Gratitude Multiplier

Gratitude becomes a lens—and in this episode of Just Call Jenna, Jenna Williams reframes it as a daily practice that reshapes how you experience life. Rather than a fleeting feeling, she explains how gratitude trains the brain, regulates the nervous system, and shifts your focus from scarcity to what’s already working. 

Jenna explores how two people can live the same life but experience it completely differently based on their perspective. By intentionally practicing gratitude—through journaling, speaking it out loud, or simply noticing small moments—you begin to rewire your brain and move out of chronic dissatisfaction into a more grounded, present state. 

Watch the episode here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2lH6XDWapQ

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She also emphasizes that true gratitude doesn’t ignore pain—it includes honesty. It allows you to acknowledge what’s hard while still asking, “What is working here?” This balance helps create emotional stability, strengthens relationships, and even shifts the energy of those around you. 

Ultimately, Jenna shows that gratitude isn’t about changing your circumstances—it’s about expanding your perspective. With consistent practice, it becomes your baseline, turning gratitude into a way of life that transforms how everything feels. 

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Welcome back.

Today I'm going to talk about the gratitude multiplier. What I think you're going to get from this is what I like to call the gratitude lens or how you see the world. We're going to understand some neuroscience of how gratitude affects the brain and then some real stories and practices that can help you start using this in your life to help you get to future you.

Being grateful is a huge thing. It will be incredibly important to keeping your peace and just being thankful for what you do have.

Now, as someone who's survived death, I'm grateful every day that I wake up. I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to hold a spoon to my lips. I'm grateful to walk around the block. But I wasn't at first. I was broken. The world felt heavy. I had so many unhealed traumas in me that half of them I wasn't even aware of. I was like, what do you mean that's a problem? What do you mean that's my behaviors? Yeah, so I think gratitude is really important to getting you there.

Let's talk about gratitude lens as your way of seeing the world. Two people can live the same life and experience it very differently. So two siblings growing up in the same house might report their families very different. Their experiences will be different.

Gratitude is not a feeling. It's really kind of more of a way of life. It's a way of seeing that trains your brain to filter in. It will regulate your nervous system and bring in peace, and it will change your experiences in life based on what you filter.

So remember the RAS filter, I love to talk about how your brain sees things. So if I'm grateful, I will find more reasons to be grateful. If I'm angry, I'm going to find more reasons to be angry. If I'm peaceful, I'm going to find more reasons to be peaceful. These are all just filters, but gratitude is where I think a lot of it starts because when you can find ways to be grateful for what you have, that is where the mind shift happens that helps you connect to future you so that you can manifest things.

In a previous episode, I talked about habits and a keystone habit. Gratitude is your keystone habit that will start changing a lot of things. It doesn't change what happens. It will change your definitions. It will change how you observe what you're going through.

So there are some practices that people have given me. One is a gratitude journal. I gotta tell you, for me, I cannot do that.

Part of the healing of the stroke is I have a tremor in my left hand and I cannot hold the paper and write. I can use software and do text-to-speech. Thank goodness I can speak to Siri and have her control my iPhone. That makes my life a lot easier. But there are studies that they've done of people with gratitude journals, so my gratitude journal is in my head because I want the benefits that come from it.

So the studies have shown that people with gratitude journals have higher levels of happiness, they experience less stress, which then gives them stronger immune systems and better sleep. They have physical improvements. By writing down daily gratitude, the habits that shifted their RAS.

So for me, that practice is every night before bed I tell myself, what are three things I'm grateful for of my day? And when I wake up in the morning, what are three things I'm grateful for before I get out of my bed? And those are just how I do my gratitude journal. And I sort of experience the same thing as people who write down all the things they're grateful for.

So that's an actual practice you can do. If you don't have a gratitude journal and you don't write, maybe just when your head hits the pillow, you know, start with one. What is one thing I'm grateful for today? And when you wake up in the morning, what is one thing I'm grateful for? A lot of times I'm grateful to just be breathing in the morning. I'm breathing. I'm alive. I have had the experience of what it would be like if I was gone. And so I get to be grateful just to wake up. It's as simple as that. I'm breathing. My eyes open today. I'm grateful for that.

So something like that is one of my top three every day. But it reminds me to be glad that I'm here because it can be gone faster than we expected. Life is gonna keep coming, but your gratitude lens will help you see it.

One of the stories that I heard, and it's one of my favorites, is of Oprah Winfrey that she is considered super grateful. She will tell you about her gratitude practices. Not about her fame, fortune, and everything she's accomplished, but all the things she's grateful for and how that made her more grateful. She counts her blessings. Again, you're filtering your brain.

The more you're grateful, the more reasons you're gonna find to be grateful. It's actually a scientific fact that's been proven. If you want to see reasons to be grateful, tell your brain you're grateful.

How do you start that? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just say thank you to people. Even if you're mad at them, I'm sure you can find something in there you're thankful for. Gratitude is not pretending everything's perfect. It's about training your brain to see what's already working, what is good.

So let me give you an example. This week I was doing my taxes, which includes getting all your paperwork together. Each one of us can probably think of how we feel about taxes. Most people do not enjoy it. It's a painful process and you need focus to get things right, right? Because none of us want to go back and do it three times.

So I was in cognitive overload at that point. The amount of brain power it took for me to focus, get all those papers together, get it all to all the people who needed it and do that work. I'm responsible for that work. No one's coming to do it for me. So I had to do it, but my brain was in cognitive overload. Complete overload. I couldn't process.

Kind of like when you wake up in the morning and you haven't had your coffee or like you're sleepwalking in the middle of the night and someone tries to talk to you. Cannot compute, does not compute. My brain was at that place.

And I had an adult thing happen where somebody told me that something I had done on my house five months ago that I thought was over was not complete. And now to solve the problem so it didn't become a bigger problem is gonna cost me $10,000. Couldn't compute. My brain was already in overload. But my central nervous system, my brain, everything went into survival mode. Shock. Fear, panic, overthinking, like complete overload. My cup runneth over in the wrong direction.

So I did one of my practices that goes with gratitude. I went outside, and this is not the gratitude part. I went outside, sat in the chair in my backyard, and was just breathing and telling myself, slow down, slow down, slow down. I think it took about five minutes before I could really slow down and calmly process what was going on.

What did Future Me want to do? What was the me that had already moved past this situation in life? What was she thinking, feeling, doing? And one of the things that came up is she is grateful. So what in this moment am I grateful?

Okay, I'm grateful I finished all the paperwork with my taxes and I'm done for a whole nother year. Okay, I'm really grateful of that. I'm grateful that I was able to calm myself and regulate myself enough to go sit down and breathe. And yes, it probably took five minutes of breathe in, slow down, breathe in, slow down over and over again until I could breathe calmly. I'm future that when this problem is fixed, I will actually have increased the value of my home and I will not have this problem blow up on me and become an insurance claim.

It was panic, it was overload, but a gratitude lens, which yes, you're gonna have moments where life just keeps on coming. The storm is gonna keep on coming, but every storm runs out of rain. If you can find a way, which for me was going to sit in my chair and just breathing until I could think. I went outside with no phone, no one around me, just breathing until I could become grateful again because a grateful me could act calmly, find the silver lining.

It it's not fake it till you make it. It's connect with the version of you that you can identify with that is grateful that you've moved past this situation. Because in the moment it is panic, it is heavy. I was disconnected from my mind, my body. I was in panic, full panic um adult responsibilities and everything but again gratitude is not prevent pretending everything's perfect it is not fake it till you make it.

It is, I'm gonna be okay. I am someone who figures this out. I am someone who is grateful for this experience. This is hard and there is still something to be grateful for. Now, that is going to be very difficult as a human to do when life is coming. It just is.

My grandma used to be the kind of person who'd say, Let me sleep on it. She wouldn't tell you her decision today. She would make sure she would sleep on it. That was her way of taking space and making sure that she agreed with her decision. Now she was from the silent generation. The woman didn't have much to say. But you did not get grandma to make snap decisions.

So it took me a stroke to think about those sides of it to get to the place of where I see the value in getting some space. Zooming out. And letting it happen. Just like my example there with my gratitude lens, which you wouldn't think that's something to be grateful for. But taking the minute, I'm grateful I'm the kind of person who could breathe, think it through. I'm the kind of person who can slow down. Yes, it took me five minutes. I'm human. I get worked up too. But I could take that space and just calm down and process and find out what I was grateful for.

That's the gratitude lens. I found a way to say thank you for spending $10,000 that I didn't expect to spend. For a problem that I thought I had solved five months ago. At a time when my brain was completely overloaded, there is always something to be thankful for. And it's gonna be really, really hard to find it until you get comfortable with being the kind of person who is grateful.

You can manifest the gratefulness in your life, but I think you can start with some simple things. Take a gratitude journal, say thank you, count that one, two, three things you're grateful for every morning and night, wherever you take it, being consistent with that for a couple of weeks, you will become the kind of person who is grateful for whatever it is that you have in your life to be grateful for.

I think we are all gonna be grateful for very different things. Not everyone's going to be grateful to walk, talk, and breathe every morning. You should, but many of us have bigger things to do. Train yourself to be the kind of person that says thank you. Train yourself to be the kind of person that says grateful. If for nothing else, to be grateful and say thank you, you can be that kind of person. If for nothing else, because life just feels better when you're that way.

Life is just better when you're grateful. You have a choice. Do you want to walk a dreary path or would you rather enjoy your time here? It's short. Enjoy it while you can. Stress less and live more.

Gratitude doesn't invalidate your pain. The healthiest gratitude, it includes honesty. You can be honest with yourself. This is hard and there's still something good in it. What is working?

Parenting is a lot like that if any of you have children. Parenting is hard. It is very hard to raise something that you love with all your heart and soul and have them basically spit in your face or do everything against what you've told them to do, say, or what you've taught them. Teenagers will teach you how to do that. They will teach you how to accept the ugliest parts of yourself very fast.

It is very hard to be grateful when somebody went from calling you mommy, mom, bruh. That part's hard. It's really hard to be disrespected by somebody you care about. But gratitude. I'm grateful that I got to bring this baby into the world. I'm grateful that I've gotten to see her grow up. Now, very hard to do when your teenager is giving you bruh. And most of them kind of sound just about like that.

Why are you breathing so hard? Teenagers are absolutely awful, to be honest, but there's still something good in it. Now, harder to find in that moment, just like me outside, sitting down and slow down, slow down until I could find it. But gratitude is not fake. When it's fake, it disconnects us from our bodies. It disconnects us from that because it's fake. We're not really grateful. But when it's embodied, it grounds you in reality. Thank you. Just being grateful.

And yes, sometimes you're gonna have to slow down. Sometimes you're gonna have to put up with that crazy teenager to find the reason that you're grateful to get to be a parent. Parenting is one of the most selfless acts I think you can do. Hopefully my children will be grateful when they are older, because they're not so much right now. They went from loving me to being annoyed by me, and we are still in the annoyed phase. So, girls, if you're listening, please remember your mom loves you.

Expressing gratitude doesn't change you. It actually changes the people around you. Do you want to have nastiness in your life or do you want to have grateful people in your life? Now you can take that and expand it to peace and everything else. Like attracts lives.

We have trained ourselves to scan for what is lacking. We have trained ourselves that. I think that's this capitalist society we live in, the hustle and bustle of normal life. More, more, more. Everybody wants a PCU. But I think taking that back, gratitude lenses will remove the chronic dissatisfaction of things. Instead of being grateful for outcomes, I'm grateful that my body breathes without me thinking about it. Think about how simple that is. You don't have to think to breathe. Your body knows how to do that. So sometimes that's all you have to be grateful for. Start there.

Your brain doesn't know the difference between imagined emotion and your present emotion. Gratitude is a link to that. There is neuroscience to that. Where you're at and where you're trying to be, that gap can be navigated a lot easier with some gratitude. That gratitude lens.

Again, back to the story of the two travelers as you navigate that gap. Do you want to look back and hate your journey, or do you want to look back with some gratitude? Do you want to look back and say you enjoyed your life, or do you want to regret everything? That choice belongs to you. The gratitude lens is there.

That's what future gratitude is. Sometimes you have to be grateful for what seems delusional or imaginary that's not there yet. Use that creative side of your brain. Future gratitude is also sometimes like setting the coffee pot the night before, getting gas on your way home so you don't have to get it in the morning. Sometimes those things create future gratitude.

For me, a lot of times on Sunday, I'll do a lot of cooking on Sunday and have things ready so that on Wednesday when I'm running around crazy, I can put together a meal in 15 minutes. It's pre-planned. I don't have to think about it. I know what protein's going. I know everything. I'm ready. I can just execute the steps. Sometimes future gratitude is that.

Sometimes future gratitude is, you know, putting twenty dollars aside so you can buy something next week. Sometimes future gratitude is learning to delay gratification. I'm gonna say no to this today so I can have X in the future. But all those future gratitude things are for you.

When future you is there? Aren't you gonna be proud you didn't quit? Aren't you gonna be proud you practiced some restraint? Aren't you gonna be glad on Wednesday when you go to make dinner that everything's ready and the 20 minutes of prep is already done because you did it before? That is kind of what future gratitude is. It is the difference between your imagined emotion and your present emotion.

If you can just simply pause and notice, expressing thanks, it reframes the struggle. It would sound weird to you, but I can say thanks for my stroke. I don't think I would have thought at the time that the worst struggle in my life would be something to be grateful for. But when you live grateful, even the worst struggles are a gift. My first episode I called it a stroke of awareness. I'm actually grateful for the stroke.

Energy is contagious. Do you want your energy to be angry, bitter, and lacking, or would you like to be around a grateful person?

I think if you think about who you are, you probably have people in your life. You know them, they're a Debbie Downer. Every time you talk to them, they're just gonna bring the mood down to here. You also know people in your life that are infectious. Every time you're around them, you just can't wait to be around them again. That's energy being contagious. But being grateful, people are going to want to be around you because you are going to be enjoying your life more.

So there was a story of like an old teacher. Students all asked, what's the secret of happiness? And the teacher said, gratitude for what is and forgiveness for what is not. Life will always give us both. Gratitude helps us hold both with both hands.

So let's break that down a little bit. What's the secret of happiness? Being grateful for what is and forgiving what is not. Teenagers are the most ungrateful, unentitled people that you can run into. I joke and say that I have graduated from when I was just an ATM and an Uber to now I just have broke best friends. My children are at this stage of where they're not very grateful for what I do for them. I'm just expected to. And I have to forgive all the time for what is not there.

So I am grateful to be their mother every day. Yes, they are pains. Absolutely. There are moments when I want to smack them around and go, do you not know who I am? But I think that when you think about that, it's gratitude, right? I am grateful that they're here. I am aware that I have raise them right with a little faith, there will come a stage where they will be grateful for me again.

I have moved past when they were in high school and it was be my ATM and my Uber. They used to make a lot of plans for people with no jobs and no cars. Gotta tell you, they really did. Now we're in a place of where they're becoming more responsible. They're starting to like me. Now we get to go out and hang out. I don't have to tell them what to do.

So I use that example that I have with my children just because it helps me understand that I am grateful every day for them. Oh, some days it takes a lot of patience to be grateful. But that's part of parenting. There is nothing wrong with my children. I want you to know they are wonderful children. I am proud of them every day. But they are still children. There is still something that goes to those jobs.

Gratitude is not something that's personal. It's external. Gratitude, it softens the defensiveness in relationships. It reduces your burnout at work. In healing, it doesn't replace grief, but it gives it a container. It softens relationships.

Do you think that while my teenagers are in that place that it would benefit if I was arguing, yelling, and pointing my fingers. No, but if I approach it from a gratitude perspective and an understanding that they are not at the capacity to see things where I see them. They are living their own experience, even though we're closely connected. We don't fight with each other. Yes, I get annoyed. I'm a mother of teenagers. I don't know that there's a lot of mothers out there of teenagers that aren't annoyed.

I've said it before, I think it might be the only time in your life you're allowed to be considered legally crazy. I don't think I have a single friend out there. And some of my friends have great teenagers, but I don't think there's a teenager out there that's not driving an adult crazy. I think it's the part of your life where you're supposed to. Like a gestation cycle. Everything has its place.

I don't like being called bruh. But I guess I can relate it back to like my mom probably felt the same when I in my generation we called everything dude. We had full conversations with the word dude. Right? So I think that being grateful helps soften that defensiveness. I don't get defensive with them.

And I think that it's natural for a mother and a teenage girl to be at somewhat of an odds with each other. I've had people pass on in my life. I've had people walk out on my life. I've had friends backstab me and hurt me. And there's grief to all of those situations, the stages of grief you go through. But gratitude gives it a container.

You can recognize your grief. You can thank yourself for being human. And sometimes that might be all you have, especially in the anger phase of grief. Yeah, I think it's natural to want to get a little revenge. Oh, if you know, you want to. I'm gonna make you pay. Sure. But if you have that container where you can find I was grateful for the time that this person was in my life. There is a beautiful speech that Tyler Perry gave about rocket ships and he talks about a rocket and having boosters, that when you want to go someplace the boosters have to fall away.

Nothing wrong with those boosters, those people, what have you. Hopefully it didn't go bad, but you have to let those go so you can go to the places and the heights that you're supposed to. So I think about that a lot with grief. And believe me, I get grieving too. I'm human. I have feelings. I've lost people. I've had people leave my life. But if I can find the reasons that I'm grateful for the time they were in my life, it lessens that pain.

That container that holds the grief starts getting smaller until it's barely there. I think grief leaves a hole in us. At always. Like my grandparents are gone and I absolutely adored my grandma. And I'm still fine times when I'm grieving that she's not here and I can't pick up the phone or go see her. I don't think that that ever goes away, but I have found ways to be grateful for all the places she made a difference in my life. And when that grief comes in, I can be grateful that I had her.

So I think when you think about gratitude, it it really isn't just personal. It kind of has an external place where it's an internal place. You're changing how you feel internally to change how things work externally. So I think finding places to be grateful at your hardest, heaviest times, are hard. One of my favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou, and it's every storm runs out of rain. This is temporary. It's hard to see that when you're in the thick of it in the tunnel with the blinders on and the weight of it on you. It's hard to see that.

So what are some real practices you can use for that in your real life? Add to your five minutes. The three things you're grateful for. Start each day with a thank you and end each day with a thank you. Gratitude sounds to your nervous system and your RAS like this matters. I learned something. I'm growing. You're gonna filter in more of those

It's not about a task. It's not just something on your to do list. It's a way of life. It's truly a lens. And that lens will become your baseline. And that changes how life feels.

So that may be a big thing now. Your gap may be this big. But just starting with, you know, a daily practice. Can I say thank you? Can I write in my gratitude journal? Can I say a thank you every night and every day? And it's not because your life is gonna get easier. It's gonna keep coming. But the experience will change because you've expanded.

You're gonna be at a higher vibe when you're grateful. Life will just become easier, not because of the things thrown at you, but because your attitude has shifted to an attitude of gratitude.

That lens that you see the world from, from a neuroscience perspective, will put you in a good place. It will allow you to say thank you and you will just become the future you that you want to become.

I hope that you learned today about the Gratitude Lens, why it's important, what the neuroscience of it is, and what you can do to actually implement those practices.

Because remember karma is real, energy is contagious. Check your vibes.