Everyday gratitude with Kandiee Campbell

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0:00 Are you tired of feeling hopeless, or do you feel as though you carry around an invisible ball and chain? If so, you are in the right place. It's time now for Awaken Hope with Kandiee Campbell. Kandiee is a therapist and grief counselor that works with women to help them process and heal from emotional events that can keep them feeling stuck. Let's take this journey together. And now, here's your host, Kandiee Campbell. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Awaken Hope. I am so super grateful for each and every one of you that you are able to and are choosing to tune in and listen to my show.

0:43 I know that each and every one of you have a choice, and so I want to express my gratitude for you and for everyone you share this with. So before we get into today's episode, I do want to do one small housekeeping thing. As many of you know, I'm coming to you from the beautiful state of Hawaii, and I am eternally grateful. However, my location happens to be underneath the fight line to Honolulu Airport, as well as near a fire station. So that being said, you may not hear a siren or a plane or a jet go by, but if you should, I will take a momentary pause.

1:35 I am still here. Unfortunately, I cannot compete with those noises and that sound. So just stay tuned and thank you for your patience. So let's get into today's episode. Today we are going to talk about the attitude of gratitude. That is one thing that's been really laid on my heart. My question to you is, what are you grateful for? I encourage and I challenge you, I'm going to offer you a challenge. And I want you to do this for one week. I want you to get a notebook and list, begin to list 10 things you are grateful for. It doesn't have to be, it can be big, it can be small, it does not matter.

2:46 The important part is that once you list it, each day and every day, I would say twice a day, when you wake up and before you go to bed, that you look at your list and you express gratitude for those things. Again, they can be something as simple as, I'm grateful I woke up again today, I'm grateful for morning coffee, I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful I have running water, I'm grateful I have a job I go to, I'm grateful I have a, you know, a beautiful home, I'm grateful I have a job I love and even if it's not something you love, be grateful for what you do.

3:44 Because I can promise you this, the more you begin to focus on what you're grateful for, the more things come into your life that will be grateful for and, you know, you can be grateful for things that haven't yet occurred. I'm grateful for my grandchildren being born. I have one being born, is due next week, I have a feeling he is going to make his presence early and then I have another one that's being born in July. I am grateful for that grandchild, I'm grateful for their families and, you know, it doesn't matter what you, what you have to be grateful for. It's the matter that you express the gratitude for what you have and it's a matter of expressing the heartfelt things that you have something coming or you have something that's a show appeared in your life that you're thankful for.

4:56 There are so many things that I have began to see in my life that have showed up as a result of expressing gratitude. I'm grateful I have a comfortable bed to sleep in. I'm grateful that I am able to go and walk with my dog every morning. I'm grateful that I have, I ate cookies this weekend. I love baking chocolate chip cookies and I'm grateful that I had all the ingredients and that I was able to make them. My family loves them and they did taste really yummy. But my point of this is it's so important. We get so going down a path of, you know, things appearing in our life, expectations of how things are going to unfold and the way things appear for us and I am speaking to the choir when I say it's easy to get focused on what we don't have versus what we do have.

6:25 If you can begin to express gratitude or the things you have and even the things that you don't have yet, I promise you this, you will begin to see those things come into your 3D reality because you open, it's like you open up a door when you begin to express gratitude and you begin to internally feel happier. Gratitude is one of the jobs one needs if they want to seek happiness for themselves. The best way to get there is begin to express gratitude daily. You can write it down. Again, I challenge you to write down 10 things. Before you know it, you will have a, I would say a laundry list of things that you're grateful for.

7:39 They can be small, they can be big, it doesn't matter. The important part is that you begin to look at that list, you begin to express gratitude for that list, express gratitude for the things that you may want but they haven't necessarily showed up in your life yet. You're grateful that you're getting a raise, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. You're grateful for, you know, that you have a wonderful job. I'm grateful for this radio show. I'm grateful for the media team that has put this together, has enabled me to have the show. I'm grateful for the editing team that edits all my shows. I'm grateful for each and everything I have.

8:47 Now you may be thinking, well, there's not a lot to be grateful for. I haven't had, I've had this or I've had that go wrong, and that we're going to talk about in a second. Sometimes you have to just reframe how you look at something, instead of seeing what you don't have, focus on the silver lining of what you have. You know, we all have events happen in our lives, none of us, hear me when I say this, none of us are immune from life happening. You can be moving along, grooving along, and all of a sudden, life throws you a curve ball. And before you know it, you're like, oh my goodness, where did that come from and how did I get here?

9:47 But the truth we told about that is it's not so much that life through your curve ball, it's going to, we are in a journey. And things happen on this journey. The important part to see about that is that, yeah, it may have upended your life in that moment in time, and it may have changed the direction you were choosing to go, but there is always, always, always, always a silver lining for the events that appear in our life. We may not necessarily see it right away, but if we express gratitude for even the most challenging things, we will begin, eventually begin to see what we can be grateful for.

10:46 Maybe it stopped you, you know, you were moving along thinking things were going to go a certain direction and it didn't. But maybe had you kept going down that direction, you would have landed somewhere and you couldn't, you didn't want to go. Anything's possible. All right, we're going to take a short break. We'll be back and we will continue along with the story. Hello, hello, hello. It's Kandiee Campbell from the Awaken Hope Radio Show, and I've got something special for you. As a licensed therapist who focuses on [therapy term unclear], I've teamed up with a writing coach to bring you a series of journals to help you process your feelings and emotions, hopefully gaining clarity and understanding along the way.

11:36 If you're ready to embark on a journey of healing, then I've got just the right thing for you, the Hope and Healing 90 Day Journal. Imagine, if you will, having your own compassionate companion guiding you through the ups and downs, twists and turns of life. That's what our journals are all about. Each page offers you prompts and nurturing guidance to help you reflect, explore, and grow. Whether you're facing grief, heartache, or just need a little extra support, the Hope and Healing 90 Day Journal is your safe space to let it all out and find your way back to hope. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening.

12:28 I am so grateful, and I want to remind you that no matter how dark it may seem, there's always hope, so take the first step and let's link and hope together. Head over to the journalingcollective.com to get your journal now. This will change your life. Thank you. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Awaken Hope. I am so super grateful that you are tuning in. We've been talking about gratitude and how being focused on the silver lining sometimes can, you know, we have to be grateful for the silver lining. My point of this, before we, I took a short break, my point of this is sometimes things don't necessarily unfold the way you think they're going to unfold, and if you keep going down the path that you're going down, you find yourself in spaces that, yeah, you can come back from them, but they're a heck of a lot harder.

13:42 So if you can focus on gratitude for every little thing, even the changes that you see are happening in your life that you don't necessarily want to see, you will begin to, it will begin to reveal things to you that you may not have seen. For example, when I, this was, hmm, my kids were little, I had applied for a specific job and I had made it through the first round of interviews and I thought, I really thought at that time that this was something that I wanted to do. So they asked me to come and do the second round of interviews. Well, the second round of interviews required me to travel to a different state, and initially I said, sure.

14:48 And then I felt this, I don't know, this is not in my stomach that was like, no, you shouldn't do that. But at the time I wasn't really equipped or abreast to listening to what my intuition or my body was telling me. And I certainly didn't focus on gratitude at that time. I mean, I, you know, I was grateful or I said, thanks for every meal I had, but I didn't express gratitude for every little thing in my life. So my point of this is I moved along, I scheduled the second interview and then this uncomfortable feeling I was feeling in the pit of my stomach and my gut just grew.

15:42 And I was like, oh man, some reason, you know, every time I thought about that second interview, it got more intense, the uncomfortable pain I was feeling became more intense. So I was like, well, I didn't know what, what it was or why I was experiencing it. So I kept, I kept going along. And then finally I was, you know, I went to bed. I had to get up early. I was supposed to catch a plane and I just didn't feel at peace. So I ended up deciding not to go to the second interview. I just said just something didn't feel right. I just didn't know what I canceled.

16:36 I left a message that I wasn't going to be able to, you know, I was declining the second interview and I thank you for the opportunity, but it just wasn't going to work. And when I made that decision, that uncomfortable feeling I had went away. And I tell you this story, not to, one, it's to learn to listen to your intuition, but to, to focus on the gratitude of the silver lining of that issue or that event. And I kept going. I probably would have landed somewhere that was harder to come back from. And as it was, it worked out much better that I didn't do, you know, that I didn't get this job or I didn't make go to the second interview because circumstances in my life drastically changed and for that I was grateful.

17:48 I didn't see it at the time. I didn't know it at the time, but the silver lining of everything that transpired. I was grateful that I got the knot in my stomach. I was grateful that I had the uneasy feeling appear in my circumstances, in my body, and I unfolded in a way that I could not see. And I had no vision or no sight of how it was going to unfold. Now at the time, my husband was coming down on deployment orders. So that had I taken this job, it would have required me to live in a different state, which meant I would have been upending my children's life to go back and forth.

18:57 I didn't understand the circumstances at the time of how things were unfolding and why they were unfolding. They were the way they were, but there was a greater picture and when I began to focus on being grateful for the silver lining, I began to see things from a different perspective. Now I still have things that, you know, appear in my life and I'm like, darn, I don't understand that, but I choose, and this is where you make a choice, I choose to see, to practice gratitude for the things, the silver lining of an event that may, the event may have unfolded and I'm not seeing it the way I would like to see it, but if I focus on what the silver lining will reveal to me, one, I begin to see that silver lining, two, it unfolds in a more peaceful way.

20:15 Now for me, I will tell you this, learning to let go and let go of control and trust in the universe, in God, in the divine, however you align is really at the core of my journey. This is something that I am working on on a daily basis about learning to let go. Be grateful for everything that shows up in your life, even if you don't see it, even if you don't know what's, you know, it's unfolding in a way that you have no earthly desire for it to unfold, but if you can practice gratitude and if you can choose to let go and trust, you will begin to receive things that are so much better for us.

21:32 With my circumstance, with my job, the one that I had told you about that I made through the first round of interviews, if I had gotten the job, you know, they're like, we really want you to come and do the second round and if I had gone and gotten the job, my personal life at that moment would have taken a big challenge. I had two school aged children and my husband was getting ready to deploy. I just didn't know that and so everything, hear me when I say that, everything at that moment, even though it didn't make sense, it unfolded in a way that was beautiful and I was grateful to see the silver lining of that event.

22:36 I just didn't know it. All right, I'm going to take a short break. I will be right back and we'll continue. Here for the Dunkin Run campaign commercial. It's a great deal. A large copy of Donut for Buck, I mean, it's pretty cool, so I thought it'd be like authentic and meta. Yes, I'm doing the commercial, but am I doing the commercial, you know, I'll come to commercials. I'm a real actor. This is an art form for me. No, you departed. Are you in the car? I'm Matt Damon. No. Yeah, I love him. I love him. Love him. I mean, some of his work, he's got a really consistent career, I think.

23:10 Time for a Dunkin Run. Get a one dollar donut with any medium or larger coffee. Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Awaken Hope. I am so super grateful for each and every one of you, grateful for the show and grateful for everybody that helps make this show the success that it is. So we've been talking about silver linings, being grateful for the silver linings, being grateful for things, how things unfold, even if we don't see it unfolding in a way that we desire to it, for it to unfold. I have had the opportunity to see many things unfold in ways that I didn't necessarily see it unfolding.

23:59 But the truth is that there was something for someone, the divine God universe, however realign that saw the bigger picture and brought certain circumstances to me to unfold a certain way so that I didn't fall into a big, huge hole. Yes, if I had kept going down paths that I thought I wanted them to unfold a certain way, I would have fallen into a big hole. And trust me, I have. There were times when I did things that I should not have and I had that nudge or that feeling that was like, oh, you really don't want to go there. And I blew right past it and I kept on going thinking I knew better.

25:04 But the truth is, sometimes what we think we want and what we think and what we need are two different things. So I encourage you, there's many things I can encourage you to do, but the one thing I really do cannot express enough is begin to express gratitude, even for the decisions you are making right now for the things that haven't happened yet. Like, for example, I am grateful that I have the wisdom to see what I need to see about any given situation. I am grateful that I have the insight or the, you know, the wherewithal to understand something that is presenting in my life.

26:02 If you can begin to express gratitude for those small things, you will begin to, things will begin to unfold so much different. I do know this because I have seen things unfold in my life differently. And I'm grateful for it, it's taken me, it's taken me a while to get to that point. But I do know that it's important to do. I do know that the more we express gratitude, the more we have to be grateful for. And other events and other circumstances unfold for us that we can begin to express gratitude for. Everything we have, everything we do, everything we accomplish or that comes into our reality, our existence, you can begin to express some gratitude for.

27:18 And you may be thinking, but you don't know my circumstances, I haven't had good things occur in my life. Actually I do. I went through a lot when I was younger, when I was an early adult, and everything seemed to unfold in ways that I did not desire, but little did I know. It wasn't my idea for certain things to unfold a certain way, but they did. At the time I didn't necessarily see it, but looking back now, there was an ounce of protection in the way it unfolded, because had I kept going down the path that I thought I wanted or I thought I needed, I would have been in a plethora of trouble, meaning maybe I put myself in the situations that weren't safe.

28:30 Who knows? I mean, there were many things I look back now and I'm like, oh, I'm so grateful that I didn't, you know, I chose to do something different or instead of thinking, I know what's best for me. I'm not saying that we don't know what's good for ourselves, we tend to think we do. But sometimes it's about letting go and trusting that there is a better plan out there. Go with your heart and just say, I'm grateful that I didn't fall off into the weeds. I am grateful for XYZ, you name it, the more you do it, the more you will have. Maybe have a wonderful day and may you focus on gratitude.

29:33 Take care, bye-bye.