Speaker 1: 0:10

Hey there, I'm Jenny Perez. I'm a wife, mom and small business owner and although I love being all of those things, I'm at the point where I feel like there's something more to life outside of those roles. Does that sound like you? If you're in search of that extra magic, craving a dose of positivity, purpose and real talk on being worthy, capable and able, you're in the right place. Let's kick off this journey together. Ignite that spark, radiate some positivity and discover what makes your life and business truly shine. Ready to jump in? Let's spark some radiance together. Hello, and welcome back to the Sparking Radiance podcast. I'm Jenny Perez. Can I just say that I have a huge smile on my face because you're here with me and I'm going to dive right on in guys me and I'm going to dive right on in guys.

Speaker 1: 1:07

So my daughters and I, we frequent a local thrift store, a not-for-profit thrift store, and we tend to go there and we look for books. The thrift store is a great place to find books for kids. I have a daughter who is learning to read independently and it's a great place for me to find affordable books and she gets super excited about it and super involved in it. And for me personally, I have found some really great books, and I'll give you a perfect example. I purchased a book for 10 cents not that long ago. It was 10 cents and the book added so much value to my life. I would have paid $1,000 for that book. So just a little tip check out your local thrift stores. They're a great place to find books, and so we frequent this thrift store.

Speaker 1: 1:53

We went the other day and then they were kind of like you know, we're having a fall event and it's an open house to come see. You know what we do here, and so we've been having some nice weather here locally and I thought, you know, it's a great, great way to be out. I'm going to take the kids. So the girls and I we went over to this event that they had. I thought it was actually going to be in the parking lot of the thrift store, but it was actually at the location of this facility. So what it was was it was a fall event where they had, you know, trunk or treat and they had an open house per se, kind of like.

Speaker 1: 2:29

This is what we do, this is who we serve, and it's a huge, huge facility. It's like over 58 acres. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would have been. What they do is they help children who are displaced from the foster care system, trauma experiences, and they create an environment of love, normalcy, dignity, hope. And it's a residential program. So on that 58 acre lot you will have different houses where they house these children.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Their event was to allow people to come in to see what they do, what they're currently, who they're serving, and then a way for you to also give back as well, but them to also serve the community that's surrounding. And so the girls and I had a great time. They had ponies painting, of course, the trunk retreats, but one of the things that they did was they allowed you to go inside one of the houses. They call them cottages, but you were able to go inside one of the cottages and actually see where they support. These children said hey mom, look, there's people going in that house, can we go in? And you know, cause it was a, it's a huge 58 acres. So we were, you know, at the stables, we were at the playground, we were all over the facility, but we didn't go. We hadn't gone into the house. There's even a chapel as well on the facility. So I said, sure, why not? So the moment we walked into the house, the moment we walked into the house and you look up on the wall and you look on one side and you see pictures of children, and you see pictures of children with families, as families, and you see different ages, different ethnicities, but you can tell they were different years.

Speaker 1: 4:18

So you just see these two parents with pictures of these children and there was just this sense. And as I walked through the hallway and I'm walking in with my children, there was just this sense of humility that just took over. And the humility was, or what. The feelings that I felt were like oh my gosh, I have so much to be thankful for, I have so much to be grateful for. My children have so much to be grateful for.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And in the presence of that house, it wasn't the impression that I got was humility, because I was so grateful for what I have, but I also was grateful for the feeling I can't describe it the feeling of when I was in the house of I was grateful for these children as well. I was grateful that these children had a place of love, these children had a place to call home and we kind of just briefly toured the house. Mom, she actually lived there and she talked about she was giving people tours and talking about. You know, this is what we do here. This is the way the house was laid. It just had this warmth in there, this safe space of love that you can just feel overflowing.

Speaker 1: 5:25

But as we walked out of the house, I got to share with my children and explain to my children what it meant to live there for these other children and what it meant for them and the appreciation of my ability to be able to be their mothers but also for them to have me as a mother. It's a very and maybe I'm still processing how I'm feeling towards it that event and that us going into to be humbled by this place, but humbled in a loving and a grateful way, and grateful that these children have this place to go home. But it made me kind of think a little bit more. You know, we're in that season now where we're going to have Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we have this season of gratefulness right. And it made me think, like what does it mean to be grateful? What does it truly mean to be grateful? And I will tell you I love fall. It's my favorite season of them all, like they say.

Speaker 1: 6:20

But I wanted to and I see it. If you walk into my house now, you'll see I have my fall decorations out and I have thankful here and blessed here and I'm grateful for this and I'm grateful, thankful for that. But I wanted to dive deeper into like, really, what does that mean? What does it mean to be grateful? What does it truly mean? Is it just that hashtag I'm hashtag blessed, hashtag thankful and yet we're going to see that in the next coming 30 days, a lot of people that we know on social media or within our people that we know they practice the 30 days of gratefulness right, but what does it really mean to be grateful? So I wanted to dive into gratefulness and thankfulness and what it really means, because I wanted to get past the fact of grateful. Grateful is, when I originally think of it, I'm grateful because I attained something, but I think it's deeper than that, guys. So bear with me as I kind of dive in this together. So what I discovered, or what I? One of my questions is what does it mean to be grateful?

Speaker 1: 7:22

Gratitude is an emotion similar to appreciation. The American Psychological Association more specifically defines this phenomenon as a sense of happiness and thankfulness in response to a fortune, hapstance or a tangible gift. Gratitude is both a state and a trait and it's showing or expressing thanks, especially to another person, having a sense of happiness in response. Another word for being grateful is feeling or expressing gratitude, being thankful, appreciative, glad, indebted. So again looking at the definition, it's a sense of happiness.

Speaker 1: 8:04

I wanted to kind of dive into a little bit more that as we enter into this season of thankfulness or the season of gratitude. So it could be something based upon the definition of what I see is it could be something that you're thankful for the situation that's happening, so something that's happening to you. It could be that you are grateful for something that you receive, something tangible. But where I wanted to dive a little bit deeper in the definition is I did see that it could also be a state of mind or trait. And there I know, you all know that there are certain people that you have come across in this life that are just so grateful and have so much gratitude in their heart and their gratitude is expressed through their expression, with other interactions with people, with their serving hearts to help others.

Speaker 1: 8:55

So I wanted to dive a little bit more into this gratitude, and so what I found was there's this article that I found in the Reader's Digest, and one of the things that they mentioned is that grateful people are happy people, and this was one of the top findings of the Harvard Development Study, and this is a very interesting study that has gone on, so it's one of the longest running studies on happiness and health in the world, and it has spanned over two generations of Americans. What's more, grateful people live longer and are healthier overall. This means that learning how to practice gratitude is one of the best things you can do for yourself, and this is said by the current director of the study, and he's a psychiatrist by the name of Robert Waldinger. And so why? Why is gratefulness, the practice of gratitude, the best thing you can do for yourself? Well, in this article, they mentioned why. Well, the answer is simple being grateful focuses your attention on what you have rather than what you don't, and it reminds you about all the things good in your life.

Speaker 1: 10:01

It also has another, less obvious benefit, according to Dr Waldinger, who co-authored the Good Life, a book that divulges the secrets of happiness based on the Harvard study, gratitude is one of the best tools we have for strengthening relationships, and our relationship with others are the strongest factor in determining happiness, he explains, adding that being grateful is one of the simplest and easiest things we can do to increase your happiness and the effect is almost instantaneous. So they go on to further explain, like going in deeper, what is gratitude? So they talk about what does it mean to have gratitude exactly? So gratitude is a positive feeling of being thankful for someone or something, but in practice it is so much more than that. Gratitude is a productive emotional training tool. When you are grateful for your life, you can experience the positive and pleasant things associated with happiness peace, passion, excitement and love. These pleasant emotions can be the catalyst for positive change in your life. Gratitude is also the opposite of our negative inner voice. It disrupts negative patterns and creates an opportunity for us to focus on all good in one's past, present and future.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Now that particular study. It's pretty deep because, from what I did read from it, it's a study where they went and this psychiatrist I read a few things on him and he's actually the fourth director, so they've basically followed. They followed a group of Harvard graduates, and then they also, in that same timeframe, they also followed a group of young children from socioeconomic backgrounds that were different from those of the Harvard, and then they followed them all the way. Some of these participants are still alive today and have continued to follow them and ask them questions throughout the years. But in this book, the Good Life, what he concludes is that gratitude is is one of the best tools that the participants had, that they learned throughout their life. And it's a very interesting multi-generational study that was conducted and I'll put that study it was the adult development study and I'll put that in the show notes for those of you that want to read a little bit more on the actual study itself and my understanding to this day it's still going because they still have participants that are still living and have been a part of this study. So pretty, pretty interesting. So they study not only the participants but then the future generations of those participants as well. So I'll put those in the show notes for you.

Speaker 1: 12:50

So let's get a little nerdy here. And there is obviously there's a science actually behind gratitude. So there are psychological and also physical benefits of gratitude. Okay, so let's talk about some of the scientific benefits of gratitude. So what they have found is that there is a link between gratitude and our brain chemistry and emotional benefits. Okay, so when we practice gratitude, we release dopamine and serotonin. Okay, so the brain releases dopamine and serotonin to neurotransmitters that are linked to happiness and good mood. So when we are grateful, when we practice gratefulness, these will release on a more consistent basis. These will release on a more consistent basis, leading us to be more positive in our mood. It also gives us an increased neural sensitivity to positivity.

Speaker 1: 13:45

So over time, if we continue to practice gratitude, our brain begins to rewire itself to become more sensitive to positive experiences and we focus on things that we appreciate. And what that will do is that'll reinforce pathways in our brain to make it easier to see the good in other situations, good in other things, good in other people, and it seems like it kind of replicates itself. Right, our brain senses a pattern of it kind of takes us down that route, right. So some of the psychological benefits of gratitude is that it will lead to stress reduction. So studies have shown that practicing gratitude lowers your cortisol levels, which is obviously a major stress hormone, and lower cortisol levels will relate to reduced stress and anxiety and help you maintain a calmer outlook. Gratitude gives us this sense of enhanced resilience by helping us focus on positive aspects of the difficult situation, it makes us easier to bounce back to challenges. Positive psychology of it is that it helps us indicate what we find meaning in and learning opportunities that we've talked about before during tough times.

Speaker 1: 14:50

The physical health benefits of being grateful is that it's linked to studies that show that it improves your sleep quality. It's suggesting and this one I find interesting is that studies suggest that grateful people fall asleep faster and enjoy a deeper, more restorative sleep. That would make sense, right, because they're not worried about, I would imagine they would have less worry. The other theory suggests that focusing on positive things before bed will help you sleep better. Less intrusive negative thinking, you know, sometimes can disrupt our sleep, which is true kind of what I was pinning at before. Being grateful allows the physical benefits as well. Studies have shown that the positive emotional state factored in by gratitude our immune system also has a positive response. It helps our bodies keep away infection and stay healthy. Being more grateful or practicing gratitude has also been linked to possibly studies that have shown to have lower blood pressure. So expressing gratitude regularly may experience reduced blood pressure, contributing overall to your cardiovascular health.

Speaker 1: 15:57

So there are also social and relational benefits of gratitude. Practicing gratitude strengthens any social bonds that you have with others, right Like creating empathy and trust and making people more engaged. Expressing gratitude also makes us feel valued, which connect more with others, and research has also shown that people who practice gratitude regularly are more likely to feel connected to others and it counters and it reduces the feelings of loneliness. So gratitude promotes a mindset of abundance and community and it keeps us connected and it kind of pulls us from those feelings of being isolated or being lonely. So some studies that were done at the University of California Davis, a doctor by the name of Robert Amos, a leading researcher on gratitude, found that people who practice gratitude were 25% that's a big number 25% happier than those who did not. Like we mentioned before, his studies had shown improvements in physical health and energy levels. There was also some additional studies at the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center and they highlight how gratitude practices leads to lasting increases in happiness, social connectedness and the attitude of pay it forward by inspiring kindness in others.

Speaker 1: 17:22

So here's what I get from the stats there are benefits to your psychological well-being. So there are benefits that our body practicing gratitude, there are going to be benefits that our bodies, our minds, are going to experience with the release of dopamine and serotonin. The psychological benefits, obviously, is stress reduction, enhanced resilience, but then the physical benefits. I find that really interesting and now that we talk about it and I think about it, that is true. If you are practicing gratitude and you have these positive feelings going on in your mind before you go to bed, instead of worry and negative, you're right. Go to bed with a sense of, a different sense than if you're pondering negative thoughts, because those tend to wake us up at night because our brain is trying to solve the problem, versus going to bed with a grateful heart or a grateful mind will actually lead to restorative, more sleep. So they'll definitely want to learn a little bit more about that and try maybe some activities surrounding about that, because, if you're anything like me, I love a good night's sleep.

Speaker 1: 18:27

So why am I talking so much in depth about gratitude? You're probably like Jenny. Okay, I get it, I need to be more thankful, but I am. I have it on my heart to share this gratitude piece because I again that I just if I wish I could just bottle up that feeling that I felt when I walked humbly into that home where these children come from traumatic backgrounds, from the foster care system. But yet in that home I felt this amazing sense of love and this amazing sense of gratitude. And I made a comparison with myself, with my children, with myself and my children, and I made a comparison with those children. Those children were have nothing. Those children have nothing. They have the one thing that is so important and they have just the love. They have the love. There were a few in the house and they were so sweet and I wish I could just bottle up that feeling for you. It's just so hard to describe. So I'm focusing on this gratitude piece because we are in that season. We are in that season where we're like, oh, thankful, I'm blessed, I'm happy, I'm so thankful for this, I'm so thankful for that. But I really want us guys as part of the Sparking Radiance community, I really want us to dig to feel that deepness of gratitude, of what it is like to understand that when you have gratitude in your heart, when you have gratitude toward everything in your life, you actually have the ability to gain.

Speaker 1: 20:05

When we think about gratitude because we think that it's something, a lot of times it's tangible, like the roof over my head or the income that I make or the success of my business or the success of my children we think of it something exchangeable. It's tangible, but it's actually deeper than that and when we understand that, when we practice gratitude, we think it's scarcity in that we're thankful for the little that we have, but it's actually bigger than that. It's. When we practice gratitude, we're creating a pathway for becoming more abundant. Or it's hard to explain, so we think of it as scarcity, like I'm grateful, I'm for the little that I have, I'm grateful. But actually when you have that mindset, when you have that, that ability to appreciate what you do have, it opens the door. It's the pathway to more abundance. So, for example, I'm grateful for the fact that I have a healthy family. That's I'm grateful for the fact that I have a healthy family. That's going to lead to the fact that I have positive relationships. And then that leads me to a section of being grateful for the community that I built around me. So it just continues to magnify and magnify. So being grateful is the opposite of thinking in scarcity. It's actually the being grateful is the ability to think in abundance. Okay, so this is a deep one. This is a deep one.

Speaker 1: 21:29

I think when we hear gratitude, when we hear thankfulness, especially around this time of year, we kind of take it for granted, and I want us to really think in thought, and so I know I want to talk about some activities that we can do to tackle this. Again, this is another one that we would be happy to dive deeper into, but in this season of thankfulness, in this season of great gratitude and some of you are probably going to listen to this episode after the fact Regardless, I don't think that it should be limited to one day of thankfulness. It's how do we practice that thankfulness and that gratitude every day, every day, every day that we wake up and we take that first breath. It's the moment that we wake up with gratitude, it's the feeling that we have because we have a new day under our belt. Okay, so let's talk about our activity of the week, all right. So I kind of toiled on this one, because I was trying to think of something that would be applicable to gratitude without making it overwhelming, because there's so many ways, and you'll see again, like this time of year, we're going to have the people that practice the 30 days of gratitude.

Speaker 1: 22:35

But I think, keeping it simple, writing something down what are you thankful for? What are the three things right now that you are thankful for? What are the right three things right now that you are thankful for? So, the fact I'll give you one right now the fact that you can hear, you have the, you have the ability, both of your ears are working, the fact that you are here, that is something to be grateful for and again, it's going to, and it allows you to see things from a different perspective. And if you need help with getting ideas as to what to be grateful for, reach out to me. I'll help you.

Speaker 1: 23:00

But three things. Write down three things right now that you are thankful for, okay, and then you can easily see how writing down those three things will then lead you down another path, a more abundant path. Well, because I can hear, I can listen. Because I can listen, I can then learn. And because I can learn, then I can teach. And because I can teach, I can make impact, and because I can impact, I can help my community. So you can see where practicing the simple thought, the simple act of gratefulness then opens the doors to the next more abundant thing and the next more abundant thing and the next more abundant thing. So I'm curious to see. So try this out, guys. Write down three things that you're grateful for and see, and kind of pile up on top of them. I can hear, I can listen, I can learn, I can teach and do that and whatever those three things are, build upon those and see how it will continue to grow. All right, so write down three things.

Speaker 1: 23:56

The other thing I think some of us I know quite a few of you do the journaling. You know some people will practice. Let's try that. Let's see if we can get some more better sleep, right, let's journal or let's write down something that we're grateful for right before we go to bed. So you know, some of us are. It's going to come out easy. We'll be able to write them rather quickly. We know exactly what we are grateful for. But some of us we may need a little bit more guidance. Use this as your guideline.

Speaker 1: 24:24

So I am grateful for.

Speaker 1: 24:25

This is your affirmation of what that you're writing down I am grateful for, and fill in the blank. Three things. That's it. Write it down right before you go to bed. I am grateful for. Some of us are going to write down. I am grateful for that. I made it to bedtime or the end of the night. Some of us are going to write down. I am grateful for that. I am feeling better. Some of us are going to write down. I am grateful for my partner. I'm grateful for my children. I'm grateful for my home.

Speaker 1: 24:49

Some of us, it's the basics. We're at a stage where it's the basics. I'm grateful for the fact that I ate today. Okay, so it can be as small as that, or it can be as big as I'm grateful for 2020, 2024, wrapping into 2025. It could be something big like that. But write down those gratitude affirmations at night. I want us to see if it really does, according to the studies, have an impact on how we feel the next morning. I'm really curious to see if this is really going to impact our sleep.

Speaker 1: 25:22

So that is the other thing. That is the second activity. So write the three things down and then, at night, we're going to take right additional things that right before we go to bed, something that I also an activity that we can also do during this season and again, it doesn't have to be during the season, it can be throughout the year is writing a gratitude letter. So write a letter to someone writing letting them know how grateful you are for them. It could be some of us. Because of time, it could be a video.

Speaker 1: 25:52

I want to try to make it a little bit more personal. So write something out. You know, go to the dollar store and they have cards there too for a dollar. Pick out two cards, send it to two different people and write a letter to them, or write them a note of what you are grateful for about them, because we've all been impacted by others in our lives. Remind them of what they mean to you through the gratitude level and you'll see the benefits that not only you receive for writing to them, but that you also transfer and give to them as part of showing your appreciation. All right, guys.

Speaker 1: 26:28

So I know I went a little bit long on this episode here, but again, if I can just bottle up that feeling that I felt when I walked into that home and share it with you all, I would. I could you know I would give it with you all. I would. I could, you know, I would give it to you freely, but one, one thing that I took from it was what I can give you, since I can't bottle up that feeling. What I can tell you is that gratitude was the foundation. The foundation of that feeling Because, with the gratitude within my own life, of all the many blessings that I have to be thankful for, it was a reminder of the humbleness that is experienced when we truly are grateful and the impact that we have within ourselves, but also the impact of showing gratefulness that we will discover and experience when we share that with others.

Speaker 1: 27:25

So I'm going to, in this season, I genuinely, this week, I want you to focus on gratitude. Remind yourself what you are so thankful for, and for some of us, it's going to be simple the fact that you have running water in your house is a benefit, or it is something to be thankful for. For some of us, it's going to be bigger than that. We're thankful for our health, we're thankful for our ability to interact with others. There are so many different ranges of gratefulness, but all I can say, guys, on this episode, is practice gratitude, practice gratitude and you'll see how much more abundant your life will become.

Speaker 1: 28:11

I'm going to leave you with a couple of quotes here as we reflect upon gratitude, not only this week, not only this month, but throughout the entire year, and some quotes that I found. Here's a quote that I really liked we can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or we can rejoice because thorns have roses, and that's by Alphanis Carr. Here's another one by an unknown Gratitude is the seed of abundance. I'm gonna read that one again that one's deep Gratitude is the seed of abundance. I'm going to read that one again that one's deep Gratitude is the seed of abundance. And, guys, I'm going to end with this one here, in that gratitude turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and it creates a vision of tomorrow. And that's by Malady Beattie.

Speaker 1: 29:11

Guys, I am grateful for each and every one of you. I am grateful for the fact that you can hear my voice Build upon that Practice gratefulness. Trust me, when you practice gratefulness, you will experience a world of abundance. With that said, guys, you know I love you all. Have a great week Until next time. You hear that clap. That's me cheering you on for completing another episode. I don't know about you, but, man, that was quick. If you like what you heard, hit the subscribe button or share the episode with someone you think that might need a little spark and help us grow by leaving a review. Remember, keep sparking that radiance from within Until next time. Shine on.