Starting at age 10 when she didn't even fully understand what gratitude meant, Dr. Carrie shares how she learned to overcome negativity and incorporate a gratitude practice into her every day life.
When you have a negative mindset, it's impossible to be grateful at the same time that you're being negative. I didn't grow up in an environment where gratitude was practiced. If this is something you struggle with, you can become a positive, optimistic person. It really involves a gratitude practice.
When I was about ten, I had this little journal. It was a watermelon print on this, like, cloth journal with this really nice paper. And somebody inspired me to create a gratitude journal, and I had to really understand what that meant. So I'm looking up, okay, so what am I thankful for? Because as a ten year old, gratitude is kind of a big word, but I'm like, what am I thankful for? And at the end of every day, I would write down five things I was thankful for. And some of these things at, like, age ten were like, I have cute toes.
I like my hair. You know, I have nice mom and dad. But it was really hard for me to come up with a list of things that I was thankful for. And honestly, this was with me kind of my whole life. Cause I used to consider myself a realist and, you know, not definitely an optimistic person, but I really just continued to look at the negative things in life. And when you have a negative mindset, it's actually impossible to be grateful at the same time that you're being negative. They're like polar opposite sections of your brain.
And so when you have, like, the. The negativity fueling your brain, it is literally impossible to think gratitude. And so if you want to have a posture of gratitude, you actually have to stop being negative in order for your brain to switch on the area of, like, no, I'm actually thankful for these things. I am positive about these things in my life. And so I say this to people out there because it might not be natural for you. It never was for me. And I didn't grow up in an environment where gratitude was practiced.
Positivity was not practiced. And so I actually have to do this daily. This is a daily practice for me, and it doesn't involve writing down the five things that I'm grateful for at the end of the day. In fact, to me, that's almost too late to wait till the end of your day to write down the things that you're grateful for. It can be helpful to help you reflect on your day, especially if you're like, dang, that was not a good day. But I actually maintain this throughout the day. So I have now built up kind of a muscle memory of when I get negative.
And when I'm starting to complain about something, I could I get, like, triggered? Because I'm like, no, I don't want to be like this. And I actually immediately start speaking out loud the things that I'm grateful for. And it could be so simple of, I'm grateful for the sun today. I'm grateful that I have a car to drive to go to the gym. I'm grateful that I have the finances to pay for a gym membership. You know, like, we're talking just really basic stuff. One of the reasons I love traveling to Haiti and other countries to do mission work is because it really makes you grateful for the little, little things.
And so there are days when I literally fill up my cup of water from the sink and I say, I am grateful that I have clean water. And there's something even more powerful about saying it out loud. So I just wanna encourage you that if this is something you struggle with, you can become a positive, optimistic person. And it really involves a gratitude practice. And I'm not saying don't do this once a day and write things down, but try to incorporate gratitude into every area of your life and every step of your day, especially when you're starting to slip into negativity.
Thanks for tuning in with me today, guys.
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