Welcome back to a NEW episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast!  I am your host Tom, and I am really excited to be back with you all.  Today, I am going to be talking about Practicing Gratitude for the Good, Bad and the Ugly.

So many of us are on the run and on the go, we forget to be thankful for the people, opportunities and nature around us.  We forget to take a few minutes and just stop, quiet our brains and be grateful for the good, and the bad, in our lives.

Five Year Anniversary of Small Scale Life

Before we do that….Happy Five Year Anniversary of Small Scale Life!

I can’t think of a better way to share this big milestone with you.  Thank you so much for being here and listening to our little podcast or reading our blog once again!  I have a lot in store for us for the next five years, and I can’t wait for those plans to start to unfold as I reveal them to you.

We have come a long way in five years since starting this effort.  We have gone down some interesting rabbit holes since starting, and I never dreamed we would be here five years later.

Change is definitely in the air. Things are moving forward for us in huge ways, and we have been busy on some big projects. It has been a long road and Julie and I have made a lot of big decisions and big moves (literally and figuratively), and I can’t wait to tell you some stories around the campfire in an upcoming show.

Our experience has taught us that change and growth always seems to happen when you have had enough, decide you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and put in the work to make the change you want to see happen.

Of course, it would be great if we could change without a crisis happening around us, right?

I digress. I will have more about those stories and discussions in future episodes of the Small Scale Life Podcast.  We are excited to be back here and walking with you on this journey.

Happy Anniversary, Small Scale Life!  Let’s continue to learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday!

Practicing Gratitude

practicing gratitude quote

I recently posted the following quote on the Small Scale Life Instagram feed:

 “It’s hard to have a bad day when you START your day with gratitude.”

Truth be told, I didn’t just develop this quote out of thin air. Julie says it around the house (now around the apartment) a lot, and it is true.  Practicing gratitude and being thankful really does change our outlook on life and results in helping us lead happier lives.

That is why we had three things that you are grateful for on the Health and Fitness 24 Hour Plan. Julie came up with this idea and insisted on adding it to the plan. What is great about being grateful for three things is that you have to stop and think about it for a couple minutes.  You have to ask yourself the fundamental question:

What ARE you grateful for?

You’d actually be surprised how hard it is to stop yourself for a few minutes and think about it, especially when you are running late to work or a meeting.  It does make a difference in how you start your day, so give it a try.

 

Starting to Practice Gratitude on Your Own

Over the past five months, I have been looking to be more connected to Nature and more grateful for the people and things in my life.  As hard as it is, this includes the tough or “bad” things as well.

After all, I have found that you cannot have JUST the “good” and NOT the “bad.”  This is the ying and yang that we find in our lives and the world today.  Both exist, and we can learn from both. As I have said on many occasions, tough experiences and failures teach us valuable life lessons, sometimes more than wild successes teach us.

Beyond the 24 Hour Plan, how does someone practice gratitude more regularly?

I asked the same question because I wanted to know so I could implement a practice in my own life.  Julie has been practicing gratitude and meditation each morning, and she has been very calm with the chaos and happy (now that we live in a safe place).  Of course, she gets up at the crack of dawn while I am more of a night owl, so I don’t get to see what her morning routine is.  We did talk about her morning routines on our walk recently.

At the same time, there are a lot of people out there that blog on these subjects, and I found the one from tinybudda.com interesting.  Here is what author Helen Russell had to say about it in her article titled “How to Start a Gratitude Practice and Change Your Life”: 

  1. Commit to Practicing Gratitude
  2. Just Start
  3. Write It Down
  4. Feel It
  5. Choose the Same Time Each Day
  6. Practice Present-Moment Gratitude
  7. Share the Gratitude
  8. Don’t Stop when You See Results
  9. Allow Yourself to be Human

If you need a place to start, you can start practicing gratitude by getting a copy of the 24 Hour Plan by signing up for the Health and Fitness Renew You Challenge on Small Scale Life by clicking this text.

 

 

Practicing Gratitude on Small Scale Life

Moving forward, we are going to start practicing gratitude here on Small Scale Life with each podcast episode.  We are going to have a segment on each show called the “Hall of Heroes” where I am going to do some shout outs and thank folks in the audience and on live chats for their participation. 

In the past six months (and past five years) we have amassed a big list.  We are very grateful for everyone who has been so supportive over these past few months.  So many have offered to come get us, checked up on us, offered kind words, liked/shared our content and even gave me some new, fresh SCOBY (thank you a million times, Brian from Happy Hills Homestead). 

There are too many to list, but here are some of those folks who have had kind hearts and shown lots of love over the past six months:

  • Brian from Happy Hills Homestead
  • My good friend Amy from A Farmish Kind of Life
  • Terrance from the Intellectual Agrarian and Suit Up Sunday
  • Captain Lumbersquatch Greg and Susan from The Contrary Farmstead
  • Ann from Suburban Prairie Homemaker LLC
  • The Ohio Lumbersquatch Crew
  • The Colorado-Wyoming Regen Ag Crew (Doneil, Adam, Jason, Michael and Rob)
  • Nikki Rose and Nicole
  • Adam from A Modern Frontier
  • Terri, Pam, Gretchen, Jean and other Members of the Small Scale Life and Small Scale Gardening Facebook Groups
  • Guests on the Small Scale Life Podcast (Scott, Drew, Charles, Travis, Todd, Austin, etc.)
  • Chris from Apple Valley
  • Josh from JKS Homestead
  • Drew from Big Tex Urban Farms
  • The Inner Circle: Michael, John and Mr. Tactical
  • Bert and Trish from the Hoarder Holler Homestead
  • Karen and Abby
  • Ryan, Danny and Sav
  • Last but never ever least…Julie

If I didn’t mention you, I apologize. I did not mean to skip over you or forget you. I did not mean to miss you, and it does not mean that I am belittling your efforts and activities.  I would say to you: keep it up! 

I intend to on doing this in each show, so stay out there and keep participating!

Listen to this Episode!

 practicing gratitude quote

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Special Thanks

For Small Scale Life Podcasts, I would like to thank Sean at Osi and the Jupiter for the intro song "Harvest."  Sean wrote this specifically for us, and I really enjoy all of his work.  You can find more Osi and the Jupiter at their Bandcamp site: https://osifolk.bandcamp.com/

I would also like to thank Austin Quinn at Vlog Vibes for the intro and outro music. For more information abut Austin and Vlog Vibes, please see the Vlog Vibes YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY80LeqtJf-YBzJy2TWKpDw