#26 The Power of Gratitude

#26 The power of gratitude
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Welcome to episode 26 of Different Points with my wonderful co-host Roy Colan and myself, Catherine Nguyen. So today's topic is the power of gratitude. So before you roll your eyes and say that you've seen 18 memes today on gratitude already, and you're in the middle of a 30-day gratitude challenge anyway, let me pass this over to Roy, who I'm very grateful for as my co-host and all sorts of other things that we've done together over the years.

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Roy, what's your take on the power of gratitude? Well, I know that for our seasoned listeners, they've heard of my kind of episode where I kind of lost stuff and it was the things that saved me, one of them was gratitude. And because when, you know, you've got all these death collectors, bailiffs, all these different people just ringing you at banks and stuff like that, and it's just putting you in the wrong place of mind. And I was kind of, okay, what can I do? How can I lift my spirits? And it was like, okay, what am I grateful for? You know, my parents had my back, they knew I didn't do anything wrong.

I had love from them. You know, my kid giving me a cuddle, you know, just being close for that. I had a roof over my head, you know, I had food in my belly.

And it was just for the people that had my back, didn't kind of think, oh, he deserved that or he done this. And by thinking gratitude, you attract what you're thinking about. So when you're thinking in the positive and being grateful for it, then you're just attracted.

So, you know, I say the same for you. I'm grateful for you. And I love that we're attracting people that we're grateful for because it attracts more people like that.

Yes. Brilliant. Years ago, when I was part of a kind of spiritual community, one of the things we explored was prayer.

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And the method that we practiced was to give thanks, and then ask, you know, each day, give thanks for what we were giving thanks for. And then we called it make an asking, you know, asking for what we wanted. And I was so struck by that.

Because I thought, yeah, you know, how rude to just always just be asking for stuff, let's say, and often people think of prayer is just asking for stuff. And I thought, you know what, that's rude. That's not polite.

But I also did notice like you were saying, Roy, that when I did the thanks, before I did the asking, it actually changed what I was asking for, because it helped me recognize how blessed I already was helped me recognize what I already had in my life, and what I was already really, really happy about. And sometimes, sometimes I was about to be asking for something to make me feel better. But saying thank you made me feel better so that I could ask for something more interesting in terms of, you know, something in my day.

I also think with gratitude, if we sort of, in quotes, believe in gratitude in our head, and try to sort of think our way into gratitude or force our way into gratitude, I think that doesn't work. I think what does work for me certainly is to tune into something that I genuinely feel grateful for. So it's more of a feeling rather than a thought.

So an example this morning was I was sitting eating breakfast on the sofa. And sitting next to me was one of my cats. And she was actually leaning against me.

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So she was warm and sort of silky next to me. And she was purring. I wasn't even touching her, I was stroking her.

She was just purring the whole time I was eating my breakfast. And it was the most beautiful feeling. I felt so grateful for that, just loving gift.

And I don't care about the people who say they're only purring to persuade you to feed them. I just felt really, you know, or I look out at the sky. And I think, oh my God, that's just incredible what I can see in that sky.

And I feel the gratitude. So it's that, it's the feeling gratitude that is most important to me, more so than the idea of gratitude. Beautiful.

I mean, I've had loads of cats, you know, when I was younger and cats purr when they're happy. It's not when they're looking for food. So when they're actually in their purr, it means they're grateful for you.

And I always embrace it. I always love when a cat purrs. It's a beautiful feeling.

Yeah, great. Thank you, Roy, for that. So, and thank you, everybody.

Gratitude to you for watching and listening. If you've been following us all along the way, thank you for staying with us. Do send us your questions and topics you'd like us to talk about if you feel like it.

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Be grateful for your day. Grateful for yourself. And see you next time.

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With gratitude to our listeners.