Gratitude

Ever wondered how a surreal trip to Portugal could teach you life-changing gratitude? Come, journey with us through the stunning beaches, surprising city of Lagos, and the eerie Chapel of Bones in Faro. We have some thrilling tales to share, including an impromptu Portuguese lesson, a kayaking adventure, and an unexpected encounter with a naked couple that left us surprised and grateful for our countless blessings. 

Imagine encountering death, not once but multiple times, and emerging with a renewed appreciation for life and its simplest pleasures. That's exactly what happened to one of us, and it profoundly changed our perspective on gratitude and happiness. We discuss everything from near-death experiences to accepting our less-than-perfect parents to the challenges and joys of parenthood. Join us as we dissect how gratitude can transform our relationships, empower us to take ownership of our actions, and ultimately, enhance our happiness. 

Dive headfirst into the spirit of Thanksgiving with us. As we prepare to celebrate this cherished holiday, we reflect on the special meaning it holds for us, especially for those who landed on American soil on Thanksgiving Day. We also delve into our daily gratitude practices, highlighting how mindfulness has strengthened our appreciation for life's ups and downs. We wrap up with a heartfelt thank you to our loyal listeners who've walked this journey with us on the Babe, What Do You Know About? Podcast. Your support and messages truly mean the world to us. So, are you ready to embrace gratitude and cultivate a more fulfilling life? Tune in. You won't regret it.

Transcript

Sam: 0:10

Welcome to Babe. What do you know about the podcast with your favorite husband and wife duo, Sam?

Tayla: 0:16

and Tayla. Each week we dive deep into a new subject, blending fun and seriousness to push boundaries and buttons.

Sam: 0:24

Get ready to expand your knowledge, challenge your perspectives and have a blast along the way.

Tayla: 0:32

The jet lag on the way there almost killed me, but coming back wasn't too bad actually.

Sam: 0:40

Yeah, I'm still waking up super early at 4 o'clock, but I'm sure it'll fix itself. And I apologize to everyone like I'm sick, I got sick, I think today I got back.

Tayla: 0:54

Right, which may be why you're waking up at 4am maybe.

Sam: 0:58

Yeah, maybe, but what was funny was I didn't sleep for like two days or like a day and a half because we traveled there with all the traveling, and then I did the drive after landing for two hours.

Tayla: 1:13

We were driving from Lisbon airport all the way down to the Algarve, which we thought would take us three hours.

Sam: 1:22

Yeah, because of like stops and stuff.

Tayla: 1:25

We were there in two.

Sam: 1:26

Yeah, we got there in two because Go ahead ask Sam why. Well, so I was going to speed limit for the first little bit, for like the first 10-15 minutes, and then like every car was just like zooming past me. So I was like, oh you know when in Portugal.

Tayla: 1:40

Lisbon, yeah.

Sam: 1:42

And so I just started going quickly and, you know, we went past a couple cops and they didn't seem to mind.

Tayla: 1:52

And there we are. But yeah, like I could not stay awake, so I slept for a bit of that. I don't know how you made that drive. That was a juice box, if you guys just heard that. Oh yeah, so I was drinking. A grape juice box meant for our children.

Sam: 2:08

It's delicious, it's honest, kids, organic goodness, happiness. It's a juice drink from Concentrates. However, it's watered down from traditional juice boxes, so it's only 35 calories.

Tayla: 2:25

Sounds like you're doing an ad for it, when you have literally ripped this apart as a scam in previous episodes.

Sam: 2:32

I have. It is a scam. It's literally a scam. That's what I'm trying to say right now.

Tayla: 2:36

But you enjoy. It.

Sam: 2:37

It's watered down like concentrated juice.

Tayla: 2:39

Yeah, but you like it.

Sam: 2:41

I do.

Tayla: 2:42

I'm constantly drinking our kids juice. Anyway, I don't know how you made it Stayed awake, but you did. And the beach was amazing. That's why everyone keeps asking like, what was the best part? I was, like, you know, besides the food, it was just the beach. No one was there. It was the perfect 70 degree weather, 70 degrees Fahrenheit weather for international listeners. The water was cold, but it was nice cold and the sun was soft is how I describe it. Uv index is like one or two. I didn't have to put on sunscreen at all and I didn't shrivel up and burn like I usually do, so it was literally perfect. I read a whole entire book revolutionary for me.

Sam: 3:26

Yeah, that was a good trip. I'm definitely in love with Portugal. It was a surprise, yeah.

Tayla: 3:34

However, not so in love with the Chapel of human bones that we went to.

Sam: 3:39

That was a little off-putting, so we went to. This was in Faro.

Tayla: 3:43

Yeah.

Sam: 3:44

It's on like the Southeast side and all these cities are super old. We're talking like so Portugal. The main cities are older than most other European cities, so older than like London and Paris, et cetera.

Tayla: 3:58

And they're old.

Sam: 3:59

And they're old. So this particular chapel actually wasn't that old. It's only like from the 15th, 16th and 17th century, I guess as they built it and there's a like, a section that's built out of human bones and skulls.

Tayla: 4:15

I posted about on our social media and everyone was like what are you guys doing? We're supplicating. This is very spiritual. Well, for someone someone I always want to be in the pitch room for stuff like this on like whatever priest or whatever it's like. You know what we should do? We should dig up the thousands of bones and humans that we have in our cemetery close by. We should make a chapel out of it. It doesn't matter what size skull it is, child or adult, we'll use it and it'll be very spiritual.

Sam: 4:48

Sorry, I shut down listening after you said the pitch room and then I was connecting 50 hundreds priests.

Tayla: 4:57

But he someone had to convince people to do this and and they went to the conference room and they did it. They made it happen. Whoever that marketer was, it's a good, good hire, but it was fascinating Like you could see the bone marrow of the decaying bones and yeah it was bizarre.

Sam: 5:18

Honestly, my favorite part of the whole trip, my favorite part was I know we went to the beach a lot, but it was kayaking around those like cliffs and caves and stuff was super cool. Yeah, the city of Lagos.

Tayla: 5:30

Lagos. Yeah, they, it's like cliffs against the beach and super fun. One of my favorite memories of that was we're kayaking through is just you and me kind through, like these. Essentially it's like against some cliffs. You can. You can see parts of the beach exposed if you climb down into them. And then there's like more cliffs, like into the ocean that we were kayaking between. And there was this more private area beach that a couple that were there really probably thought was more private than it actually was. They were fully naked, doing a full naked photo shoot, and not only us started coming through and then this whole tour of like at least 10 kayaks are coming through and we're all like, oh, dude, bad timing Power to them.

Tayla: 6:26

But yeah, everyone was really nice Trying to teach us Portuguese because they won't. I mean, people spoke English very well but we were kind of like, oh what, how do we? How do you say sorry? And we had this little girl that we didn't know she was Brazilian and had immigrated there, so she's like just scoopy, that's how you say sorry. And then this older woman was like this scope, this scope, like that's how you say it. And we're like, oh man, but like very nicely. So yeah, shout out to Fatima from the cafe.

Sam: 6:58

Yeah, no, and that food was so good. Oh, we went to that cafe every day. I mean the sandwiches alone every day.

Tayla: 7:09

And the pastel pastel dinata dessert worth every penny. So we had a great time. Need this to say? I mean, this is probably a longer like a little ramble than we usually do, but it was worth it. Everybody go to Portugal.

Sam: 7:24

I weighed myself when I got back. I was three and a half pounds heavier.

Tayla: 7:29

And we walked a lot.

Tayla: 7:30

So probably a good thing that we did, otherwise we would have been 10 pounds heavier. But this episode's probably gonna be I mean, we'll see, but I anticipate it'll probably be more like a mini, so that we pop in right before Thanksgiving, during Thanksgiving week, which is a really fun week, starting to get into like Christmas festivities and all that. So we unoriginally felt like we should do a gratitude episode. So let me do my little intro.

Tayla: 8:03

Gratitude, often described as the practice of recognizing and appreciating the positive aspects of life, goes beyond a simple thank you. Research suggests that cultivating a sense of gratitude can lead to numerous mental and physical health benefits. Expressing gratitude can improve sleep quality, reduce stress and enhance overall well being. Studies have even linked gratitude to increase levels of happiness and life satisfaction. Beyond the individual impact, gratitude has the extraordinary ability to strengthen relationships. Couples who express appreciation for each other tend to experience higher levels of relationship satisfaction. Kind of like a superpower that not only uplifts your personal lives but also enriches the connections we share with those around us. So, babe, what do you know about gratitude?

Sam: 8:48

A little bit, In fact. It's actually one of my little. It's one of my little attributes in life that I feel are like the most important things.

Tayla: 9:01

Your value values, yeah, one of my core values.

Sam: 9:06

I can go on a rant right now if you like.

Tayla: 9:09

I mean make it quality.

Sam: 9:11

Okay, so here we go. I've died almost a bunch of times.

Tayla: 9:18

And you've literally died one one time.

Sam: 9:20

Yeah well, code Blue resuscitated and I came back and I lived. But because of those experiences, I guess my response to it because it's happened since I've been little. So it's not like you know, you're not as like intentional about a lot of these values. They just you just realize that they're, they're all along and you realize how they've helped you. So one of them is gratitude, and I was thinking about this. You know, when you came home today and you're like this is what our episode is going to be on, I was like, oh, that's actually pretty dope, I'm excited for that. So I was thinking about it in.

Sam: 10:00

You know what is gratitude to me? And for me, the gratitude is the opposite of entitlements. So, like, for me, what's happened is I take nothing for granted. I try to live a life that this tomorrow is gonna get hit by a meteorite or something you know like. So take nothing for granted and I don't feel entitled to life, like tomorrow is not a given and it's kind of lowered my expectations on a lot of things. So you know, like I think I tried to explain this when early on in our marriage Just like you know, like anything that you do I'm so grateful for, you know you get up and you say good morning with a smile.

Sam: 10:50

I'm like I'm grateful for that. I don't, I don't expect it, I'm not entitled to it. So everything that you do, that are you know are doing and you're filling a bucket, I'm really grateful for you know, like anything you do for the kids, anything you know, just the fact that you have a job and you contribute and you know we're collaborating as teammates, and anything. I'm genuinely grateful for it and I try my best to express it. Obviously it's not perfect, but yeah, I think for me that's really helped in life to kind of raise the floor on my general wellbeing and happiness. Just don't feel entitled to a lot.

Tayla: 11:31

So it really has helped me and I've got eight points that maybe you can go through later in terms of you know how to how to cultivate, or you know gratitude and gratitude, exactly no, I find it interesting you know I didn't do this in preparation for this episode, but I was just reading about a study where most parents fear of all the things their children like become. The greatest fear most parents have is that their children become entitled, which is kind of another way to talk about selfishness and not caring for the the wellbeing or experience of other people. And the study speaks about how typically, what actually leads to entitled children is an inability to cope with sad or negative, uncomfortable feelings or emotions, and so therefore they cut off that connection to the experience of other people. And I think there is a way to be the opposite to be grateful, as you say, without considering other people's experiences. I think you can be totally in your own world and still be grateful, but I do think there's something to be said about kind of understanding the experience of other people and how that compares to your experience and affects your experience.

Tayla: 12:58

That I think can add to an attitude of gratitude, and so maybe that's kind of an antidote to try and teach children is to like be grateful, and this is something I always try to distinguish with people when they're like. The advice is to like be sad or to be, and I'm like, yeah, so it's not to act grateful or to say thank you, only it's to actually be grateful. So just teaching your children when to say thanks, I don't think is enough, because it teaches them just a behavior and especially if you're like forcing that upon them, I think it can take some of the thoughtfulness out of it. Demonstrating for them when to say thank you and things like that can be helpful. But I think it's just that caveat of like being grateful. I think a lot of it has to do with just personal observance, intentionality on like what you're noticing and how you feel about those things.

Sam: 13:55

Yeah, no, I agree, the one is basically manners and the other one is a genuine feeling.

Tayla: 14:02

Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about the impact of gratitude on, like, our lives and our relationships. Doesn't have to be ours necessarily, but it's a core value of yours. Tell me about that. Yeah, so you have dying.

Sam: 14:21

Yeah, besides dying, but I think it's also helped me take ownership on a lot of bad behaviors I've had and things that I need to be better on. I think it made me grateful for my parents, you know, regardless of imperfections, because all our parents are imperfect and we're going to be imperfect parents. For me, losing that entitlement means that whatever good I did get from my parents, I've tried to take just that that's lend itself to be really grateful for the parents that I've had and for the good that I've gotten from them. I think that's helped my relationship with my parents. Like I said, it's kind of raised the floor on my happiness. You know that feeling you get when you're no longer sick. I'm thinking about that right now.

Tayla: 15:22

Yeah.

Sam: 15:22

But that feeling you're like, oh man, I'm so grateful right now, I feel so good. I'm never going to forget. You know how grateful I am to have health.

Tayla: 15:29

I'm not going to take it for granted.

Sam: 15:32

Yeah, exactly. So having that core belief of gratitude has helped kind of in that way. You know, you wake up and like this morning I literally had that thought. I was like oh I'm alive, like no not normal, but good yeah. So I'm alive and I'm happy and you know let's have another day.

Tayla: 15:51

Yeah, I was just I do some what do you call it contract work where I've been training essentially high school kids in a school district close by that is really struggling with culture and essentially diversity and inclusion and bullying and stuff, and kind of walked them through this whole idea of dehumanization and the, the, the, the antithesis of that being empathy. But I told them about this, this story that I still think about all the time, which is, you know, right after I had moved to the States when I was 13,. I had a really, really hard time and navigating like a new school where everything's inside and there's lockers and I can't tell how they've labeled these classrooms. I also came from like South Africa, so being late to big no, no, and I didn't want to anger a teacher and I was just walking around hallways alone, lost and feeling like totally out of place. And I remember this girl came out out of nowhere and she asked me like if I was lost and if she could help me and instead of like just pointing I always get so emotional when I talk about this and I think it's just it can speak to like small things making a difference, but anyway, she didn't just point me in the right direction to the class. She like walked me to the door and I realized that she had her classes in the totally opposite direction. She didn't mind. She like was late herself. She walked me to the classroom and I watched her walk off into the glow of the hallway lights.

Tayla: 17:33

In the high school I was like, oh my gosh, that was just an angel. And I remember feeling like just so grateful that someone would notice me. And I think there's something to that, like that human side of gratitude, of just like it going so hand in hand with like kindness. And I do think, if you're struggling to like be grateful with what you have, that focusing on something that is maybe it feels a little more actionable, like just a kind act or noticing things, can be really helpful. And I have a lot of experiences like that, like a ton of tiny experiences that will make me like super emotional. There are small things by other people you know that like made every difference in the world to like me and my immigrant family as we struggled to assimilate and survive with very little money, and I know you have similar experiences too.

Sam: 18:31

Oh yeah, no, just a million experiences of people being kind, just honestly, there's just too many to even even count. Yeah, I was just while you're telling your stories. I was, I really was just thinking about just the principle again of it. I know I don't believe you at this point, but it really is. I'm saying this because I feel like it's good to be happy. You know it feels good and when you are feeling grateful, you feel happy. Like just hearing your experience, you're like I can feel your happiness from that. You know, through that gratitude there was, you know, so much happiness and so it like I cannot recommend incorporating gratitude into your life, as you know, for selfish reasons. You know like it will genuinely make you a happier person if you can incorporate that gratitude.

Tayla: 19:45

Yeah, and I think I just want to say, like throw out who that was, because that was a friend of mine named Sarah and she like not just that moment, that was kind of one of the first moments but she was life-changing for me because of like constant kindness that she is, like she's still, like this is 15 years later plus and like still is that kind of person, just so kind, and I know that makes a difference for her and it makes a difference for everyone around. And so like I agree that there's a tie there on happiness and, as you're saying, that, like I really did, like in those moments of really real difficulty, the moment I was shown kindness and could feel gratitude for that, I was not thinking about what I didn't have anymore. I was thinking about, like what I did. So same thing, like when people would gift us like money around Christmas time.

Tayla: 20:39

I wasn't no longer thinking just the act of kindness, it wasn't just the need being filled, but like I was no longer thinking like, oh, we're really struggling and this sucks and we're poor, you know, I was thinking more like wow, look what we have, like that's so kind. And I think that's what these principles kind of can do, and gratitude I think does not only lend to like a focus on what you do have rather than what you don't have. But I do think, like you can be grateful for things you don't have to go through that. You know other people have to go through as well.

Sam: 21:15

Yeah.

Tayla: 21:19

One thing I also wanted to talk about is like maybe the idea of gratitude rituals or gratitude practices. I have never been like so intentional about how I'm grateful, except for maybe in the form of like prayer. I was brought up and grew up like with a cadence of prayer that was like first you like address God and then you talk about what your grateful form. That's the only like ritualized, regular, like gratitude practice quote unquote that I have and I still really like love. That I think sometimes with rituals can come like an apathy or like it can just kind of be more robotic than intentional. I think I've fallen to that pretty often. Either way don't have like that much experience with like rituals or gratitude practices, like a gratitude journal anything, but I feel like it's a good, maybe stepping point for a lot of people struggling with that.

Sam: 22:18

Yeah, I feel like gratitude goes hand in hand with mindfulness, so which you know, if you've listened to the podcast, it's something that brought up a few times that I feel like at least taking time throughout the day multiple times a day. It could be, you know, some people need it scheduled, you know like, hey, right before I go to bed or take a bath or in the morning, but for me it's just, you know, kind of happens multiple times throughout the day where you just take a moment to kind of collect your thoughts and feelings and during those moments kind of like when you were talking about ritualistic, that'd be, you know, a good time to check in with, you know, things that you're grateful for.

Tayla: 23:07

Yeah, I think that with practice and I think just the like I want to be more grateful is a huge step, and the more you practice and are thoughtful about it, the less thoughtful you have to be. It kind of becomes a state of being, a natural inclination that comes where you're constantly. Your brain just is wired that way.

Sam: 23:27

Yeah, I mean I love for me if I pull out birds eye view of you know humanity and existence and stuff. You realize just how small we are. You know just how big the planet is there's eight billion people. We are a speck in time. You know the universe has been around for billions of years and so the fact that we have that, we're self aware, we have consciousness and we're alive, I mean that's a pretty freaking huge.

Sam: 24:03

Yeah, it's a really unique thing that we get to experience, just so the further back you can pull yourself out of your, your own, you know, existence, For me that's. That's really helped me to be grateful.

Tayla: 24:17

It's a really good point. Thanksgiving is tomorrow when this episode comes out, and your family has, like a really special relationship with Thanksgiving. Yeah, given that we didn't grow up with it, it wasn't a ritual or a holiday or whatever tradition that we grew up with.

Sam: 24:36

Yeah, we moved to the United States on Thanksgiving 25 years ago, actually on this Thanksgiving.

Tayla: 24:44

Wow.

Sam: 24:45

So we are always, you know, we give gratitude for. You know, the country that you know that we could immigrate to. You know it's an imperfect country, but it is definitely a place that we've been able to thrive. And then, obviously, great, you know, grateful to our parents that sacrificed so much to get us here, and then grateful to all the people or the community that accepted us here and helped us to transition, you know, culturally, financially, emotionally, spiritually, yeah, you guys were really embraced.

Sam: 25:25

Yeah, massively embraced. And then, on top of the community, it was also the LDS church you know provided a lot of support on top of that, so always will be grateful for that.

Tayla: 25:38

Yeah, I love that Like it's such an intentional like on top of just the idea of Thanksgiving and gratitude. You know your family arriving on Thanksgiving Day which is a new holiday but a special one and tying up like your journey here with this holiday is like really special and that's why we do Thanksgiving with your family every year and we like it's funny because we married each other right, so like we didn't marry into families that had longstanding Thanksgiving traditions or I feel like in a lot of ways we're still trying to adopt and like I still feel like a little bit of a fraud with Thanksgiving and but it's a really beautiful holiday that we get to grow like with our kids and with ourselves. And sure Thanksgiving like any good thing can be. I don't know if there's toxicized bastard eyes whatever you would call it where like it can just be like too much and people are just too crazy and like families struggle and they fight and you're so overwhelmed with like what you need to do to have the perfect tradition that you're not like kind of missing the mark. But I do think that the essence of it is so beautiful and most families like managed to really pull that through and as I think about like doing this with our family and your family in a couple of days here.

Tayla: 27:14

There's a lot of things that I'm grateful for that. You know, becoming a parent really makes things super weird for you, like you don't want time to keep going, but you're also like anxious for the next stage. Everything's so tiring that you're like, well, when they're this like, I'll have kind of my freedom and my space again. And I just do think often about you know, my mom will often say these typical things that are so true on like one day you're going to miss the sticky everything. One day you're really going to miss like, and I think about that and I'm just I'm grateful that I have like a reason to clean everything all the time and a reason to be tired all the time and so some things that can be really exhausting, that you might wish away or actually like something that people desperately wish for, and I'm trying to recognize that more and more myself.

Sam: 28:09

Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to the holiday I'm glad that we've got that tradition Looking forward to watching Ella grow in her gratitude. There's times when I can tell that she's genuinely happy and genuinely grateful for something. You know. She says it so sincerely.

Tayla: 28:31

She does, she goes. Thank you, like she really means it. That's really cute.

Sam: 28:36

Yeah, it's like she she got on you to two or like a toy or maybe a chicken nugget or something. There's just different times that she's genuinely grateful for things, and so I love watching them and trying to cultivate that.

Tayla: 28:51

Yeah, we are going to post like a little. We'll do a little post of things that we're particularly grateful for and we're going to ask on social media like how it is that you guys participate in gratitude and maybe some rituals or practices you have, or even Thanksgiving tradition specifically. But either way, we are grateful for so much, not the least of which is just the. I always call it like a small and strong community. I've listened to her a second, our little corner here that like it's fun for us to do this and to watch it grow organically and we're just really loving it and we're grateful for you and that we get to do this for fun.

Sam: 29:37

Yeah, I love that. You know we're still so small that I'll, you know, get some texts from people. I know that listen and I love it.

Tayla: 29:44

Yeah, and like people's messages, it's great. So we're just grateful and thank you for just being here and we hope that, whatever your situation is, be it like really abundant or feeling like kind of sparse this year particularly, we hope that you find a way to have Thanksgiving be a day where you can find that happiness in kindness or wherever you can, and express, you know, in your way kind of release, you know things, and really feel that gratitude. Thanks for listening to the Babe. What do you know about? Podcast? Remember to rate, subscribe and review.