 seconds. When you wake up, the first thing that you do, the second thing that you do, whatever, just say, okay, I'm grateful for. Think about it for a second. I'm grateful for a bed that's comfortable. I'm thankful I got you know, eight hours of sleep or whatever, like something like that. So start super, super small. And we've talked about it already, but I think that it's that natural kind of default posture is all comparison. Don't compare to other people. Someone else is more grateful than you are and you know that. Don't compare yourself to them. If anything, ask them, hey, how do you do that? Help me, help me understand how you do that better. So start really, really simple and don't compare.

Yeah. For me, two tips come to mind. Number one would be to schedule it right now as part of my commitment to change this week. I have an alarm on my phone going off at noon which is reminding me to sit down and think of five gratitudes.

You have 44 minutes.

Yeah, it's kind of annoying. The other day I snoozed it five times because I was in the middle of things. But then it's like, okay, I said I would do this. So I sat down and just on a post it note I write out, wrote out five things and it's amazing to me, like in just those couple of minutes, something in my posture, my demeanor was just like, huh, this is good. That's what that was.

Trevor. Heather.

Trevor. Yeah, that's right. Just over and over. Had I not had that alarm, I probably would have breezed through a workday and got it and kept thinking, oh yeah, I'm going to do that. But to make myself stop is hard. So I'm trying to schedule it. The second thing is to connect it to your worship. Connect it to your worship. And this came from actually my counseling process with Dr. Ted because he brought up that well known psalm. I will enter his courts with gates, with thanksgiving in my heart. I will enter his courts with praise. And I'd always just kind of thought of that as a sing songy worship chorus from when I was a kid. But to hear him teach on it as a sequential kind of thinking, as a, a mode in which we enter into God's presence is through gratitude. And praise was really kind of transformational in my thinking that that gratitude is what puts me in a place to commune with God. Because then I'M noticing and aware of his goodness and that the things in my life aren't just good in and of themselves. They're good because they come from a good father who created this world and gave them to me to enjoy. And, and now I'm connecting that to him. And it's much more meaningful than just, oh, I'm glad for a sunny day, say like Lord, than for this world you made with weather and sunshine and warmth and yeah, and now it's worship and it's meaningful. And I think that takes it from just being kind of a healthy self help practice. Because anyway, the reality is any person on the planet could benefit from more gratitude. A better attitude would help our world, let's put it that way. But particularly for people of faith that can connect it to their Creator, that's when gratitude, I think, becomes transformational because he's the one that gave us these things and that makes it that much more deep as we practice it.

Guys, this is great. I love that we can just sit down and talk about stuff like gratitude. And it really, in and of itself, the nature of gratitude is very, very simple. The application and the practical side is not always so, you know, but it definitely is something that we all need to focus on. So thanks for your time, guys. Appreciate it.

Thanks.

Thank you. We're grateful.

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