In this episode I talk about gratitude but not your typical way of viewing gratitude. Join me as I share personal experiences and ways to have gratitude for our struggles, and abundance for things we don't have. Happy Thanksgiving Friends.
In this episode I talk about gratitude but not your typical way of viewing gratitude. Join me as I share personal experiences and ways to have gratitude for our struggles, and abundance for things we don't have. Happy Thanksgiving Friends.
You're listening to the modern Mormon, Episode 16. Hey there, I'm kami Satterlee. And I'm the modern Mormon. I'm an Advanced Certified Life coach who's dropped the all or nothing approach to life, and religion. I can't wait to show you how. I've got you, girl. Let's go. Hello, beautiful souls. And welcome to the podcast today. So I claim these beautiful souls, I don't know if you're, like, kind of weirded out by that, but because I think it just sounds better to view somebody based off of their soul and not necessarily their behavior. So I just love to think of all my listeners as just beautiful souls. Okay, so I thought I'd get that out. All right, as we are gearing up for the holidays, I want to talk about the emotions that kind of come up during this time of year, specifically, the feeling of gratitude. And that's what we're talking about today. These last two months of the year are like our brain just knows it's the end of one year, and kind of starting the beginning of another. And it kind of just, I don't know, it kind of is a time of reflection. And it's a time to notice our life and kind of ponder our beliefs and just reflect on all that God has given us. So when we think of gratitude, we think of positive things in our life. It's easy to be grateful when things are going our way, right, we can look around and feel blessed to have a home, a family, a car, our health, and just kind of our overall sense of well being right, I can get on my knees and pray about that all day long, like thanking God for all the things I have. But if you ever stopped to think about and thank him for the things that you don't have, or the things that you're working towards, but don't have yet. So like the struggles in your life, the trials you're facing. So for example, thank you, God, for the trial of my mother's health, and how it's brought my sister and I closer to her and allowed us perspective and importance of family and of time. Or I'm grateful for the beginning stages of my business currently, and how it's taught me consistency, how to fail and get back up, how to celebrate the small victories and how to continually pursue my passion when I so many times want to just quit. Or recently, I have a new one. I'm grateful for my dog for chewing up my brand new set of straight scriptures so that every time I look at them, it's a reminder that life is supposed to be messy and imperfect. And this book is what will help me kind of embrace that and keep moving forward. It's not what the Scriptures look like, it's what's in them that matters. And this is what I kind of went to when I was so mad that he had done this, I instantly switched my brain and tried to view it in a way that would serve me. And that is exactly what gratitude is. To me. It's basically embracing the suck of life. It's about allowing the struggles and seeing that they're blessings, and using them as tools for growth. So when we do this, and we look at life from a place of abundance, like we already have everything that we need, it will serve us so much better. When God blesses you, he doesn't want you to return it with guilt. But with gratitude, having a grateful heart means having him in mind at all times having a prayer in your heart, saying thank you, when the awareness hits you. And you understand that he's kind of behind everything. So on this journey of me kind of finding my way back to religion and culture and all of it. It's not easy. I have nonstop moments where I doubt. And I think what the hell am I doing here, I do not fit in with these people. I love the religion, I love the doctrine. But this church, man, I feel like I am just on a different planet like 90% of the time. So I'll have these conversations like with others. And I think like I cannot relate not to a single thing that you are talking about right now. Like not your life, your home, not your dreams, the way that you're parenting your kids, your relationship with your husband, whatever that you're talking about. I feel like I'm on a whole nother level and more of a negative level. And so these thoughts, they're not just judgments on them, but they're judgments on myself, I still have like a ton of work to do to fully accept who I am. And that I am a value in an important in God's eyes and within his church. And it's something that I have to redirect my brain to nonstop the feeling I have when these thoughts start to come up. And they come up a lot. It's like complete emptiness and the way that I get out of these emotions because I realize they're just thoughts and they're not truth is thoughts about gratitude, gratitude for the difficult gratitude for God's words and how I'm able to bring myself back when I remember him, saying like, it's not gonna be easy, but it will be worth it. So I can have compassion, knowing these are just judgmental thoughts I'm having about them, which reflect, you know, on the thoughts I think about me when I compare myself to what they're saying, none of this is a fact. None of this is God. And in those moments when I feel gratitude, like I have strengthened my faith in my savior a little bit more. So just like I tell myself When I'm coaching them and they're struggling, I remind them, I got you. You're not alone, your thoughts are valid, but they are not you. They are not who you are. I believe the Savior says the same thing. And I picture him. And in those moments saying to me, like, I got you, I understand you, you're loved, you're valued, and you're needed in this church. This is what it's all about. Gratitude helps you manipulate the energies of the earth. In a way, gratitude is kind of a way to bring back focus into a futuristic mindset. Gratitude realigns your spirit and your humaneness. It takes your negative thoughts, and then it brings them to a place that will serve you every time. We have to develop spiritual stamina, and know exactly what we believe and who we serve, so that when we, you know, have these problems arise like me, we don't react out of emotion, but more out of wisdom, I always have to go back to what am I choosing to believe not, what is my lower brain tell me about whether I belong here or not. So have you ever heard that, quote, eyes are useless when the mind is blind? To me, this means our interpretation of the world. Our interpretations of the circumstances within the world are through a lens of our own past experiences, and our thoughts. God is the beginning and the end, and he sees it all, he sees the bigger picture. And knowing that believing it allows me to have gratitude at times when I would feel complete sorrow, to view the world and in a way that it's all working out in our favor, every trial, every struggle, it is helping us get to that next level, it serves me in a way to be grateful for at all, this is the beauty of human life. This is the gift God has given us. I never understood this, or this way of thinking, really, until I understood the brain. And then I dove deep into spirituality. My brain always told me that if I didn't feel negative emotion about a trial, then it would just perpetuate that struggle. My brain also said, if I didn't like hate myself, then I would never be better. Both of those things are lies. And both are lies that keep you from wisdom and keep you from gratitude. When we can have gratitude for our struggles and trials in life, it also loosens up our desires for the things of the world, and helps us kind of place value on the important parts of our life. When you aren't wishing for your trials, or your struggles to be gone, and you're just allowing them understanding that they're there for your good and learning, you're not in a rush to get rid of them. You're not in a rush to get rid of the emotions that are coming up because of those trials. It also will eliminate thoughts like, you know, things should be different, I should have had this by now I deserve it. Or I shouldn't have to deal with this. Like that's a constant one on my brain. That's the part of our brain that craves instant gratification and that it believes that sparkly shiny things will make us happy and wants us to stay comfortable. When we can have gratitude. In these moments, it will humble our heart. Have you ever noticed that the people that have like the least amount are usually the most grateful? Why is that? So the perfect example of this is my brother Ryan. He had been a drug addict, and a heroin addict for most of his life. He hadn't been able to keep a job, or stay in a consistent home. He's had his children taken from him and has had struggle after struggle with the most absurd consequences and circumstances you could imagine. A year ago, he decided to change his life around and has been sober for just over a year now. He Margot's our family every single day and shares all the details of his life. And it's crazy because he is like a completely different person. Now that he's not on drugs than the person that I grew up with. And I'm finally able to see who my brother really is. And he is the most genuine, compassionate and just like all around a good human. He's so grateful every single day for his life. He's grateful for all of his struggles. So I don't know what it is. But he has things go wrong, like probably more than most people. And he will get on those markers with us and be the most positive person have the best attitude about it. And more gratitude than I've ever seen any anybody have. He drives a dump truck now and it breaks down like all the time. And he kind of just shrugs it off and laughs and just says how happy he is to have a job and how much he just loves going to his job every day. And then he goes and picks us on up at daycare and he is the absolute best daddy. He has been to the lowest of lows probably like the depths of hell, you could probably say. So his perspective of life is one I personally will probably never understand. Every day he looks at life as a gift for him and a day to be better. I can imagine it's a struggle mentally, physically and emotionally for him. But he overcomes it with like so much gratitude for all of it. He is the perfect example of embracing the 5050 of life. He does this by positive emotion about how about his negative experiences. So I'm just so amazed at his ability to do this. And to see the good in all this time of year, we end up seeing a lot of homeless people and a lot of people begging on the streets, they don't typically ask for much, they just kind of ask for anything, right? To me, this is their way of hope. Regardless of what they spend their money on, to better their life or not to, I feel like it still gives them hope, hope that they're supposed to be here, hoping humanity and just kind of hoping god, I've seen on social media that people talk, you know about, stop enabling them stop giving them money, they're just going to use it for drugs, you're contributing to the problem, or, you know, I've seen one particular one where they were saying, you know, these people should have their children taken away from mom, they're terrible parents. And I get it, like, I used to have similar thoughts. 100%, myself, when I learned that my thoughts and my actions contribute to my results, not theirs, I started to change my perspective on this. So my judgments of them and what they do with their money, have nothing to do with them. And everything to do with me and who I am as a person. I remember I was coming out of Costco once and we were at a stop sign. There was a homeless person and I stopped, I looked at my wallet, and I had a $1 bill and I had a $50 bill. And in that moment, I made a choice. And I decided to give them both. And the feeling that overcame me was it was overwhelming. It was just overwhelming gratitude. And so I made a, you know, a choice that day, and then forever that I decided that every time I see someone homeless, I will give them everything I have in my wallet, like without question. So the reason I do this is because there were times when we didn't know where my brother was, you know, was he on drugs? Was he on the streets, I had no clue. And picturing him seeing him beg for money would have absolutely crushed me. And then hearing the judgments of others and watching them turn their heads, it probably would have made me actually physically sick when I think about it. Because he's my brother. And he's my, my parents child, it makes me emotional. When you look at the bigger picture, we are all God's kids. How would he view this? God said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I tell my kids when we see someone homeless, on drugs, or even I use this as examples when kids are mean to them at school, and I just say look past, what your eyes can see, look at their souls, see them the way that God sees them. So in order to do this, we have to also be able to do this with ourselves. We need to view ourselves and our failures and our struggles, like our mistakes every single day, the habits, the behaviors, we need to view it the way, you know, God sees it from God's eyes. When we can forgive ourselves and love ourselves. We can make room for gratitude in our hearts and in our lives. And all that we have and in all that we don't have. So a personal experience that happened to me actually last night, I was so frustrated with my husband, I love to use like relationship ones because I swear, a marriage is tough. You guys like relationships in general are tough, but just like living with somebody and doing all the things I mean, oh my word. Okay. So last night, we, you know, I got frustrated with my husband. We don't get a whole lot of time together. His work has been crazy. Like life's been a bit crazy. And we've kind of felt a little out of sorts this past year. So we thought about, you know, we thought we were gonna go sailing, and we didn't, I talked about that. And then we moved. And the only way I can describe the feeling that I felt this past year is like a consistent wave of just being homesick. Things have just been off, including between Steve and I, I always, like describe our marriage is solid. And I think it's because the foundation is solid. Like I know that even when things are off, it's just a season of life and that we're in winter, right. But I also know we have the awareness like both of us do that we are committed. And we can work through anything. Because we've done it again and again. Well, last night, I was pissed at him. And my brain told me it's like the last straw. Right? When your brain gets going. My brain told me I deserve to be in a marriage that didn't have all these issues. And I started listing them all in my brain. So I decided I was going to write them a letter and list all the things that needed to change. Maybe if he read it, then things would change and he'd be able to see it with his eyes versus hearing it from my annoying nagging mouth all the time. So this morning, I woke up With gratitude, and I felt like ready to write my gratitude podcast, I knelt down to say a prayer. And I always do this before I put anything out into the universe, and an emotion came over me. And it was different than I expected. And I was thinking about my podcast, and then, and all the things, but I just felt so much love and gratitude, and compassion for my husband. In that moment. When I felt those emotions, I started to ask myself, like, what are you like, what's going on? What are you thinking, because I was surprised that it even kind of switched in my brain. And even during my prayer, I was like, What's going on here, and then the floodgates just opened, and so did my mind. And it just raced with all the ways I had treated him. All my negative thoughts about him how it's, like, I've disconnected from him and kind of blamed him for so many things. And I thought about his life, and his experiences this past year, and it totally, it just broke my heart. He's been through so much, and he's been labeled terrible things. And he his dream of sailing was crushed. And he's had his business changed so much, and he's dealt with people in business that have just treated him terribly. And I mean, so many changes so many things. You know, he's had a lot of responsibilities felt responsibility for other people's happiness and, and also kind of just his, you know, experience with having an unsatisfied wife all the time and coming home to that. And in that moment, I just felt nothing but love and gratitude for my man. He shows up every single day, despite his challenges. And no matter what goes on between him and I, he never forgets to kiss me and never forgets to repeatedly tell me, he loves me. So I'm reading Steve a letter today, it's not quite the one I thought I would be writing instead of the wrongs, I'm going to write his rights. I'm going to thank him for all that I've noticed this past year, and his consistent perseverance through it all. And I'm going to apologize and ask for frickin forgiveness for my lack of consistent support. Where in your life, can you change what your eyes are seeing? Where have you put blame on others for results that you have created with your thinking? How do we become someone that is grateful? It starts the moment our eyes open. So every day I wake up and out loud, I say to my entire family, we get another day. And I adopted this thing for my dad, because he actually had his heart stop in an ambulance on the way to the hospital when he was suffering from a heart attack. And ever since then, he wakes up every day. And he says that I get another day. So are you going to wait until something traumatic happens in your life to be grateful for it? In order to be grateful for life, we have to understand the value of our life? Who gave us life? What is this life about? And why should we be grateful for it? Do you have the answer to these questions? A great way to find the answers to these questions is through prayer or meditation. Ask the questions out loud, and kind of see what your brain comes up with. And then challenge those questions. Challenge the answers you come up with? Do you want to be a person that believes those answers? If so, how are you going to take action on those answers? My goal and challenge for you this holiday season is to look around and just love it all. Embrace the 5050 of life. Take the time to tell those who have impacted your life, how much you truly are grateful for them. Tell each one of your children that you're grateful for their specific qualities that they bring to your family. Tell your spouse you recognize their efforts and are so grateful for the experiences you get to share with them. The good and the bad. Have a very happy and grateful thanksgiving. I love you guys and I will see you again in December. If you're ready to drop the all or nothing in your life, then I would be honored to be your life coach. Head over to the modern mormon.com To start your journey in becoming the confident authentic and best version of you