Jemma Speg (3:22)

Welcome back. We are going to get into this week's mantra in just a few. But before we do, it's time for my highs, lows, and who knows, who knows about Sydney summers? That's what we're talking about today. Because if we're talking about gratitude, this is something that I'm very grateful for at the moment. I know I'm probably teasing a lot of you right now who are in the middle of winter, but oh my Lord, Sydney Summers are just magical, mystical, beautiful things. And I have been soaking it all in. I didn't really get a Sydney summer last year because I was traveling so much for work, but this year I've just been really appreciating slow mornings, going to the beach, exploring all little hidden bays, getting coffee with friends, getting fish and chips, just enjoying everything that the season has to offer. And it has been hot, but oh my gosh, it has been glorious and so enjoyable. Just getting to be at the beach every single day, getting a nice little tan, getting to be around my friends, playing some backyard cricket. So, yes, on the theme of gratitude, I want to start with something I'm grateful for, which is this beautiful weather and the beautiful place that I get to call home. Okay, enough bragging about my amazing 2025 summer right ahead of all of you guys in the US and in the UK and in the northern part of the world, let's talk about this week's mantra. I choose gratitude in every situation. I love this mantra with every fiber of my being because it is something that I think is written into our DNA. It is in our DNA as humans to be appreciative and grateful and stunned to be alive even when it feels impossible. It's why I do truly think that we are able to experience awe. Because awe is a gateway to gratitude. Same with love. Same with beauty. Same with art, nature. All roads lead back to gratitude. Because what this feeling and this state of mind really reflects is the universe's ability to appreciate itself and therefore kind of leave us feeling like it's all worth it, that this life really is such a blessing. Gratitude is a psychological antidote to so many emotional hardships that we face, you know, in the face of loss. Gratitude is there in the face of sadness, gratitude, anxiety. Gratitude even during amazing, wonderful times. We can really, really fill up our gratitude storage tank to last us through the hard times. So if you want the scientific evidence for this, we can look at a number of studies over the past decade that have basically found how the simple act of being thankful changes our brain. So my favorite study on this topic is a 2017 study that recruited nearly 300 adults to basically observe how gratitude changes us. So they got a third of these people to write a letter of gratitude each week for three weeks. The other third had to write about something negative in their life, and the third didn't write a letter at all. Three months later. They compared the brains of these individuals and they found that certain areas of the brain continue to light up even months later, especially for the people who had written those gratitude letters. There was another white paper that was developed by the University of California, Berkeley, published in 2018, and it reported something groundbreaking. That gratitude, amongst other things, increases our self esteem. It helped people feel more optimistic about the world. It improved mental health symptoms, it made relationships stronger. Because I think it makes us adopt a very deep life philosophy that firstly still allows us to recognize that life can be hard, but then redirects us to focus on what is brilliant that can change your life. Because there will always be good if you choose to find it. And choosing to go looking for something to be grateful for, even if it's as small as a smile from a stranger or an exceptional cup of coffee, that doesn't discredit hard times, but it reinforces that you still get to direct your emotions in a small way. Sometimes that's hard to focus on. We are held back or separated from gratitude because of very deep pain and hardship. I went through a period of my life of really terrible loss a few years back, and it was very hard to see anything good in my life. You know, how could I appreciate a lovely summer's day when everything inside of me felt so dark and cold? You know, how could I appreciate my friends and my family when I'd lost someone so important to me and the only person I really wanted to talk to at that moment? So with this mantra, I don't want this to come off as toxic positivity. You must always be grateful. You must always feel lucky. Even your pain is a blessing. It happened for a reason, because that's not the case. Rather, gratitude is emotionally medicinal. It sees the pain and it works. To soothe is basically a reframing, not an erasing. Maybe that is the best way to summarize everything that I've said so far. Challenges become opportunities to grow or learn. Loss can highlight what you valued. Failure can reveal redirection or strength. Interestingly, we also know that gratitude actually creates a positive feedback loop in our brain. So the more you practice gratitude, the more you see to be grateful for. It actually changes how you view the world and this cycle creates momentum. Gratitude shifts your focus so you notice things that are more positive and good and that good boosts your mood and mindset so you feel even more grateful and eventually, hopefully, you're a happier person. So it is a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts. And maybe that very simplicity is why it is so overlooked. We are so used to thinking of happiness as something that is complicated, an intricate formula that involves the perfect lifestyle, perfect routines, perfect relationship, the perfect life. Do therapy three times a week, watch every sun site, exercise every day. Maybe it's as simple as practicing gratitude each morning on the train, writing in your notes app a list of three things every day, or at the end of the night or at the end of the week that you feel grateful for waking up and having a sticky note on your mirror that says I'm so lucky. Maybe happiness isn't about extremes in that way. So coming up, let's get personal. I'll talk to you about how I've actually been able to find gratitude, even in some very hard moments in my life. Stay tuned after this short pause.

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Jemma Speg (12:37)

Now that we've looked at the meaning behind today's mantra, it's time to get personal with you guys and share some of my own insights and reflections about this phrase. The thing about gratitude is that it's often very fleeting. You know, sometimes it's very loud and present in your life, and other times it is just a whisper. The times it's loud is normally when the good is really at the surface level of life and you're experiencing, we all know it, one of those remarkable days or months or weeks where everything is aligned and flowing and happy and peaceful. I had a day like that recently where I just had the most perfect morning with my partner Tom. We went swimming. I got to do this amazing podcast event in the afternoon. Then we saw my family for dinner. And that night I was struck by this feeling that this might just be the best day ever. And it's something that Tom actually says to himself a lot. And he says it to me as well, like the smallest thing will go right for him and he will say out loud, this is the best day ever. It's probably, you know, definitely why he is one of the most easygoing, chill happiest people that I know. But that day was so special to me and reminded me definitely of times when it wasn't so easy. And I was speaking before about a period of deep loss for me. And this happened around the end of 2021. And I won't go into too much detail, but a close family member of mine passed on. I lost a really dear friendship at the same time. And my relationship had also just come to an end as well. So three huge things and it was very dark. It was so hard to be grateful. And that gratitude was just again, speaking in a whisper. And my dad and I have always had this very close relationship. So I talked to him about it, I confided in him, and he said something really important and profound to me. He said gratitude doesn't want much from you. It's just asking for you to notice it. And he lives this philosophy. He has always kept gratitude lists. And it's very sweet because I'll be visiting home and I'll find these notes around the house. Sometimes it would just be like one sentence, like completed puzzle or watched football with family and you'll know that it's come from his list. And it's very. Just so pure. And I really challenged myself during that hard period to just let myself notice what life was trying to offer me and show me the feeling of a cool breeze, the gooeyness of a chocolate chip cookie, you know, when a dog comes up to you and wants a pat. My favorite song coming on when I hit shuffle. And then bigger things be to emerge as well. The bigger themes that I had to be grateful for. My health, my family, where I live, the opportunities that I had, they started to come back as well. Until it just felt like my life was overflowing and I couldn't even count on all my fingers. What was great about it, I also started a ritual a year or so back called the Smile file. This has been a game changer for me. Basically, the premise of the Smile file is that every day or whenever you get the opportunity, whenever something comes up that makes you smile, you have to add it into a special album or folder on your phone called smilephile. So if you see like a really cute father daughter interaction or a really cute dog, or you meet your friend for coffee, or you see a gorgeous sunset sunrise, you have a great session at the gym, anything that makes you smile, you add it into this folder. Then at the end of the month, at the end of the year, you have this whole catalog of things that you felt grateful for in the moment. And memory is so fickle and so fleeting, sometimes we don't fully get a bird's eye view of everything great in our life. But with this Smile file, it's just so immense how many opportunities we actually have to feel grateful. Gratitude has also really, really improved relationships for me. And it has meant that I don't take people for granted and I tell them that. Another exercise that I love is a gratitude letter. So basically just finding a way to have gratitude at the center and remembering that it is a choice, right? Whether it is yelling at you or whispering to you, noticing gratitude is something that you can do no matter what. And it's a choice for you to make that will, as the science shows, greatly improve your life. All right, let's move on to my favorite part of the episode. Our deep thought of the day. This quote comes from Alphonse Carr, a tour round my garden, and he says we can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorns have roses. You know why I love this quote? I love this quote because it's not asking for reality to change. The rose bush is still the rose bush. It has thorns, it has flowers. It's. It's instead asking us to change our focus, change our perspective. And so it brings our attention back to this very important part of gratitude. It's about choosing what we see. You see the dark, stormy Saturday as a waste of a weekend, or you can see it as a chance to get cozy, a chance to take a romantic, sentimental walk in the rain, to water the flowers. You see the loss of a relationship as devastating, or you appreciate what it will teach you, what it may be saving you from. Gratitude is like a magnifying glass that lets you really pay attention to the small things that otherwise you would ignore. And again, it's not asking for reality to change. It's asking you to change how you see reality. Now I'd like us to take a little micro moment of peace to really pause and sit with this mantra. Soon you'll hear a custom music track created to give you a space to absorb today's insights and really consider how you might bring this mantra into your week and maybe even beyond. And remember, if this practice isn't your style, if it doesn't resonate with you, feel free to just skip ahead 30 seconds. But as you settle in, keep our mantra in mind. I choose gratitude in every situation. Let it guide your thoughts as the music plays, and give yourself a moment to reflect and connect with what this mantra means to you. Up next, we are going to talk about how to put these insights into real action and bring this mantra to life. And I'll also share some journal prompts in our weekly challenge. Stick around for more after this quick break.

Max Cutler (20:17)

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Jemma Speg (21:47)

Carvana Value Tracker today. Welcome back. Let's talk about how you can apply this week's mantra to your life in a meaningful way, starting with the journal Practice. And if you don't have your journal with you, if this isn't for you, that's okay. Just think about these answers in your own mind. Maybe even pause this episode after each one just to consider these questions. Okay, here are the three prompts. First, when was the last time you really paused to truly appreciate something small and maybe even ordinary in your life? And how did it make you feel? What is something ordinary about your life that someone else might find incredible? Next, how do you typically respond to challenging situations? And how might embracing gratitude change that response? And finally, who in your life deserves more gratitude than you've expressed lately and how can you show them your appreciation? Okay, I've given you a lot to think about, but of course there is more in store. Every week I give you a challenge that features our mantra. It's really about taking this to a whole new level, right? So that you can really put what we talk about into tangible, actionable steps for your yourself. I also love to do my little check ins so that we can hold ourselves accountable. Reach out to me at Mantra Openmind to let me know how the challenge is going and next week we'll do a recap on how things went. I might even share a few personal stories with your permission of course, to help encourage others to participate in the challenges in the future. And this is a two way street so I'll make sure to let you know how Things are going for me, too. So let's talk about last week's challenge. As a reminder, our mantra last week was I release the need for external validation. Something that I don't talk about a lot is that a lot of my career is based in the public eye. People can find me, people can find what I'm working on. People can listen and have opinions about what I do. And it used to really, really bother me. Anytime anything, didn't like what I'd put out, didn't like how I was speaking, didn't like my voice, didn't like the topics I was choosing, my opinion, something I would carry it with me for days. But this last week, I did get a really nasty comment on a video of mine, and it was one of the first times that I was able to just brush it off and not care. I blocked the account, and now I don't think I can even remember or tell you what it said. And I think previously the version of me that needed external validation would see the opinion of a complete stranger and it would ruin my day. And I just think that it's a real beautiful sign of progress and something that hope, hopefully you guys are progressing more towards as well, even if your career isn't online, even if people don't comment on it all the time. Now I want to share some of the DMS we got from listeners. This is my favorite part of the show. I know I said it was the deep thought of the day. It's actually this. This first one comes from Laurie. What advice can you share for me to start trusting my own judgment when I've relied too heavily on external validation for so long? I think trusting your own judgment is actually really a skill. Right? It's something that you can practice, that you can build. So what I want you to start doing is finding opportunities where you get to make the final choice. So, for example, if you and your friend are deciding on where to go for dinner or deciding on a movie or deciding on plans, I want you to start asserting your opinion. And it doesn't have to be rude or arrogant. Just start asserting your preference. And I think that that really helps you believe in yourself and have confidence that you are making your decisions and that you can make decisions for yourself. Another important part of trusting your own judgment is also just really returning to that deep core of who you are and why you like yourself. Sometimes we don't trust our own judgment because we don't really trust that we know who we are and we don't believe that we are someone who is worthy of making decisions or worthy of being loved, respected, validated, internally. So what I really want you to focus on is what do you actually like about yourself? What do you love about yourself? What are the secret gardens within you that other people don't know and therefore can't appreciate, but that which you get to appreciate yourself? This next question comes from Jordan. What's the difference between seeking healthy feedback and craving validation? How can I tell them apart? How you can tell them apart, I really think is whether it's a need or whether it's a bonus. So craving validation is something that you need. It's a necessity to you. You can't go without it. You can't act without someone else telling you that's a good decision. You can't dress a certain way without knowing someone else already likes your outfit. You can't be proud of who you are without someone else saying they're proud of you too. So it's a need. It's something that you really, really crave and desire. Feedback is something that is helpful but which is not entirely necessary or defining. So it's something that you are happy to accept and that you would enjoy receiving, but you don't need it necessarily to know who you are. So that's really how I distinguish them in my brain. Thank you so much for your DMs. Remember that we are always here and ready to hear from you. Questions, comments, queries. Feel free to reach out. Now it's time for this week's challenge, which is a Gratitude Journal. Every day this week, take a moment to write down three things that you are grateful for, big or small. It could be as simple as a really nice message from a friend, or waking up before your alarm or having two seats on the train, two seats on the bus. A really good cup of coffee. Small is important here and you can really do it any time of the day. But make sure that it's somewhere that fits well into your routine. Personally, I really like to do it before bed. One of my really good friends, Zoe, she has had a gratitude journal for a decade and she does it religiously before bed every single night. I find that it really helps me to wind down. I'm not as diligent as she is. Sometimes I forget, sometimes I skip it. But just make sure that you know sometimes most days, your last thoughts about your day are the positive ones. By doing this gratitude Journal practice and really actively focusing on gratitude and being thankful again, you train your mind to find a little nugget of good a Little silver lining in every situation. Very much setting a positive tone for the week ahead. Also, a little bonus challenge, if this is a mantra you're really resonating with, is to write a gratitude letter. Make it about someone else. So all I want from you is just to choose someone in your life who is really making an impact for you, who really loves you, cares about you, does a lot for you, and just write them a really beautiful letter. Why are you grateful for them? What do you love most about them? You don't even have to send it. Just keep it safe with you. As a reminder to really appreciate what is so often taken for granted. And as a reminder, reach out to antraopenmind to share how this challenge is working for you. You all right? As we wrap up this week's episode, I want to share a few final thoughts about this week's mantra. I choose gratitude in every situation. This is really what I'm taking away from this episode. Being grateful is something that, as humans, is our birthright. It is something that we don't have to struggle to feel when we're young. We look around, we appreciate beauty, we feel sensations so deeply. Gratitude is something that is always very close to the surface. All you have to do is notice it. It's something that has tremendously changed my life. And I remember when I was first really exploring a grateful life, thinking, this is ridiculous. This can't change much. This is just a silly little band aid. Actually, no, it's completely transformative. So I would really, really encourage you just to try it, see if it changes anything for you. And if it does, keep going with it as we wrap up as well. I want to express my deepest gratitude for you, yes, you, the listener, for being here, for showing up, and for really embracing these mantras with me. Your commitment to this journey, it really is inspiring. It's why I want to keep doing this. And I also want you to remember that gratitude has power to really shift your perspective and open up your heart. So carry it with you. Try and access it whenever you can, even if it's small. And again, thank you so much for being part of this space, this healing space. I am truly grateful. Thank you for joining Mantra, an exclusive Open Mind original powered by Pave Studios At Open Mind, we value your support. So share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. For ad free listening and early access to Mantra with me, Jemma Speg. We invite you to subscribe to Open Mind plus on Apple Podcasts. I'LL share another insightful and introspective Mantra with you next Monday. Until then, keep showing up for yourself and your journey. I'm Gemma Spag. See you next week. Mantra is hosted by me, Gemma Speg, and is an open mind original. Powered by Pave Studios, this episode was brought to life by the Mantra team. Max Cutler, Kristen Acevedo, Ron Shapiro, Stacey Warrenker, Sarah Carroll and Paul Liebeskind, thank you for listening.