Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone, this is going to be super short and sweet because I hope you’re busy celebrating with your families, whether they’re your biological or your chosen ones, or maybe some close friends.
So we haven’t had much childcare this week and next. I’m recording this on a Saturday, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, actually. My son’s school had parent teacher conferences. This was kind of the first one, he’s in kindergarten. And then next week, he’s off starting Wednesday. So it’s been challenging for me to get work done, but I wanted to make sure I recorded something for you.
So it’s Thanksgiving and so, well, it’s about giving thanks. Although the origins of it, I know, are not great. But now it’s become a time when people come together and eat a lot of food, Turkey, et cetera. We’re actually hosting it for my family this time. I’m going to make the turkey, or maybe Matt will.
FYI, unless you have one of those deep fryer turkeys, which I really want to try but we just haven’t had a chance to experience that. I think the secret to a really, really juicy breast, because you know it tends to dry out and just be gross, is to just roast it upside down. It’s so simple, you literally just roast it upside down because all the juices from the thighs and the fatty things drip down and keep the turkey really moist.
The only bad thing about doing this is that it doesn’t look as nice. You could just flip it over and brown it, et cetera. But who cares? You’re going to cut it up anyway, okay? So that’s my little Thanksgiving tip.
All right, so really all I wanted to say today is how important a gratitude practice is. And it has been proven that it improves wellbeing, happiness, et cetera. But it’s not just you should give thanks every day or et cetera, but it’s really taking the time and feeling in your body what you have now, what you can appreciate. Jack, do you want to say hello real quick?
Jack: Hello.
Bonnie: Do you want to say what you’re grateful for today?
Jack: Who is that?
Bonnie: No, what you’re grateful for. Do you want to say thank you about something?
Jack: Who is it?
Bonnie: Oh, I’m just talking to my friends.
Jack: Hi.
Bonnie: Do you want to say something you’re grateful for?
Jack: Hey, why are they not talking?
Bonnie: Because I’m just talking to them. They can hear us.
Jack: Why?
Bonnie: Do you want to just tell them real quick, what you’re thankful for?
Jack: To go to the bagel store. Yay!
Bonnie: Okay, how many of you take the actual time to be grateful for something? Something specific. It could be one thing, it could be three things. And the reason why it’s so important, well, there are many reasons. But the reason in terms of the context of what I teach about coaching is that it shows your brain what you do have.
Our brain defaults to what’s wrong, what’s missing, just commenting all day long about what we don’t have, what’s not working and simply, it’s scarcity thinking, right? It’s like I don’t have enough of this, I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough money. And that is like the default. And that’s normal. So if this is you, nothing is wrong. This is just literally how our brains are designed out of the box.
But with a daily gratitude practice, and I don’t just mean like, I’m so grateful, I don’t know, for my morning coffee. And there’s nothing wrong with being grateful for that, by the way. But many of us just go through the motions and we’ll maybe say one thing or two things. But you really want to spend some time, and I’m not even talking a lot of time, okay? This could be 10 seconds, 30 seconds, really sinking into that feeling of gratitude where you can really feel the sensations of it in your body.
And one thing I’ll say is that for most of us, the feeling of grateful is what I call one of the quieter or softer emotions. I’ve seen this emotion volume chart where it’s four quadrants. And so basically two are positive, two are negative. And then there’s low volume and high volume emotions, right?
So feeling angry, feeling scared, those are, A, negative emotions and, B, pretty loud, right? It’s really obvious that you feel that way, it kind of takes over your body, right? And my experience is that a lot of the positive emotions are actually pretty quiet. Things like joy, things like feeling grateful. And so it’s so easy to not feel them.
And when I say feel them, I mean feeling them in your body. Feeling all the sensations associated with it. And you kind of have to be still and quiet in order to actually feel them rising up in your body. It’s going to feel different for everyone, okay? Maybe it’s a warmth in your chest area or just a feeling of lightness overall.
And so this type of practice shows your brain what you do have, what’s going right. And you can even turn these into questions, right? A lot of us when we’re trying to do something new, we’re so worried about it not working out, right? This is how many of us are scared of taking risks in terms of money, or really anything you’re doing in life.
And so first, it’s normal to be scared. That’s how our brains are designed. But the problem is, most of us just go into it, “What if this doesn’t work out? I’m scared. Something bad might happen.” But we don’t spend any time in the opposite. “What if this could work? What do I know about this? What skills do I already have? What do I believe about this right now?”
And honestly, this is part of practicing new thoughts, looking for evidence of what you do have. This is how I kind of think about gratitude. I feel like level one is saying thanks for XYZ, really appreciating what you have. And that’s really important. But I think level two is what I’ve just described, really spending time looking and feeling what you do have, and then also spending time really visualizing and feeling that what you want is possible. What if it could work? Why not?
And so that’s all I wanted to say on this really short podcast for Thanksgiving. Also, I’m pretty sure that’s the first time you heard Jack. I decided if he’s going to come into my podcast recording, he may as well say something. We are about to go to the bagel store, he’s been begging for it all morning, so that’s what he’s grateful for.
All right, happy, happy Thanksgiving. I hope you are having an amazing time. I hope you’re getting some rest. And I will talk to you next week.
Hey there, thanks so much for tuning in. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, I’d love for you to leave a review. Reviews tell Apple that this podcast is, well, awesome. And it will help women find this podcast so that they too can live a wealthy life. And finally, you can learn more about me and what I do at wealthymommd.com. See you next week.
How many of you take the time to intentionally be grateful for something every single day?
