Because when you recall a positive experience, and that could be something as small as like you know someone at the coffee shop that you cut in in line, or someone gave you a compliment when you know you weren't feeling that great, whatever it might be, when you recall that experience, you actually release the same happy hormones in your body.
Hello and welcome back to the Riz and Conk Podcast. It is your host, Georgie Stephenson. As some of you may know, I'm currently on maternity leave, so Tim and I are soaking up the newborn bubble and new parent life with our little baby girl. But I did not want to leave my RNC fan with nothing, so we are bringing back the best bits of the Rise and
Conker Podcast. We have nearly over two hundred episodes, so I thought it would be a cool idea to bring you snippets from the most listened to, the most talked about episodes and just give you the best bits in a mini episode. So be prepared to get straight into juicy topics, to feel inspired, to feel motivated, empowered and of course informed. These episodes are shorter, but they're just full of the best bits. If you did like this mini app make sure you go to the show notes
where we have linked the full episode. And I just want to say I really appreciate you guys still supporting the show while I'm taking some time off to enjoy Baby Girl, and I just can't wait to be back in your ears with fresh episodes in the new year. We have been planning the next season and there are so many exciting guests and surprises coming up, So I really hope you enjoy this mini episode. Let's get straight
into the show. What are some actionable steps that they can put in place to become more grateful and feel more grateful in their life.
I think there's like a couple of things that you can do to get started. And the first one is just exactly what you're doing, Georgie, which is just writing things down every morning or every evening. I think it's figuring out what time of day you need at most.
So for some people, they wake up in the morning with the feeling of dread and what they have to do, and they feel overwhelmed with, oh my goodness, I've got to get the kids ready, or I've got to get ready for work, and I need to go to the gym and I need to do this, and I need to do that. If you're waking up with that kind of feeling, it's definitely a good idea to start your gratitude practice in the morning where you literally just think
of three things that you're grateful for. And my biggest recommendation wouldn't be to say I'm grateful for my house,
my partner, and my cat. Think of actual events that have happened, especially in the last twenty four hours, because when you recall a positive experience, and that could be something as small as like you know, someone at the coffee shop that you cut in in line, or someone gave you a compliment when you know you weren't feeling that great, whatever it might be, when you recall that experience, you actually release the same happy hormones in your body, and in a way, you sort of get to physically
feel it again. So the more we can have your body used to those happy hormones coming out, the easier it is for them to release when the time's are right. Whereas for some people, and this used to be me, I used to go to bed thinking, oh my gosh, there's you know, there's so much I didn't do, or you know, oh I forgot to write back to that message, or I made a real fool of myself, you know, I said something stupid, or maybe I fell over in front of people at the shop, so I'm incredibly clumsy.
You know. I would be thinking about all the things that I didn't do, all the things that were to come, and it would make for a really restless night's sleep because I was just constantly, you know, kind of in that fight or flight mode of like ad and so
much to do. So for me, doing it at night was really beneficial because it would take me into a really calming state where I would go back over my day and instead of thinking of the things I didn't do, I thought of all the things that happened to me that were amazing. And when you actually kind of just walk yourself through that day, it's quite easy to find good things if you're searching for them. You know, your brain, if you allow yourself, your brain will find the things.
But if you kind of are like holding on really tight to this story that your life is no good and everything's hard and people don't like you and you're not enough, it is going to be really hard. So I think that just getting into the practice of finding just little things in the beginning. It'll help you to eventually start to see the really big things that you
can be grateful for. And then one other thing is I love I sometimes talk about this on my Instagram, So Thankful Thursdays, I would think back over the last seven day what people had done for me, good or bad. You know, sometimes it would be an experience that maybe someone had been really shitty and said something really nasty to me, but it had allowed me to reflect on
ways that I could be better. And what I would do is for the people who said mean things, so I didn't necessarily want to thank for it in real life. I would write like a little sort of you know, a really quick letter of being like, you know what, thank you so much for being that person who allowed me to look deeper into myself. But then I would spend, you know, like that ten to fifteen minutes sending out
messages of gratitude to my friends and family. You know, if my mom had looked after my kids, I would make sure I sent her a text just being like, you know, you know how much I appreciate this. It helps me to work and show up how I need to. You know if someone had said something nice that had really stuck with me, I would write them a message and just let them know that it was still on
my mind, and it meant a lot to me. And I think that when you pass it on, when you're not just thinking, Okay, what am I grateful for in my life, but when you're actually letting people know that they've made an impact in yours, it makes those people feel really good. And I don't know about you guys, anyone listening, but in my life, my one aim is to make other people feel good because ultimately, if I can make other people feel good, I feel really freaking good.
I feel really accomplished by helping others. So that's just like a small thing you can do, and I have it in my schedule on a Thursday. It's a reminder that pops up and I just take that time to do those messages.
Like you said, I personally think about what I'm grateful for in my life, usually more sort of bigger things, but you were saying think about it sort of little occasions, so you can feel that feeling. So could you go a little bit more into that. I was just a bit confused, because that's the first time I've sort of heard about that.
I'm going to try and explain it in the most basic terms because I can get a little bit. I get a little bit excited about neuroscience, which is so weird, and not call them to you.
I love hashtag science, so don't want touch.
Yeah, like I just I get really excited about But I like for people to think of their brain. We have these neuropathways, and every time we have an emotion or a feeling, they fire off between each other, and if you want to imagine, there's sort of tracks going between you know, the neurons, and the pathways strengthen or weaken depending on how often there is energy moving through them. So that's probably the easiest way to think of it.
So every time you feel a good feeling, you're strengthening that particular pathway, meaning that it becomes easier for you to feel good things. It becomes easier for you to feel gratitude, for you to feel joy, for you to feel love, for you to feel the things that really
light you up. Whereas on the flip side, if you're constantly thinking about the things that make you feel sad, depressed, not good enough, not what you want to feel like the bad feelings, you're actually going to strengthen those pathways. So for me with my clients and then everything I do, it's so important that people are consciously and staying super aware to the fact that you need to strengthen the
pathways of the feel good feelings. So every time you can remind yourself of a good feeling, it's actually making it easier for you to be happy in the long run. And it's like a muscle, like I liken it to training. If you strengthen the happy muscle, it's easier to pick things up, it's easier to use it, it's going to work more effectively. If you want to strengthen the negativity muscles, they are going to be easier to use because and in the same way energetically that like attracts like good
feelings attract more good feelings. So I think when you're doing this, because some people, when they're naturally in a state of you know, maybe self hatred or not having faith in other people or in the world, they will feel a lot of the negative emotions, and that's just
consistently strengthening them up. So if you can take that time to feel the good stuff and really feel it, not just you know, like for someone who's in a negativity state when they're writing their gratitude journal, they might not actually take the time to feel the emotions that come with the thing that they're being grateful for. So my biggest tip is to actually feel good when you're doing it, because I see so many people and they're like, I write my gratitude journal every night and I still
have a shit life. Sorry, Or I write my gratitude of journal every night and nothing's changed. I still feel bad. And it's because they're just writing the words. They're not actually utilizing the emotions that can come with reliving good experiences or actually feeling grateful for something. And in my opinion and people will disagree with me here, you're not
completely feeling gratitude unless it brings you to tears. And it doesn't mean that every time you do your gratitudes at night you have to like ball your eyes out and be a help mess. That would just be so INCONVENI But if you're able to really think about something like if I think about my mom, I sound like baby spice right now. But if I think about my mom and like, how much she's done for me. If I really get deep into that, it would bring me
to tears. The amount of gratitude I have what she said with my life would actually bring me to tears, Whereas if I'm kind of thinking about, like, oh, how great is it to have a house, I'm like, I'm not going to cry as that that's for giving me emotions and the feels, do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. I love that. So it's sort of an almost two step process with that and really creating that feeling and exercising that muscle, like.
You said, totally one hundred percent.
Okay, love that. Thank you so much for explaining that. Thank you for listening for another RNC episode. I really appreciate taking the time to be here with me, and also for taking the time for yourself. If you found this episode helpful, it would be It's so amazing if you shared it on your stories and tagged us, or simply just send it on to a girlfriend or family
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