Ep. 033: Practicing Gratitude When Things Go Sideways
A lot of gratitude talk focuses on feel-good fluff, and that can be hard when you just really want to burn everything to the ground. There's a lot of merit in venting to a trusted friend and then sitting with challenging emotions when you're in a difficult season. But after you do that, I suggest you do a simple gratitude practice to get back on track. By focusing on what's going right, it helps your brain start to shift out of the funk. And when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you'll be motivated to move toward it.
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Erika Tebbens: Before we dive into the episode, I wanted to share a little bit about my group coaching program, the Success Squad. If you find in your business that you aren't quite as booked out, as you would love to be. Perhaps you are having some amazing revenue months here and there, but it's really inconsistent. Or maybe you still haven't hit a revenue goal that you've set for yourself.
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Since this episode is airing the day before Thanksgiving, it felt like a really opportune time to talk about gratitude, but not fluff feel good gratitude like we often hear about this is about how to practice gratitude when things go sideways. So when everything feels stressful, when things feel like they're just all going to hell in a hand basket, uh, when you've had a series of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. How can you still practice gratitude and why should you? So I'm not here for any, you know, live, laugh, love, platitudes, or anything like that.
I do think that it is perfectly good to sit with hard feelings. I think a lot of times we are taught in our culture to, uh, minimize them, you know, to get that glass of wine and just forget about it. But I do think that it's important to practice some self-compassion around our feelings, to sit with them, to really be honest with what's going on, be reflective, uh, all of that, because I know that when I actually face my more challenging emotions, I'm always shocked how they kind of eventually like wash over me or wash through me. And had, I just tried to pretend like they weren't there, then they persist because what you, what you resist persists. Right? So, um, so I do think it's, it's good to have an honest look at real situations that are, that are happening, um, and then look at what you can do about them.
And I think that the first step in going down a new, better, more positive feeling path is to get, you know, it's to have that honesty, to have that moment of pause and then to start with gratitude, because that is the pivot point that is going to have the ripple effect to your new trajec, trajectory. Gosh, why is that sort of hard, hard word to say? I'm tripping over myself here.
So here are my thoughts on how you make that happen, how you get from, uh, everything is horrible and I just want to burn everything to the ground to okay. I'm actually thankful for this hardship and now here's what I'm going to do moving forward. But before I dive into that, I just wanted to say that not only did I want to record this right now because of American Thanksgiving, but it is also very timely for me because we are in the process of selling our beloved house of 10 years, moving to a completely different state, buying a house there, uh, uprooting our family, moving away from our support system, going somewhere that is unfamiliar and it's just a lot.
It's a lot of adulting, at once. It's a lot of heavy life stuff all at once. Uh, and yes, there are a lot of good, the things, a lot of, um, components to this move that will be good and we have a lot of support through it and we have movers that are coming to pack us and, and move all of our stuff, which is wonderful, but it's still, it's a lot to manage all at one time.
Especially when you're momming and you are running your business and now all of a sudden on top of busy days, you're having to call for homeowners insurance quotes and pay for home inspections and do all of these things- it's just a lot. And we all have those seasons that just feel like a lot.
And so what I do whenever that happens is, well, first, I usually will, uh, talk to one of my best friends and just be, like bitch and vent, right? Because sometimes you just need to get that out. You just need to have like a bitch and vent session, uh, to get everything out and off your chest. And then I like to sit back and think about how can I reframe this?
How can I have gratitude for all of the good things that are actually happening? And when I do this practice, even though sometimes I'm like, I don't want to, I just want to keep bitching about it. But when I do this, it really does start to shift things for me. Now, this does not necessarily mean that I do a gratitude practice and then all of a sudden, it's you know, the birds are singing and the sun is shining and everything is perfect. It's just that it gets me in a better head space to move forward.
So here's what I like to do, first, acknowledge that it is a challenging season or you're dealing with something that is frustrating, acknowledge whatever feels real to you right now.
What, what is logically happening? You know. So for us, what is the, the truth of what is happening is that we are moving. And then how does that make you feel like? You know, does, do you feel scared about, uh, moving to the new place where you don't really know many people? Do you feel sad about leaving behind all your friends?
Are you worried that you are moving into the right home? Are you frustrated at trying to sell your house? Like these are all actual things that are going on for me right now. Um, does it bring up a lot of like scarcity feelings of like, Oh my gosh, I'm, you know, what if I, uh, I don't know. Can't work on my business while all this is going on?
Like, there's so many things that, that bubble up. So just acknowledge those first and then go ahead and actually look at. What is the good in this situation? What is the, uh, potential good outcomes that can come of it? What are the things in your life that are helping to support you right now? So for me, that looks like, okay, is it scary to have to work on my business and move?
Yes, of course, that feels scary. But I have designed a business that is portable, like really, and truly portable. If I needed to have client calls from a hotel room, I absolutely could do that. However, my previous business, while it was portable, in a way I would have had to get re-established in a new community and make new connections and everything in order to have personal face-to-face new customers. So that would have taken some time.
And in the meantime, I might not have been bringing in as much revenue. I might not have been hitting my goals. I might have been a lot more stressed out. In fact, I'm a hundred percent certain I would have been more stressed out so I can feel gratitude for the fact that my business that I have now was structured with intention to be the way it is so that I could legitimately do it from anywhere. And so, wow! I'm actually really grateful. That several years ago, I did this for my future self that I have crafted this business that is actually not going to be damaged and I'm not going to have any hiccups with in the process of a move.
That's really cool. I have a ton of gratitude for that. I also have a lot of gratitude for the fact that we have a great realtor here and a great realtor on the other side. So I know they have our best interests at heart. They can take care of us, all of that. Also, when we bought our home 10 years ago, we were in a much different position financially.
We had a lot fewer options so I feel gratitude that we have more money now that we have more options, that we know more. And I have gratitude that we are doing a corporate relocation, so I don't have to worry about packing boxes. I don't have to worry about, uh, you know, what, if we need to travel out there and we can't get in the house while we can stay in a hotel and that's fine.
Um, I have gratitude that we're only moving a 10-hour drive away and not to the other side of the country, like we did for our last move, right? We're not spending a week in the car moving. We will spend one day, that is something to feel gratitude for. Uh, I have gratitude for the fact that Chris has a job, right.
A good job that he likes, uh, with a company he enjoys working for. That's really wonderful. And you know, I know that our son, while he's moving away from some of his friends here, two of his other friends just moved a few months ago. So there's fewer people that he has to move away from. Like again, all like just all of these things.
And I know I'm only speaking in terms of me, um, because you know, I, this is what I literally am doing in my gratitude practice. So this could be, you're thinking them in your head, you are writing them in a notebook, you're typing them in a Google Doc, whatever is that you want. I want you to think of at least 20 things and some, some could be really small, some you could think like, Oh my gosh, if somebody knew I was grateful for this, they would laugh in my face. Right? You don't have to share this with anyone. You don't have to tell anyone. But why I say 20, even though you might be like, God twenties, a lot, things are really hard right now. I don't know if I can think of 20 when you think of 20, it's not so few that it doesn't kind of pull you up to that new level and it's not so, so many at the outset that it feels completely impossible.
It's just enough that you really have to start thinking and seeing like, wow, there actually are 20 things, 20 whole things in my life that I can feel grateful for.
To me that feels like a good, a really good number. If I can think of 20 things, then, I'm sort of like, wow, I guess things aren't as bad as I originally was making them out to be. Right? And what usually happens is by the time that you've pushed yourself beyond 10, and you're going for 20, a lot of times, you actually start to think of all sorts of other things, right?
So you, it starts to spill over like, wow, I, you know what? I don't have to think about a grocery budget anymore. I remember when just a few years ago, I really had to be super conscientious of our grocery bill and it just feels really liberating that I don't have to do that anymore. Wow. I'm uh, I feel very blessed that I don't have to do that.
Oh, Hey, the holidays are coming up and yeah. You know, I'm just super grateful that we can buy a tree and all the trimmings and presence, and I can send money to my brother for, uh, for his family and just all of these, all of these different things, right? Like I feel gratitude that hopefully we'll be in our new house before Christmas and Christmas will be different and it will just be the three of us. But, hey, what the heck or, you know, Oh, our friends that we used to celebrate Thanksgiving with every year, will they just moved a few months ago, so I can be bitter about that. Or, you know what, I feel really grateful that, um, another friend of mine actually just invited us to Thanksgiving with him and his wife.
So there'll be a small Thanksgiving, but like that's, that's really cool. It's nice that I'm supported. And I have friends who are willing to, um, have my whole family over for a holiday. Right? And spend that time with them and on and on and on, I feel grateful that it's getting cold out and we have heat and I don't have to worry about the heating bill and that we have a home that shelters us, when many people don't, uh, today, the damn recording, this is election day.
I can feel gratitude that I'm allowed to vote, that I can vote, that it's, that I'm a mobile adult. It's easy for me to get to the polls when a lot of other people can't, right? These are all great, amazing things.
So gratitude begins to beget gratitude. So once you hit 20, it's like your brain. It's like you've primed the pump and your brain is just on a roll. And once you start to have that snowball effect and you realize like, Holy crap, my, I have a lot of great stuff in my life like this, yes, this is a hard season. I acknowledge that, but I really do have a lot of good stuff going for me, right?
And that is where at least for me it does, I don't go full blown Pollyanna, I can still sit with the dichotomy of God. I really wish that this was all just settled. And we were in our new house and the move was all behind us.
But on the other side, dang, I have it pretty good. And it's all gonna work out. It's all gonna be okay, we've moved before, everything was fine, we're totally supported, it will be okay. This is just a short term season. So that is how I do it. And then you can work on, right? Where do I, where do I go from here?
How do I manage these emotions as they keep coming up? Is there other support I need to get? So what might be going on for you might be something way bigger than a move, right? So do you need extra support? Do you need, uh, a therapist? Do you need to start going to your therapist more? Do you need a coach?
Do you need to start? Uh, you know, eating better or, um, getting fresh air each day or whatever it is, like, what is that next level of thing that you can do? So you don't keep backsliding so that you can, uh, deal with the difficult season that you're in and you don't end up stagnating and getting trapped there.
So I think it's really good to recognize that, you know, as the saying goes, this too shall pass and you don't have to gloss over it, and you don't have to minimize it, but what can you focus on instead that is actually going to move you forward. Because if you get stuck here, I don't want that for you either.
So I don't know. I don't want you to get trapped in this space and I also don't want you to just pretend it's not happening and be like, la-ti-da, everything is perfect and fine because that is not helpful either. But I have found when I anchor myself in shitty moments, when I anchor myself in gratitude, it begins to shift.
And when I can shift out of that funk, then better things happen and I can clearly see a new path forward, uh, maybe not the whole path, but at least the beginning of a path. And it just, it makes a huge difference for me. So yes, I still will Voxer my friend, Kendra and vent her for 10 minutes, then I go back to my gratitude practice and then I figure out how I'm going to move forward from here.
So I hope that that really helps, especially if you are also going through a difficult season, I would love to know, um, find me on Instagram @erikatebbensconsulting and send me a DM. And I want to know when you listen to this, tell me, um, one thing that you are grateful for right now that maybe you had forgotten about or were overlooking before you listened to this episode. And as always happy selling!
