Mantra with Jemma Sbeg - I Choose Gratitude in Every Situation

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

This week's mantra is I Choose Gratitude in Every Situation. Gratitude has the power to transform how we see the world, even in the most challenging moments. In this episode of Mantra, we dive into the practice of choosing gratitude—not as a denial of hardship, but as a way to shift perspective and uncover hidden blessings. Gratitude isn’t always easy, but it’s a choice that can bring clarity, connection, and a renewed sense of peace. Whether you’re navigating change, finding joy in small wins, or simply seeking a brighter outlook, this Mantra will inspire you to embrace gratitude as a guiding force in your life. For ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to OpenMind+ on Apple Podcasts. For more from OpenMind, follow us on Instagram @openmindstudios. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Open Mind. Welcome to a brand new week. Here is your mantra. I choose gratitude in every situation. I'm your host, Gemma Speckck and I'm here to guide you towards a more centered and fulfilling life. Each week I'll share personal stories and insights that are focused on a specific mantra plus journal prompts and a weekly challenge for all of us to help put it into action. Think of mantra as

your mental reset button, a way to start your week centered as you juggle work, school, family and whatever else life throws at you. Each mantra is a simple powerful phrase you can repeat to refocus your thoughts and bring a bit of calm into your day. It is a small tool with a big impact clearing your mind, lifting your mood and rooting you in the present. If you've listened to my other show, The Psychology of Your 20s, you'll know that I'm all about those little nuggets of insight that make a big impact. So whether you are looking for some extra inspiration or you're trying to ground yourself

amidst the chaos, you have come to the right place. At Open Mind, we value your support. Share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review, and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access, and ad-free listening, join our Open Mind Plus community on Apple Podcasts.

This week, I'll catch you up on what's going on in my life, and then we'll dive into today's mantra, I choose gratitude in every situation. This really invites us to reframe the way that we perceive life's ups and downs by focusing on the power of gratitude, even in challenging moments. We'll explore how practicing gratitude can shift perspectives, deepen resilience, and bring unexpected joy to the everyday. Stick around. We'll be right back after this short pause.

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. 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 highest 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 the 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. In the face of loss, gratitude is there.

In the face of sadness, gratitude, anxiety, gratitude. Even during amazing, wonderful times, we can really fill up our gratitude storage tank to last us through the hard times. 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. 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 continued 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, a really terrible loss a few years back, and it was very hard to see anything good in my life. How could I appreciate a lovely summer's day when everything inside of me felt so dark and cold? 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 it. It 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 sunset, 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. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags.

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But instead, you're sitting on your Aeroplan points. So the only place you're sitting is in your car coming back from work. Use your points and go from sipping on your leftover latte to sipping on the local vintage. So stop sitting on your next trip and start enjoying your Aeroplan points. 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. 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. He lives this philosophy. He has always kept gratitude lists. It's very sweet because I'll be visiting home and I'll find these notes around the house.

Sometimes it will 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, and show me the feeling of a cool breeze, the gooeyness of a chocolate chip cookie. When a dog comes up to you and wants a pat, my favorite song coming on when I hit shuffle, and then bigger things began 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 the 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 around my garden. 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 rosebush is still the rosebush. It has thorns, it has flowers. 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 is 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 and our weekly challenge. Stick around for more after this quick break. 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 yourself. I also love to do my little check-ins so that we can hold ourselves accountable. Reach out to me at mantraopenmind to let me know how the challenge is going. 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. This is a two-way street, 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 on 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. 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. 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 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. 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 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 really 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.

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 at Mantra Open Mind to share

how this challenge is working for 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 sensation 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 bandaid. 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, Gemma Spegg, 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 Speg, 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, Kristin Acevedo, Ron Shapiro, Stacy Warenker, Sarah Carroll and Paul Lieberskind. Thank you for listening.