101. Life’s Tiny Miracles: Find Appreciation In The Ordinary

When was the last time you felt awestruck? Was it last week? Last month? It’s not our nature to hold a space for daily appreciation and gratitude. However, consistent recognition of life’s little miracles leads to deeper fulfillment in life. In this mini episode of Spiritually Hungry, Monica and Michael discuss how to find beauty in the ordinary and shift our thoughts so we can increase the level of appreciation we have for our tiny blessings.

Transcript

The reality is,

Unless you are working on getting appreciative,

Excited about the ordinary,

The new things will not actually bring you any lasting,

Greater happiness than you have now.

Welcome to the Spiritually Hungry Podcast Summer Series,

Episode 101.

How's summer treating you?

We actually had quite a lot of adventures and movement.

We were in Europe right up until now.

We were?

We were.

And we are going to Israel next week,

So a lot of travel ahead.

But I'm hoping for also,

At some point,

Getting to a relaxing part of the summer as well.

Actually,

I find it all relaxing.

It was a lot of travel and I'm over movement for a minute in a car or a plane or a train.

But it's always great to step out of your day-to-day routine,

Your environment,

And wake up in a different part of the world and see how people live and different cultures.

We went to Scotland and it's so breathtakingly beautiful there and the people are so kind.

It's a great time to really talk and just a different,

I think,

Way of living that it's super inspiring for me.

So I think that's a big point of traveling.

Absolutely.

So I wanted to share something that has inspired me.

It's one of my favorite books.

I've quoted him before.

It's The Comfort Book by Matt Haig.

And we just speak in the same language.

I've written many ideas that he's written about.

He inspires me to think about different things.

So this one essay he wrote is called The Most Important Kind of Wealth.

And I think actually it really dovetails into our holiday and the awakening that I've had.

In 1981,

American philosophy graduate Stephen Callahan found himself adrift in the Atlantic for 76 days.

He had been sailing a sloop he had designed and built,

The Napoleon Solo.

He was seven days into a voyage from Cornwall to Antigua.

One night during a storm,

The boat was hit by a whale.

I always say to people,

The things that we fear happening actually never do.

And the ones that we can't even consider or imagine,

Those are the ones that get us.

Yeah.

Okay.

A whale.

The boat was quickly flooded and started to sink.

Callahan escaped onto an inflatable life raft,

But also managed to hold his breath and dive down into his boat a few times to get hold of essential supplies.

These supplies included a small amount of food,

Navigation charts,

Flares,

A speargun,

And a sleeping bag.

He was then sent entirely adrift from the boat.

He was 800 miles west of the Canary Islands,

But heading in the opposite direction.

He had enough food and water to last him only a few days.

He fished with the speargun and made water with a solar still,

A contraption that evaporates salt water and distills it and then purifies it.

It took him days to get it working properly.

By the way,

Everybody needs one of those.

It's true to all,

Especially if you're hit by a whale in the middle of the ocean.

There are moments of dashed hope.

For instance,

On the 14th day,

He saw a ship and lit a flare and thought he had been seen.

No such luck.

He saw other ships,

But again,

No one saw him.

And soon he was south of the shipping lanes,

Heading into hotter and hotter weather.

The discomfort was immense.

The hunger,

The thirst,

The heat,

The salt water sores on his skin.

It reminds me of when Abigail and I were talking about blood,

Sweat,

And tears,

And she wanted to know what that meant,

Remember?

And then she said,

What if it happens all at once?

I mean,

This pretty much sums it up.

And more.

Gosh.

Mentally,

According to his own accounts,

It was also tough.

Not just the continual threat of sharks,

But his own thoughts.

I had a lot of time to think and I regretted every mistake I had ever made,

He told the Guardian newspaper in 2012.

I was divorced and I had felt I had failed at human relations generally,

At business and now even at sailing.

I desperately wanted to get through it so I could make a better job of my life.

50 days in and things were looking hopeless.

By the way- 50 days.

That's insane.

And I think so far in the story,

The fact that like,

As we talk about the power of thought so much,

Right?

And I think people hear us some extent,

Obviously we're in a bad state.

We're like,

Oh yeah,

That thing that they're talking about,

Our thoughts,

We have to change them,

We have to make sure we're positive.

This guy is alone,

Stuck on a boat.

And of all the things that are going wrong,

He's starving to death.

He's the salt water,

The burns,

The sharks,

The whale.

The hopelessness.

The thoughts are the ones that are breaking him down and breaking him apart.

So 50 days in and things were looking hopeless.

He had spent over a week trying to keep the damaged raft afloat with a pump and he had no more energy.

He broke down,

But pulled himself together just enough to find a way to temporarily fix the raft.

Then his contraption to purify his water broke.

He knew logically he was going to die.

As he had only three cans of water left,

He felt his mind as well as his body shutting down.

He had lost a third of his weight.

He had nothing else to give.

His use of flares and beacons had triggered no rescue attempt.

I could feel all the people who had ever been lost at sea around me.

At some point he threw a discarded fish guts back into the sea,

Which caused seabirds to hover above him.

The seabirds drew the attention of some fishermen from the Guadalupe archipelago.

They found Callahan on his 76th day on the raft and took him to shore where he would eventually recover in the hospital.

Although the ordeal was terrifying and nearly cost him his life,

Callahan didn't regret having gone through it and it never put him off sailing.

Really?

I'm put off sailing just by this story.

It seems like sailing more than you do.

Oh,

Or that or something else.

In his book Adrift 76 Days Lost at Sea,

He writes of how he no longer regrets his life and how he has learned to be grateful.

My plight has given me a strange kind of wealth,

The most important kind.

I value each moment that is not spent in pain,

Desperation,

Hunger,

Thirst,

Or loneliness.

Even more remarkable is his memory of beautiful moments within his ordeal.

The sight of a clear starry night sky overwhelmed him with awe,

A view of heaven from a seat in hell.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up.

There's so many takeaways from this.

I think the obvious ones are what we do with regret,

Which I want to save that topic for a longer episode for sure,

And how we live with appreciation and gratitude all the time.

I think that it's really a challenge.

It's not our nature to be able to hold the space of appreciation and gratitude always.

It's just not.

I think that we can look at little miracles each day,

But we don't see them as miracles.

We see them as automatic,

Like waking up in the morning,

Or the sun rising,

Or the sun setting,

So much so that we take it for granted that it will always be like that,

That our bodies will always show up for us,

That the world will be exactly like it is in the ways that are working.

We never stop to think,

No,

Absolutely,

That's not a truth,

And enjoy it now.

Absolutely,

It's interesting.

Often,

When we get together with friends,

We have played these card games where we ask questions,

Deep questions.

It's always fun and interesting to get to know people on a deeper level.

One of the questions that I think I got,

Certainly was one of the questions in the deck,

Was what are the things that you're most proud of?

I was thinking as we were talking,

And I think one of the parts of my life that I really endeavor to both work on and continue to work on is that I try to have overwhelming appreciation for what one could call the normal realities of life,

Being healthy,

As we say,

When you're healthy,

Being with your family,

Being with your spouse,

Just being.

The ability to be,

Right?

It's crazy.

Again,

Like you said,

It is human nature,

But it's something that we should fight extremely hard against every single day.

And I would ask our listeners to say,

Have at least one moment during the day in which you are overwhelmingly appreciative,

Not of something great that just happened,

But of the normal workings of life.

The fact that your heart is still pumping,

The fact that your lungs are still working,

The fact that you have a child who loves you.

I mean,

The list is long for every single one of us and every single one of our listeners,

But you have to fight.

You have to fight.

But by the way,

To take it a step further,

Even it's not even just being grateful or appreciative.

When was the last time you found yourself awestruck?

And I love that word because I think that we,

Again,

Take things for granted.

Like we talked about travel.

If you go to a place like you go to a famous site or the Notre Dame or say Notre Dame and you see these workings of art and creation.

And then if you live there,

Let's say,

And you see it every day,

It's not going to seem that special to you.

And I thought about that when we were traveling through Scotland and I was driving and our family in the car is like,

Oh my God,

Look at that.

Look at that.

And you know,

I'm driving on the opposite side of the car.

And I'm like,

I couldn't,

I needed to focus.

There's no texting and driving.

There's no doing anything else.

You can't even open a piece of gum.

But I kept pulling over to the side of the road because I was just so taken by the glimpses of what I could see as I was driving and moved beyond.

Like you feel God,

You feel like it's a painting that's been painted.

And I wonder though,

People who live there all the time,

You know,

There are houses that are stuck in these valleys that we saw.

Right.

And if you wake up to that every day,

Can you still appreciate it?

I mean,

My guess is yes,

Because I think that's why the people were so kind there.

But again,

Human nature is no,

You become accustomed to even the most amazing,

Unbelievable works of life.

Right.

That's the hedonic treadmill,

Which we spoke about in one of the episodes.

But like I said,

I think that this might be the most underused resource for happiness that we have.

The usual,

Right?

But if you can find a way,

And as I said,

One of the things that I am proud of about myself is that up until now,

I have been blessed with being able to find the awesomeness,

The beauty,

The excitement of the ordinary,

Because it's not ordinary,

Right?

It's not ordinary.

And I remember as you were speaking also,

As you were sharing that story,

I remember a story with my father,

With my teacher,

The rabbi.

People would often come to him as they come to us and say,

Oh yeah,

About this miracle,

You know?

And there was one time this person comes to my father and he says,

I had the most amazing miracle today.

I was driving down the road,

Coming to the class and there was a car that was coming in and it almost hit me.

And if it would have hit me,

God forbid something terrible would have happened.

And they just swerved out of the way,

The light in the last second,

You know,

And I survived what would have been a terrible accident.

What a miracle.

And my father answered to me,

He said,

You know,

I had an even greater miracle today.

He said,

What could be greater than that being saved from death?

He says,

I drove down the road and no car even came into the intersection.

I just made it straight through.

And that idea that,

You know,

We get excited when something terrible almost happened and then it doesn't.

And then we have appreciation.

Let's fight for,

Again,

I hate using the word ordinary,

But it's only because that's what we know.

Every one of us can extract tremendous appreciation,

Awe,

And therefore joy from the ordinary.

If you meditate on it,

If you fight for it.

Well,

It goes to that Kabbalah teaching that there is a veil that exists that doesn't really allow us to fully appreciate things.

And then sometimes the veil is removed and we're able to appreciate our blessings.

And I remember something we saw on the news years ago,

It was a horrible,

Devastating tornado and everybody had lost their homes,

Their possessions,

And some people had lost their families.

And this one woman was interviewed on the news and the- I think it was right in front of her destroyed house.

Yeah.

And the reporter's like,

You know,

How do you feel about this?

Look behind you,

Your house,

Your possessions,

You have nothing.

And she said,

I thought that I lost my child.

And for a good time that day,

She didn't know where her kid was.

And when they were reunited,

She said,

I am the most blessed lucky person in the world because compared to the life of her child,

Nothing really mattered.

Right.

And I think that that's the veil that exists for us that comes into our being day in and day out is that you don't have enough or you should have what that other person has or you're never going to have the things that you want.

It's always in the vision of where am I lacking or where am I upset or where am I unhappy rather than what are all the blessings that I have?

And that's the trick,

Right?

By seeing those,

By acknowledging them,

By appreciating them,

Then you're able to create more and more of those blessings.

Absolutely.

And what I would say is that,

I think I think it's a challenge to our listeners,

A challenge to every single one of us that,

You know,

Would we often lie to ourselves and say is,

Oh,

I'm not happy now.

We talk about this in your book as well.

But when I get that,

I'll be happy when I'll be happy when the reality is,

Unless you are working on getting appreciative,

Excited about the ordinary,

The new things will not actually bring you any lasting,

Greater happiness than you have now.

Because you simply don't have the vessel to even welcome that or to receive that.

Right.

It's kind of like,

You know,

You have a tin,

Right?

And you're looking for water,

You're looking for a well,

Looking for a well,

And you finally find it,

But there's a hole in your tin.

That hole is lack,

Right?

So then you're trying to fill it up and it's not holding anything.

It's not even able to sustain it.

And I want to make this point really strongly that what you're talking about,

What we're talking about is not,

Okay,

Maybe our listeners after hearing this podcast will sit down and say,

Oh,

I'm able to awaken appreciation for my child,

For my health.

That's not going to be lasting either.

What we're talking about here is a real shift in the way that we think,

In the way that we experience life.

The only test of this is,

Is it a daily reality for you that you are awestruck by the ordinary?

And if that's,

If you're not,

And again,

By the way,

For many people,

That's not something that can happen after listening to one podcast or even after trying this for a day.

This has to be a real shift of thought,

Of experience of life.

It has to be consistent.

Again,

You sit with yourself and you say,

What are the three things,

The five things that I should be so excited about?

Again,

The fact that I have my health,

The fact that I have a roof over my head,

The fact that I have something to eat for dinner.

And that has to be a consistent thought process.

And then you will find that you're actually able to be more and more awestruck by the ordinary.

And then when the new things do come,

You'll appreciate them much more than anybody else.

And that's why I often,

This is something I often share this with our kids.

I strongly believe that the fact that I am fighting for appreciation of the ordinary,

That's why I can often enjoy the extraordinary more than other people would because it's just a higher level of the same thing.

But by the way,

Right,

If a person who is not appreciating that they have food,

The food that they eat is never really going to satiate them.

If a person doesn't appreciate their legs and they're able to walk,

Walking won't be enough.

They'd rather be running.

It's just human nature.

And this is changeable.

It's completely fixable.

But you have to understand what you're up against and you have to understand that this is the formula for real lasting happiness and joy.

Absolutely.

So I think what we're asking our listeners to do is,

Especially maybe in the summer months when some of us are more out in nature than usual,

Or maybe exploring new and exciting destinations.

Maybe on a boat.

Or maybe on a boat.

We have much better experience than our friend there.

But make sure you take the time to awaken both appreciation and being awestruck by the ordinary.

I promise you that if you work on this,

Again,

This is not something that will come naturally and not something that will happen immediately.

It's to be worked on consistently.

You will be happier than you can ever imagine in the ordinary.

You will be overwhelmed with appreciation on a relatively daily basis.

And then also when the new things do come,

You will see that your level of appreciation and enjoyment of them grows exponentially because of this new way of living that you brought yourself to.

Now get out there and play in the sand.

You're not going to do your spiel.

Oh,

Really?

I don't know.

Okay.

You said you complained last time it was too long.

I'll always complain about that.

So quickly,

Make sure that you are sharing this podcast with everybody you know,

That you are giving five star reviews on Apple Podcast.

And as always,

I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast as much as we enjoyed recording it.

Do you remember,

I used to watch Grease all the time growing up and what was the name?

Something Fontaine.

And he was like,

That's the best.

I don't know how to speak really fast.

You could do that.

I think you could really actually have been a,

What is it called?

DJ?

Jockey,

I guess.

Just jockey.

There you go.

One of your many hidden talents.

Stay spiritually hungry.

Reviews

Thank you for such a great talk. My take away: Unless you are getting appreciated about the ordinary things will not bring you any greater happiness than you have now. Beautiful!!! Appreciate the Ordinary. Love it. Cheers to the practice of gratitude!

Thank you. I appreciate your offerings and insights. Sending good wishes. 🌻

Beautiful message-taking the time to be gracious and appreciative for the ordinary…I really also liked the intention to do a longer episode - what do with guilt. Thank you

Agree. But I think, first you have to loose something to appreciate what you have.
Thanks.❤️☀️😊