Kristi Nelson || Wake Up Grateful

committed to progressive, social, and spiritual change. Being a longtime Stage four cancer survivor, moves her every day is to put others in living and loving with gratefulness of heart. She's the author of a really great book called Wake Up Grateful, The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted. This book really touched me, which is why I reached out to Christy and in this episode I talked to

her about this a concept she has called gratefulness. She differentiates gratefulness from gratitude by describing the former as an orientation towards life without being dependent on internal or external circumstances. Christy shares with us the practice of Stop, Look, Go, and her five guiding principles that can inspire you to live a life of gratefulness. We also touch on the

topics of positive psychology, mindfulness, play, and self compassion. Christy has one of the biggest hearts I've ever seen, and you can just tell in this podcast that she really wants to help everyone lead a really grateful life and meet life on its own terms, regardless where they are in their own journey. So, without further ado, I bring you Christy Nelson. Christy, it's so exciting to talk to you today on the Psychology Podcast. Scott. I'm so happy

to be here with you. Really truly, I'm so happy to be here with you as well. And what a tremendous book. Wake Up Grateful? Do you still wake up grateful every day? After all these years of having that mantra? I actually do really well. I'm not sure I go to bed grateful every day, but I wake up grateful every day I do. It's much easier for me. The waking up. Honestly, I find waking up in the morning sometimes is really tough. I really just want to go back to bed for the rest of the day. Does

wakeing up grateful? Does that energize you to get out of bed, we have to hang out more often. Honestly, yes, it does. I mean for me, I kind of get up, and I think people who have almost died wake up and they have that sense of poof another day, like, oh my gosh, here I am, it's another day. I can't believe I get another day. So there's something about not taking the day for granted, which is huge, and

I think it's easy to do that. And so that's something I think that we can cultivate and culcate and learn. It's not just an organic state of being because it wasn't how I was. It's much more so now. So, I mean, I hate to say it, but facing the possibility of not being alive makes people appreciate life a whole lot more. Yeah, you had an experience at age thirty three, you're diagnosed with stage four hodgkins On foma that had fantastasized to your spine. That doesn't sound good.

That really wasn't. It's not like I feel like that's not the kind of news i'd want to hear. No, especially when you know that stage four. It's kind of like there is no stage five. When I learned that, I was like Uh, okay. So it's also called kind of end stage. Yeah what do you do with that? Yeah? Yeah, what do you do with that? That's what the book is about, really honestly, and what do we do every day?

Because in so many ways, I mean not to be too trite about it, but it reminded me that I was mortal in a big way at a young age, at an age where a lot of people are really taking for granted. They've got a ton of life left to do what they want to do and live the way they want to live. And I'll be grateful when,

I'll be grateful when, And instead it's like whoa. If everything's shrunk down to this very small the aperture gets very small all on the lens, then I think it shifts how we experience our capacity to be grateful for what is and for the moments that we're here. I love that spirit. It's a little bit of a different thing than the research literature on gratitude. Could you kind of talk a little bit about the difference between gratitude

and your concept of gratefulness. So gratefulness, I wish it was my concept, but it's one that I've borrowed heavily a lot of people who are kind of big existential thinkers and mystical thinkers and spiritual people, you know. And so our website is gratefulness dot org. It's great url, but I really love I was so excited to be in conversation with you because I love to use the word hedonic, and you demonic those terms. To me, gratitude is very heydonic. It's self satisfying. It's in the moment,

it's pleasure seeking. We want to feel gratitude because we've gotten exactly what we want. Oh yeah, I got exactly what I want. But it's super fleeting. It's highly conditional and very susceptible to all kinds of things, and so it comes and goes, you know. And to me, I equate that with happiness. Honestly, I think happiness is a similar phenomenon. I think it's really very conditional. So grateful, yeah, thank you. Oh I love that. Yeay, reasonable, got it.

So Gratefulness, on the other hand, is kind of a deeper proposition. It's something I call an orientation to life. It's something that comes from the inside out. It's not conditional on external circumstances that come and go. So when we can cultivate that as a practice, like mindfulness, when we can you know, situate ourselves in gratefulness and learn

that it's a musculature that we can build. Actually, then we become way more resilient and it's a much more robust way to go into life, because gratitude is not robust at all. I would even amend your gratefulness definition say it's not dependent on external or internal circumstances, right, because you can be grateful even if you're not feeling like you want to get up in the morning. I may have nothing to do with any external circumstances, but

your neurochemistry is like forget it. Yeah, there's often a little bit of a you know, a little battle internally, I think sometimes between those parts of ourselves that are accustomed to I you know, we all struggle with it. So, you know, the all the emotional dwarves you know that follow us around, you know, the grumpy and cranky and

whiny and all those ones that we all have. But I think gratefulness is able to say, oh, okay, here I am and I'm feeling really blue, and that's kind of interesting, Like, isn't there something interesting about feeling blue, Like, what's that about? And it's engaged. It's a way of engagement. It's about embracing something and trying to befriend rather than bemoan. Right, So that for me, that's one of the places I try to start, which is, Gee, let's look at you,

you know, crankiness. What are you here to teach me? What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do with you? Because nobody's grateful everything all. We're not grateful about all the things in life, and we're not grateful easily all the time. But it's a practice that we can be grateful in every moment. But I think that's something that we develop, Yeah, and we have to keep exercising. In your age thirty three and you had that experience, you did go through a period where

you had a lot of gratefulness. But then you had something I thought was a really interesting phrase that you just casually throw in your book. But I was like, ah, that's a really interesting phrase. You said, gratitude tolerance. You said at a certain point you started to develop gratitude tolerance. So even you, even you, oh, yeah, you can have this kind of start to take away for granted, Yeah, that's easy. I mean, I think the honest truth is

that it's a wild roller coaster. And I think there's so many things in life that steal our perspective, that we steal ourselves against in that particular way of using the word steal, and then also are stolen. Like it's like there's so many ways in which we give ourselves a way to things and things that catch us. You know, we're living in a in a wild culture that has

huge amounts of influence on us. And so all those kinds of practices about being aware and awake, attentive, alert, alive, all those things, those mindfulness and the things that we do to try that for wisdom, for well being, they are vulnerable to so many things in life outside of us and inside of us. What were you doing before you, like age thirty three? What were you? What was your job? Who are you? Apart from the gratefulness dot org stuff

like okay, who was Christy Nelson? Such a big question. I was living in Manhattan. That was an interesting spate of time. What part Lower East Side? It's important to get all the imagery here. It is really yeah, thank you, And I walked, I walked down to Soho every day for my job in the Eastern re Savings Bank building and so I was working in a nonprofit organization. I was executive director heading up this organization focused on food safety.

I'd always been concerned about environmental issues and was a was kind of an activist when I was, you know, younger, pretty active activist, but I was you know, it was also so interesting because, to be honest, I was one of those people who people said, if you could get cancer, you could get cancer, because we had beliefs about cancer. Then I think that it was much more a punishment

for something. You know. It was the days of Bernie Siegel and Louise Hay and a lot of people who said you kind of ow bad things befall, you only if for bad behavior or for bad choices, and that you can work your way out of it. So for me to end up with this terminal cancer, I did yoga, I was a vegetarian, I was passionate about my life, job, I had great love and community and friends and family, and so it was like, I think it blew people away.

It demystified this idea that we had of cancer, which was something I think at that time was pretty dangerous, which was if you didn't want to get cancer, you wouldn't get cancer. Wow. Wow, So that really had to completely violate your expectations in the world. Like, that's just what we talk about in the field of post traumatic growth. That idea is really powerful. I think that. I think

people in there's a lot of danger in positive psychology. Honestly, I think where people are able to say to themselves, if you just think right, if you get your attitude right, nothing's going to befall you. And oh, if it does, you're going to be able to survive it. And if you didn't, if you don't, it's because you didn't want

to live enough. And I heard that a lot until I started to get to know a lot of people who didn't make it through these journey and I thought, you know, this is a really dangerous fallacy that our attitude is entirely in charge. You know, that's sacrilege to criticize positive psychology and allowed to do that. Do I get to do that here on this show? Yeah, of course you can. At Arawan Organic Grocery in Venice, California, they have the sign Big Sciences have the best day

ever when every time you walk in. If you could change that sign to one thing, what would you change it to say? Have a grateful day? Yeah, yeah, a whole lot more promising brand. Thank you, but the best ever, I mean, And people do say that, and I have a lot of people I love who say that to me, and I'm like, oh, man, so just has to keep getting up and it just makes it hard. It makes it hard on all of us. You know, it's hard enough to go through life. Man, things are tough. Yeah,

it was really challenging. The world is not, you know. So I think that there's a lot of things to be said for facing squarely what is in life and figuring out how to be grateful in the face without all of that. And that's to me different than being happy. Yeah, I think that's that's a very important distinction. Where where does the idea of humor come into play? Do you see a link between humor and gratefulness at all? It's so important? Yeah, Brother d Yeah, well, humor is just

it's everything. Brother David standel Rass who founded this organization, and he's an incredible Benedictine monk and this thought leader and interfaith extraordinary leader, and he is one of the funniest people. And he really believes that the more grateful we are, that the more childlike we are in any ways. Yeah, the eyes of the eyes of wonder, those eyes of wonder which see everything new in a way, right, bug eyes, curiosity, play, those kinds of things that kids have so much more

intact than we do when we're older. How do we reclaim some of that energy? Because I think when you also realize that life is precious and it's short, that we have no idea how long we're going to live,

that how do you want to live those days? And I think there is something that shifts, which is for me, there's some throwing caution to the wind, and being playful in ways that I haven't been playful, being loving in ways that I haven't been loving before, being bold and courageous, And you know, I think taking life for granted puts a big squelch on all of that. Yes, well, they say that mind and body are deeply interconnected, deeply intertwined.

Do you feel like cultivating this gratefulness practice helped you delay the cancer from evading and further invading your body? And I don't. It's a good question, and I don't believe in formulas, you know, in those kinds of ways like people say, just do this and think this, And I think it's way more complex than that. Honestly, I think life is way more complicated than well, how are

you alive? That's a really wild question. I think there's so much mystery and it's I think it's not like rewards get doled out in direct proportion to your goodness, to your good attitude, to the good deeds you do. I think you know their life is a lot more wild and unexpected uncertain than that. So I'm in this wild dance honestly, of continuing to be alive Scott and I have no idea how long that's going to live, how long I'm going to live, and how long that

will last. And that has helped me live more fully so that no matter how long I'm around, I feel less regret. I'm more able to go. I think, honestly, I don't want to go. I want to be here. But those living that way is pretty powerful. Wow. I'm grateful you're here. Oh, you are grateful, grateful, thank you. I'm grateful to be here with you. Such a special book you wrote, and well, I actually encountered your articles and interviews before I read the book, so that that well,

that's special to me as well. And uh, I just really well, well this work you're doing, let's talk about the five guiding principles. Is that okay? Can we do that? Yeah? Please? Yeah. One is life is a gift. Talk a little bit about about how how is life a gift? Doesn't always feel that way, it doesn't, doesn't. I'm sure right, Well, you didn't do anything to get here. You didn't do anything to get here. Necessarily, it was given to you. It's a given and it is You didn't have to

earn it. You didn't have to It just is here here. It is so everyday life it's like here we go here, It's given to us every day. And I think all the things that like, often we have gifts in life. I know that, you know. The article that you wrote for The Atlantic also acknowledges this that sometimes there are gifts that come out of really difficult things in life. We rarely recognize it in the moment. But life is

a gift. Every moment is a gift of life that we get given and we have no idea how long that gift is going to last, so we're not in charge of that gift, which part is part of what makes it be the experience of being gifted. And I think I'm not saying life is easy. I'm not saying life is always great. I'm not even saying life is a blessing. Necessarily, life is a gift. What you do with that and how we work with receiving and so

what I say then afterwards. The other part of that is when you greet each moment gratefully, you're always receiving. So part of what that's about Scott for me is that gratitude waits to receive something. It's a response to something. So this was check this out. Gratitude waits to receive something. Gratefulness just waits for us to recognize that if life is a gift and we're always receiving every moment that we're alive, we're receiving something, we're able to breathe, we're

able to be here. So it's like more like instead of construing it as something outside yourself, it's like, oh, wow, here it is. I can be grateful right now. If I stay open and feel grateful for the moments I have, then gratitude is not elusive. It's not pinned on something, it's not pin in the future. It's not so conditional independent, good, good, good. Okay, let's go down the list. Everything is surprised everything pretty much. But isn't it well, you know, I mean I think,

I know, I liked it, I got it. Actually it's metajoke. So I think that life is uncertain. I think that life is really really the truth is, there's so much mystery and we have no flipping idea where life is going to go and what's going to happen next. So instead of being surprised when things happen, to just say everything is surprised. Here, I am available for what it is that's going to unfold. And when you open to wonder, that's what the idea is. So open to wonder, opportunities abound,

So everything is surprise. Can we stay open to surprise in life and be much less like, Oh I had these expectations. Oh I thought I was entitled to this. Oh it's supposed to go a different way. You know. Those kinds of things are harbingers of as you know, a lot of disappointment, a lot of being incredibly bummed and incredibly anxious, and you know we all suffer that. But the more I can cultivate the attitude of you know, life is full of surprises. Life is basically a mystery,

a huge mystery to so much of us. Isn't there a Madonna song? Yes? I was just going to break in and right home, we'll see. I'm sorry, where did I just go? Can we dance later? Later? Yes? Later? Right? Wow? Madonna is either really deep or really superficial. Dancing is such a gratefulness practice. Hello, I agree. What's the relationship between dance and gratefulness? I mean it's a different so

humor dance. All the things that you like, the more grateful you are for them, the more you're going to be in, the more you're going to be enlivened by them. Right Like if you just say, if you say, oh my god, I love you, put on music, and you're enlivened by music because you love it so much. Otherwise it's just like this thing in the background, but be enlivened by the things you love. Love that. Well, let's

let's continue this list, because a great list. The ordinary is extraordinary reminds me of Abraham Maslow's notion of the Plateau experience as seeing the miraculous in the every day and how that's a great roof root to transcendence, even

more so than the peak experience. So it seems to seemed relevant to that, you're thinking, you being the expert on that all those things in your beautiful book too and transcend So I think the ordinary is extraordinaries is one of my It's the core principle, it's the central principle on so many levels, which is it's extraordinary to

be here. It's extraordinary to be able to breathe, it's extraordinary to have a body, it's extraordinary to be able to sit here in this conversation with you with the aid of this technology. And what we have come to take for granted is so tragically ridiculous. Honestly, we just take these things for granted, and more and more extraordinary things can cut our way, and then we keep needing

more and wanting more. And yet there's something about being able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary that is so joy producing, and so it's kind of it's it's dangerous and radical a little bit actually, because I think that it is a contentment producer in a way that our society is pretty hell bent on not having us be content and having us operate on scarcity. If you see the ordinary as extraordinary, it can kind of blow your mind. I mean I sometimes feel like, and I've said,

you hardly want to leave the house. It's like everything is so mind blowing, mind blowing on inspiring because it is. Okay, tell me what you see when you look at this glass of water? I see a glass. I see a glass that is four fifths full of water? Approximately? What else you see? What's extraordinary about this that you have a glass at all? I think the fractals shape of them, all those things that crystals, it is an incredible and

there's lines that go up from them. And when you hold it in front of your luminescent brain behind you, you should see the light that comes through. That is crazy. Yes, yeah, that's psychedelic. I think it's really all inspiring. I mean, if you think about these things, I'm just going to say, because I dare to hear that, you know there are people who have been having psychedelic experiences for a long time. These principles also stand in that way, or you know,

the ordinary is extraordinary? What else gets illuminated in these kinds of experiences and mystical experiences. Everything is surprised like all of a sudden, everything is all inspiring. Life is a gift. So these are really core essential principles and I think they awaken us to living in a way that is way more enlivened and enhanced and attuned then we live most of our days. Yeah, so let's go

number four. Appreciation is generative. What's that mean? I mean it actually makes stuff happen, like when you appreciate things, when you appreciate people, when you appreciate what you have, you know it is our world. So much thrives in the space of appreciation. And you know when you when we take care of the things that we love. So the second part of that is when you tend what

you value, what you value thrives. So appreciation is attention focused through gratitude, right, So grateful at tension is appreciation. And so when you appreciate people out loud, voraciously, unabashedly, when you appreciate the things, all the things that you have, it makes you need less in life. I think we're much more cognizant of than what is what is extraordinary and miraculous about what we have and what we have tends to thrive much better in the field of appreciation

than neglect. And just say that that's pretty basic. That's a cycle. So like, the more you generate, the more you get appreciation in your life. Like ist it, it seems like a cycle. Like the what if you're like your life is really you're not generating a lot and you're constantly reaching failures. Isn't that likely to downward spiral and to deappreciation of life of your life? These things

things like like they're upward and downward spirals. It's such a good question, right, Like, the more you take for granted, the easier it is to go down. The more you appreciate what is and what you have, it's easier to go up. Yeah. And one of the things that I think is interesting is, you know, I don't know if you talk much about kind of the law of attraction model, but you know, there are people who believe that if they appreciate things, they they appreciate things in order to

get more. Do you believe in that? No? Not very scientific. I mean, I I don't want to you know, marginalize myself here from a lot of the people who But I think it's an interesting motivation. I think that there's a there's I mean, it's not very scientific, but also it's not very it's not based in reality. In exactly, it's just like I usually equate the two. Yeah, that's true. So you call it science, I call it reality based.

But I think and grounded, you know, in this way, which is I don't think just because you want something like that's what I said about life, just because you want to be alive. That's the danger people who say just because you want if you want to be alive enough, you will live. Right. What that means is everybody who dies didn't want to be alive enough. I don't like that.

And if you don't have a boat, and you don't have a house, and you don't have a car, and you don't have a you know, a gorgeous lover, then it's because you didn't manifested adequately and you didn't want it enough. And I just don't think that's the way that the world works. No, I agree, But you do have a philosophy in your book Say Yes to Your Life, which is very Victor Frankel. In fact, that the humanistic existential psychotherapist Victor Frankel has a whole book called Say

Yes To Say Yes to Life. Your model of gratefulness is very what's the word I'm looking for akin to that? Again, it's related, it's highly related. And I think you know, through your article, I learned about existential gratitude, you know,

and that's fascinating and Frankel's tragic optimism. You know, how do we make how do we work through and work with what is what befalls us in life and that we don't get to be in charge of everything and things are really hard in the world right now, Like I you know it, I have to make sense of it by the idea that that I've always felt like if I'm in joy or I'm in appreciation in some way, or I'm really in a space of great love, that it's a betrayal to all the suffering going on around me.

I've had to reconcile that for myself in a way that I think is it's very significant for me, and it's something I have to continually work at. Is because there's some way in which I've had to make sense of the fact that when my heart is more joyful, when I feel more grateful. And when I have more love in my life, I don't betray my concerns for the world. I actually nourish my capacity to attend to them effectively. I'm more able to be present, I'm more

able to be of use of service. Because the truth is, it's like I learned that grieving for my mother. I didn't know how to work through grief for my mother when she died, and she died yeah, pretty young. And when I was writing the book and learning how to hold grief and gratefulness and realizing that they honored each other. It's really important. Yes, So it's the same, you know, yeah, yeah,

And you mentioned presences. You know, it seems so important for gratefulness is to have a mindful attitude towards whatever is in front of you. Do you do? You do you have a mindfulness practice yourself that absolutely you do. Have long, long, long standing studying with John Cabots in Forever Ago. Wow, Wow, the legend, legend, it's a beauty. It just does seem like it's very hard to cultivate this gratefulness without without cultivating, cultivating the mindfulness and in

a really sustainable way. Totally agree with you, and I know you. You know you're around a lot of people who are mindfulness practitioners, teachers, and you know, there's a lot to look up to there. I think great gratefulness owes a huge debt to mindfulness, right, So mindfulness is about presence and you know, I will remember though. This is interesting. Is one of the things that was challenging for me when I was studying mindfulness was when I

was sick. So when I had cancer and there was period of time I could hardly walk and you know, I was so it was a challenging time for me. And one of the instructions with mindfulness was to have my eyes closed. And I had just gotten out of being in a hospital for months in a little room in Upper east Side, and so I came out and I was like, wow, I am so grateful to be able to be outdoors. How do I reconcile these things where I don't want to go sit in a room

and just close my eyes. I mean, yes, the inner world and nursing, nursing in a world is so important to me, and yet I also wanted to be able to be mindful in a way that too in everything around me. The blessing the beauty, knowing that tomorrow could be my last day. So that was interesting because gratefulness also gave me permission to, in a mindful way, walk

through the world with my eyes wide open. It was beautiful this passage you said that you're in You're in the hospital room, and you said, like, I can appreciate the nurses, you know, the doctors, right, you were like, I mean, I'm not doing your quote justice. Can you quote yourself here? Because it was beautiful what you said, Yeah, oh,

thank you. I don't know if I can quote myself, but what I knew was I was in the hospital for weeks and weeks and weeks, and you know, when you're thirty two years old and it's summer and you're in it, I wanted to be outside. It was like it was so painfully hard, and I had to be isolated a lot because I was TV positive. My immune system was super low, and so I couldn't see a lot of people loved and people were far away, and I kept thinking, you know, this is really awful not

to be around the people I love. And yet all day long a stream of people were coming into my room, taking my blood, taking care of me, you know, bringing me food, taking the trash away. So what became clear to me was, if you have no idea how long you're going to live, why would you not love these people? Why would you not make this be a source of that longing of fulfillment of that longing that you have

to be in connection, you know, to feel alone. And there were people streaming all around me all day long. Was a great irony and the big eye opener for me was a wake up call. I think this segway is into number five, which is love is transformative. You know, like, what were you doing there in that moment to kind

of generate love? Love changes everything, I believe, right so, and being big hearted and being wholehearted and full hearted as we live our lives, it can change everything in our midst and there's so much need for love, and it can take a very small, a small amount of love to completely change somebody's life. I've experienced that myself. You know, it's not just the long, long term relationships

that change our lives. Sometimes it's chance encounters, sometimes it's an act of kindness, but it's love really can transform a life. And to believe in that and to freely embody that to be generous, I think is an extraordinary calling. And so the second part of that principle is when you embrace the great fullness of life, which is a term that I use a lot, which is the great fullness means everything. When you embrace the greatfullness of life,

your heart overflows. And partly that is what for me is the truth about when I get up in the morning and I know that there is so much going on in the world that's hard, and you know, how am I going to put myself visa VI that to let my heart, to let my heart overflow is really the only way, and that means feeling a lot of tenderness, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of things that are not easy to go through the day with. Yes, broken heartedness, yes,

and yet it's worth everything. So so yeah, those are the five principles. We ain't done yet. Be ain't done yet, because you know there's also the stop will go oh yeah, well, then there's the name work that you're funny. There's a lot. No, there's a lot in your We could talk for hours, we won't have the time to, but there's so much in your book. There's this framework, stop will go from brother David, right, yeah, can you talk a little about that. Yeah,

So it's very simple. It's basically saying, you know, brother David says, you know, what do you do before you cross the street? You stop, you look, you go. So it's basically about for me, you know how, I like to describe it as here's a way to think about it too. Gratitude, as it's commonly understood, celebrates green lights, like whoo, the best day, right, the best day is like, okay, you're going downstair, you get like sixteen green lights in

a row. And yet I think gratefulness also celebrates the fact of the red lights and the yellow lights that basically we have to stop. We actually life requires us if we're going to be mindful, if we're going to be awake, if we're going to be here, otherwise we croak. You know, you can't just keep going, going, going. But our culture says, okay, just green lights, green lights, green lights, green lights. Gratitude, gratitude, keep going, you know, happiness, happiness,

think on the right side. You know, it's not the

way that life works all the time. So I think intentionally stopping, which can be either for a split second, or to sit on a cushion for forty five minutes, whatever, twenty minutes, ten minutes, whatever you do looking, which is to listen inside ourselves, to look, to notice, to feel, to look around us, to be present to what is it's really the yellow light, which is yield notice, look around like that's what it is, and then go go into life with the recognition of For me, it's like,

what am I taking for granted? That I can lift up in my awareness and see as a privilege. So and there's no end to that. When you start with the breath. If you start with the fact that you're breathing and your body is working and you're actually here, the number of miracles, the number of ridiculously incredibly complex things that are having to happen in order for you to be alive and breathing unassisted right now is enough to blow your mind. And I don't mean that in

a way that's Namby Pamby. I'm saying it's like, if we can really rest in that awareness, it's pretty awe inspiring. And then notice all the things that are happening in your body that allow you to breathe, that allow your heart to beat that are you know, the miraculous things about your body, So you just start there, start with your your very existence. Yeah. The nice thing about anchoring in your breath, Scott just to say is that as long as you're alive, you're going to be able to

anchor there. So if you can be grateful for the breath, it's enough to be grateful for the next breath, Brother David says. So it's like, if you can be grateful for this breath and then just go, that's the stop. Notice that and then go, it's a pretty extraordinary thing because everything else is a bonus. Everything else comes after that. And yet we take it so for granted, and then narcissists who just feel entitled to it too, it for grant.

They're entitled to more than just the breath. Yeah, oxygen therapy, men do the thing, all the stuff whatever. I mean. Entitlement is a is a big hibitter, right, So oh yeah, we didn't go down your whole list of in hibbers, did we. We don't need to. We don't. People get it. People get it. I mean we know expectations are you know, we have assumptions, expectations. Entitlement they don't make life better. Now. I wanted to talk about one of my favorite sections

of your book. It's called Be Yourself with Abandon. It's towards the end. Love that one. I love it. I love it, love it love. Can you integrate that one? Can you combine that one with the one befriending our full selves? I think befriending your full self and be Yourself with Abandon is they're highly interconnected, so right, I mean there's no separation, Yeah, exactly, there we go. So the hell else are you going to be? Right? So it's this is who you are, This is who we are.

This is a moment that we're in. I mean, I think, were it all on your sleeve, be who you are. I love the idea of you know, I used to be so hard on myself. I you know, it was, you know, for everything that didn't feel just perfect about me, or that I compared myself to so many people and stuff, And so I think it's really wonderful to just kind of say, what are our quirks, like, what are the quirky parts about us? What are the idiosyncrasies, what are the things that we you know? And so how to

be friends those? To me is also you know, like I said, literally those seven Dwarfs, it's like cranky, whiny, grumpy, you know, if it's stressy, worry. You know, it's like all the different parts of me. And to be able to go, yeah, there you are, hello, Hi, you know, like check you out. It's so nice to be welcoming to those aspects of yourself. So to me be who you are with the bandon is just you know, be the quirky, funny, oddball insecure. I'm very sure that well,

truthful version of yourself. You're Yeah, you're so many things, and it's what makes you most lovable, you know in the end. And it's it's such a it's such a great way to go through life. Like Mark Neepe says, you know, our fears just want to be held. You know. We can't always have somebody else hold the parts of ourselves that we want to disavow. But maybe we can

do that for ourselves. And I think it's if we can't do it for ourselves, what are we expecting somebody else to want to hold onto those parts of us with us? You know. It's like so I think it's a great it's a great lesson for self compassion, huge self compassion practice, and then also self celebration. I mean, why stop at compassion? No, I agree self celebration. I love that I'm bringing that down. Let's just end on the topic of leaving a grateful legacy. I do that?

How do I do that? Well, it's really hard. I think it is living without taking life for granted and basically saying what matters most? How do I put that in motion? Now? How do I show that? Now? Who do I love? How do I tell them now? Because otherwise you're greatful? Like, your legacy is all the choices you make today. It's not something that you're going to put into on paper when you're, you know, sixty five years old and you're going to leave somebody some amount

of money. Your legacy is how you treat everybody today. It's how you show up to life today. So that's the promise of not taking life for granted, is to say, oh, I'll do that when you know, being great peol versus doing grateful Yeah, be embody, Yeah, I love it. So that's pretty simple, Thank you, Scott. No, it's simple, but not easy. It's not easy at all. We need these reminders and just even just reading your book again. You know, got me. You have to keep you just have to

keep reminding yourself of these things. You know. It's it's very easy to forget that and get lost in the stream of life. It's worthwhile, and I I always feel like it's really worth trying. What do you have to lose? What do you have to risk by trying it on? Yeah? And I think what's really powerful is, like you said, kind of that general appreciation is generative. The more you

live gratefully, it's interesting to notice what happens. Yes, how much more grateful you can because right when you're putting yourself out there in a way, what comes back to you is always interesting? And how is that reinforcing? And so I think it's an adventure and it's a risk worth taking, and it's a great practice to build this musculature. And I really appreciate your interest in it and your

wonderful attention and care. Oh my pleasure. I'm going to try to practice these five things the rest of my day, and I encourage our listeners give it a shot. As Christy Nelson says, what do you have to lose? You know, try it out. Leave a comment in the YouTube channel, or on the or on our web page. Let us know how it worked out for you. We love honesty, so ay May Christy, thank you so much for being on my podcast. I'm glad we're finally able to record

this session. Thanks Scott, really appreciate the time and keep going, keep doing all the transcending beautiful work you're doing. Oh, thank you, you too, You too, very grateful. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thusycology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page thus Ecology Podcast.

We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.