[buzzsprout episode=’1992820′ player=’true’]
Hello everyone, Welcome back to Hear and Now Podcast, my name’s Sophia, and in this week’s episode we are talking about finding and practicing gratitude. It’s now November, so what better topic to talk about? I’ve got a fun month of content planned out for you, so keep coming back every Tuesday to keep up with the episodes!
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This week’s prayer intention is for you to find gratitude in your heart. As we come upon the season of thankfulness and family, find some gratitude in your heart. Gratitude is the quality of being thankful, and November is the perfect month to reflect back on all we’ve learned through the year. Being grateful roots us in God. We are able to see all that we are thankful for and know that all that comes from God. So I’m praying for you to find gratitude. Later on in the episode we will talk about all of this.
And for the encouragement of the week – Instead of a bible verse this week, I want to highlight one of my favorite songs at the moment. I’ve mentioned Matt Maher before, and even though I’ve heard this song so many times before, it just spoke to me in this last week. I was listening to this episode in the car on the way home from an appointment, and I just burst into tears. I never cry at something like this, but something about the lyrics just spoke to me. This is the bridge from Run to the Father by Matt Maher. I want to quote the whole song, but ill leave you in suspense of the whole song. But here they are. “My heart has been in Your sights. Long before my first breath. Running into Your arms Is running to life from death And I feel this rush deep in my chest Your mercy is calling out. Just as I am You pull me in. And I know I need You now”
Even just reading them now I’m getting chills all over again. I recommend you listening to the song. Not only did this song make me cry, but another song, again by Matt Maher that i’ve listened to hundreds of times, I just burst into tears. “Here I am Lord, is it I Lord. I have heard You calling in the night I will go Lord, if You lead me I will hold Your people in my heart. ” Ugh God, why do you have to do this to me! I felt so wrapped in love that day. God is amazing.
Let’s jump right into the episode!
So it’s the month of gratitude. Everyone tells me to be grateful, but how is that possible? Maybe you are feeling in a fog and can’t see anything positive in your life. We’ve all been there. I don’t have this, so how can I be grateful for everything else? It’s so hard to not fall into that rut of negativity, especially seeing that others have something you may not.
But I will guarantee you, that all of you listening to this episode have more to be grateful for than you realize. First of all, you have the means to listen to this episode. I’m grateful I have the resources to record and produce episodes each week.
Gratitude is a funny thing. You don’t have to just be thankful for physical things. You can be grateful for future, immaterial things. If you do x today, y will happen because of that. Obviously, positive things. It’s like cause and effect. If you are grateful for the money you make, it will buy you the things that are necessary in life. Gratitude is like a stack of dominoes – one thing leads to another. It is clinically researched and proven that practicing gratitude has known benefits – some of them include. Feeling happier, gaining optimism, increased self-esteem, sleeping better, happier memories, boosting career, you will become friendlier and have solid relationships, and you will be less you-focused, and more others-focused. There is an entire list on the internet about benefits of gratitude, but that’s just some of them.
How can you actually find things to be grateful for? Now obviously, everyone’s situation is different, but here are a few of the more common ones.
- food
- Payment
- Sunrises
- Sunsets
- A bed to sleep in
- Netflix
- Podcasts to listen to
- The holidays coming up
- Your birthday
- Family
- Traditions
- Dogs
- Ice cream
- Weekends
- Friendships
- The list could go forever!
What can you do to start practicing gratitude? There are lots of ways.
Some of them are kind of cheesy, I’ll admit that. The first is the senses scavenger hunt. Find something that makes you happy, find one thing you love the smell of, find something you enjoy seeing, find something you love to eat, find something you love the feeling of (whether touching it or wearing it), and listen to something that makes you happy. (for me that’s Christmas music).
The second way is everyday finding one thing to be grateful for. I’m going to link this info graphic down below on your daily gratitude list. But you just ask yourself, what am I grateful or thankful for today? It can be as simple as waking up in the morning.
The third way is playing the gratitude colors game. So every time you see a certain color, you have to name one thing you are grateful for. If you see orange, you have to name a person you are thankful for, green you name a place, etc. I think thats super fun and you can do it mindlessly while driving or watching tv..
Finally, you can journal. This is the most important and commonly used method of practicing gratitude is journaling. You can buy specific gratitude journals but honestly all you need is a piece of paper or notebook. You can go on Pinterest and search like gratitude journal prompts or just journal what comes to your mind that day. Just writing down your thoughts is super important. I journaled for 5 years straight. I went through like 7 journals and wrote an entry everyday. Its super fun to look back on things that I wrote then and how much I’ve grown since then.
But journal your gratitude. November is such a good month to reflect before the craziness of the holidays. And speaking of November, I have all of my content pretty much laid out for this month. Last Friday I put up a blog post about my StitchFix haul, which I will link down below. I have a promo code for $25 off and all of that is linked in my blog post. But anyway I have my whole calendar filled with fun episodes, blog posts, and surprises. If you don’t already follow me and my mom (@houseofloveandlaughterblog) on instagram, head there to follow us so you don’t miss the big reveals soon!!
Anyway that is it for this week’s episode. It’s a little short because gratitude is kind of self explanatory but make sure you subscribe and turn on your notifications to know when I upload a new episode! Not only subscribe here, but over on my blog to get a free goodie!
Alright Happy November everyone! Whoo! See yall next week! Love you guys! Bye.
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Show notes:
Welcome back to another episode of Hear and Now Podcast! November is the perfect time to reflect and find gratitude. Check back every Tuesday for fun content coming up!
Subscribe to both mailing lists to get on the waiting list & receive a free goodie!
– House of Love and Laughter Blog
– Sophia Lebano
Transcript:
https://www.sophialebano.com
Links mentioned:
Buzzsprout, NaNoWriMo, StitchFix Blog Post