As a therapist for the past 15 years,
The one practice that I find myself coming back to over and over again is GLAD.
This practice is a mindfulness practice that helps us to balance out what our brain naturally does.
So your brain is Teflon for the good and Velcro for the bad.
It's really important to our brains that we notice the dangers,
The problems,
The challenges,
The things that are threatening for us.
Our brain's number one job is to keep us alive.
Number two is to help us avoid discomfort.
And so we've got that muscle,
That muscle is already built.
GLAD helps us build the muscle that also acknowledges that positive things do happen.
So this is something that I teach almost every client I ever work with.
It's something,
A practice that I do personally,
And it's something that I know that works because in my brain,
I literally will call these things out,
Not even actively in my head.
So GLAD stands for Gratitude,
Learned,
Accomplished,
And Delight.
So even if you only get two out of the four of those on a regular basis,
The importance doing this practice regularly.
So I do have a meditation on my insight timer channel that also walks you through this practice if you just need that kind of structure.
Or you can literally do this in the shower every morning.
You can do this,
You know,
At the dinner table with your family or at bedtime with your partner or even with your kids.
So focusing on something that we feel grateful for.
This can be as big as getting a promotion,
Or maybe even just the roof over your head,
Or as small as that really delicious cup of coffee that you had,
Or the compliment,
You know,
Maybe someone paid you that you passed on the street.
So what's something you're grateful for?
What's something that you learned today?
Did you learn something about yourself?
Did you learn that you really don't like waiting in line for that coffee?
Or what was it that you learned today about yourself,
About the world,
About others?
A stands for accomplishment.
And I think that this one is particularly important because I really,
Truly don't think that we give ourselves credit for all of the things that we accomplish on a day-to-day basis.
We're very much focused on the things that we didn't do quite right or the things that we want to do differently next time,
Which is useful.
But what did you accomplish today?
And then D,
My personal favorite,
Is delight.
And this is the one that I know truly works.
My brain will call out delights on a pretty regular basis without me even prompting it.
Laugh particularly hard at a TV show,
You find a delight in just feeling the warm sun on your skin,
Or a lot of times in my case,
Delights are typically dog related.
I'm out for a walk with my dogs and either they make me smile or we see another amazing dog out in the world and that makes me smile.
There's your delight.
So for years,
I had a reminder on my phone that would pop up every day that said intention.
And so this was to remind me to check in with myself.
How did yesterday go?
Is there anything that I need to be aware of that didn't go well?
Yesterday that I want to make sure I don't repeat again today.
And it would also be the reminder to check in again with my GLAD practice.
And so this really starts to build that muscle that's looking for the positive in the world.
The goal of this is not to ignore the fact that we all deal with challenges.
Life is pretty challenging right now.
This is just to build up that muscle that things are also lots of things that I'm grateful for,
Tons of things that we're learning on a day-to-day basis,
Accomplishments over and over again,
And lots of delights.
So I hope that you'll add this into your regular practice.
If you want to listen to the meditation on my Insight Timer channel,
That would also be a fantastic way of kind of reinforcing the practice,
Or just adding a little reminder on your phone,
You know,
To engage in GLAAD.
Gratitude,
Learned,
Accomplished,
Delight.
Thanks so much for listening,
And I'll see you around.
