706: 4 Unconventional Ways to Cultivate Gratitude When Life is Hard

Last Monday, on my 47th birthday, I sat down at my desk and decided it would be a good day to integrate some new software into my business.  

Look, it’s never a good day to integrate new software, but it’s an especially rotten decision on your birthday.  

Shortly after that awful life choice (and 13,000 messages on chat support with said software company), I accidentally deleted 84,628 emails. That is not an exaggerated number I made up. That is the literal amount of emails that I watched disappear from my inbox.  

84,628.  

Most of them were from the last 18 months. Many of them were filled with things like contracts and critical client information. 

Needless to say, I spent a decent chunk of my birthday having VERY BIG feelings. The kind your 3-year-old has when you give them the orange cup instead of the green cup.  

VERY BIG.  

I yelled. I cried. I definitely dropped a few (like, 347) F-bombs.  

I tried to remind myself of what my therapist recently shared with me. Based on research from brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, she told me that feelings are waves that rise and recede all day long. These waves last only 90 seconds. After that, we're simply re-stimulating our internal circuitry. In other words, if we stay stuck in horrible feelings for longer than 90 seconds it’s because we have created our own feedback loop keeping us there. This is great news because it tells us we have the power to move through feelings very quickly if we have the right skills in place.  

This just made me madder, if I’m being honest. I knew that I was gonna need more than 90 freaking seconds. And how dare these doctors and therapists try to put limits on my ability to hold rage!

I had to dig deep into my coaching toolbox to coach myself on my birthday. While I definitely felt the universe was conspiring against me, I was determined to move through my big feelings in order to still find a way to find joy in my day.

In this episode, I talk you through how to use unconventional gratitude practices to get over yourself and get through sticky emotions - whether you deleted 84,628 emails or someone gave you the orange cup instead of the green one. 

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