Mojo Monday: Embracing Gratitude and Pain Simultaneously: A Lesson in Mental Fitness

a helpful topic. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that there's a message that I really come back to quite often, and that is when life throws challenges our way, and it will if we've done the work on our mental fitness, we'll have the tools to respond rather than react, and how we respond will hugely impact the path we take, both emotionally and physically. So here's the Taylor challenge for this week.

My daughter, who is nineteen. She plays in the women's first soccer team for our local soccer club. She's in State League three and she's not shy of a tackle. In fact, it's been noted that she has what's called white line fever. So the moment she steps over that white line, she's got this fierce competitiveness and it kicks in and last Sunday, while going in hard for the ball, her legs went one way, her body went the other, and she hit the ground in complete agony. She had

to be stretchered off the field. And three days later and MRI confirmed what we suspected, and that is that she's got a ruptured ACL. So we were in the car today and she was telling me how frustrated she feels and her team. They're in the middle of their season. She loves the game, she loves hanging out with the girls, she loves going out dancing, and she's been training hard at Crossfitch. She's seeing stronger every way. So everything was

going well in her life. And we've also got this very active holiday booked diving and hiking in Malaysia, so you can understand the frustration that she's feeling. So yeah, she was feeling pretty down. But then she said something that made me really proud. And it was a bit of a tick, a bit of a parenting tick because Paul and I have been really trying to teach our kids to have good character, and I think this statement was a big tick for that. So what she said is,

I'm going to be so grateful when I can just walk properly again. And she said, I'm grateful that I actually have legs to do that, and I thought that was really cool because on one hand, she was telling me about how frustrated and down she was, and then on the other hand, she was telling me that she was actually grateful for what she did have, and that

really got me thinking. We often hear that we should be grateful for all the good things that we have, and gratitude, of course, it absolutely plays a powerful role in our well being, and the science tells us that, but there's this subtle pressure, I think, and I think this can come with the language that we use, because that pressure can really creep in. It's almost like we can feel guilty if we're feeling sad or frustration or angry. We feel like maybe we shouldn't be feeling those feelings

because we should be grateful. But here's what I said to my daughter, and this is why I wanted to do this podcast today, so I wanted to say this to you today as well. It's okay to feel frustrated

or whatever painful emotion that you're feeling and grateful at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive. One doesn't have to cancel out the other. And I think this is a really powerful message for not only us, but also for our kids, because we will always have these automatic emotional responses when hard things happen, especially when that thing matters to us. Painful emotions are just part of being human,

so it's natural that these automatic emotions show up. But this is where mental fitness comes in. When we build that muscle, that mental fitness muscle, we get better at responding to those emotions. We don't ignore them, we don't try and shove them away, but we don't get swallowed up by them either. So we can hold frustration and gratitude simultaneously. Because if we only focus on the pain, then that's where all our attention goes, and so that is what the feeling of the pain, or that painful

feeling is going to exacerbate. But if we can pause and acknowledge the pain and also bring in what is still good and what is still true in our lives, so what we're still grateful for, then that can help us find that balance and it kind of takes the sting out of the painful stuff. So this week, if

you are navigating something hard, try this. Allow your emotions to be there, all of them, So don't try and fight with them, just allow them to be there, and then gently ask yourself, what else is true? Right now? Can I make a little space for gratitude for the good stuff, not to erase the hard stuff, not to ignore it, but to sit beside it. So that is mental flexibility, and that is mental fitness, and it's a big part of what keeps us steady when life throws

a curveball. So I hope if you are going through

a challenge, or even if you're not going through a challenge, I hope that will help you when when life's challenges do hit. And have a have a great week, and I'll catch you next week. See yea