Welcome to Under the Surface. This is where we slow down and
look at the patterns underneath the stories we tell ourselves.
Today's chapter is called Practicing Gratitude and
underneath gratitude is not perfection or positivity.
Most of the time it is survival. It is the decision to notice
what is still holding you together when your mind keeps
pulling you toward everything that is broken.
Gratitude is not pretending life is easy, it is learning how to
stand inside a hard life without losing sight of what still
matters. Welcome to No One Is Normal, the
podcast where real stories remind us that none of us are
alone. You can also visit the website
www.bradhhill.com or www.nooneisnormal.co for
resources, updates and future podcast episodes.
I am Brad H Hill and each week we talk about the messy, the
complicated, and the deeply human moments that shape us and
remain in our memories. I am not here to tell anyone how
to live. I am here to offer the stories,
the insights that made me realize that no one is normal,
including me. Because healing starts when self
honesty begins. Practicing gratitude used to
sound like a trendy slogan to me.
It felt like something people stitched on to pillows or hung
on the wall in nice homes, not something that had anything to
do with survival. It did not sound practical, like
a tool, and it definitely did not sound like something that
could steady a life that had spent years swinging between the
unknown, pressure, regret, and recovery.
For a long time, I thought gratitude belonged to people
whose lives were already calm, people who had enough distance
from pain to sit around appreciating things.
I did not understand yet that gratitude is not about
pretending everything is fine. It is about noticing what is
still good when everything is not.
I remember sitting in a leadership class at work and
hearing the instructor suggest taking one minute every morning
to think about what I was thankful for.
One minute. That was it.
No big spiritual performance. No journal full of perfect
thoughts, just 60 seconds of intentional attention.
At the time, I remember thinking that it sounded nice, but also a
little useless. I had spent so much of my life
focused on what I did not have, what I had lost, what I needed
to fix, and how far I still had to go, that the idea of stopping
to appreciate anything felt almost foreign.
My mind had been trained to scan for what was wrong, not what was
right. When I finally tried it, it felt
awkward at first. I sat there in the quiet and
started naming the obvious things.
My wife, my parents, my family, the house Bonnie and I built
with our own blood, sweat, and tears.
The people who believed in me when I could not quite believe
in myself yet. Even the difficult ones.
The people who taught me exactly how I never wanted to lead or
treat someone else. Somewhere in that practice,
something shifted. Gratitude stopped feeling like a
soft word and started feeling like a different way of seeing.
It became less about sentiment and more about perspective.
This episode is about that shift.
It is about learning to be grateful in the middle of real
life, not just when everything lines up.
It is about learning how to appreciate the people,
experiences, lessons, and quiet moments that hold us up when we
would otherwise spiral. It is also about learning to
offer some of that gratitude inward, because if I cannot
recognize my own progress and survival, I will keep chasing
validation from everywhere else and never feel full.
Gratitude did not fix my life, but it changed the way I stand
inside it. That matters more than I knew
when I first sat through that class.
For most of my life, gratitude sounded like something made for
other people. It was a word that looked good
in a quote or on a coffee mug, not something that had any real
use when life felt heavy. My default setting was not
appreciation. My default setting was scanning
for what was missing, what could go wrong, or where the next hit
might come from. When your brain is built around
survival, stopping to say thank you can feel fake, almost
irresponsible. It can feel like letting your
guard down in a world that taught you not to.
That leadership class at work cracked something open for me.
The instructor said to take one minute every morning and think
about what I was thankful for. At the time, that sounded too
simple to matter. I remember thinking that a
minute was not going to change anything when I finally tried
it. The simplicity was part of what
made it work. It did not require me to become
a different person overnight. It just asked me to pause.
At first I started with the obvious things.
My wife, my parents, my family, the house Bonnie and I literally
built together. Not just the building itself but
everything. It represented. 2 people with
rough histories putting their hands to something solid and
creating a life that did not exist before.
Then my mind started drifting in to other places.
I thought about the bosses and Co workers, pushed me,
challenged me and saw something in me that I did not always see
in myself. I even started thinking about
the difficult ones, the people who taught me exactly how.
I never want to lead, communicate or treat another
person. That was the first big shift.
I started seeing that people were either blessings or
lessons, and most of the time they were both.
Eventually, the spotlight turned toward the person I had spent
the least amount of time appreciating, which was me.
That was a strange place to land.
I had spent years chasing approval and almost no time
acknowledging my own effort. When I finally took a real
inventory, it was jarring. I had gone back to school while
working more than full time. I had quit smoking after years
of convincing myself I probably never would.
I had fought through addiction, relapse, setbacks, burnout, and
a lot of self-inflicted pain. I had walked away from jobs that
looked good on paper but were slowly killing me in real life.
None of that felt heroic in the moment.
Most of it felt like stumbling forward.
But gratitude forced me to zoom out and see that younger me
would not have believed I could survive half of what I have
survived, let alone build something meaningful afterward.
The longer I practice gratitude, the more ordinary things started
showing up on the list. Those are the ones that changed
me the most. A quiet night on the couch with
Bonnie and the animals. A warm meal we cooked together.
The routine of planning, shopping, seasoning, serving,
eating, and cleaning up afterward.
I used to treat those moments like background noise.
Gratitude slowed me down enough to see them as proof that I am
not living in crisis all the time anymore.
This is what love looks like in real life.
Someone to eat with, a kitchen that is ours.
Ordinary nights that younger versions of me would have taken
for granted. Gratitude also changed my
relationship with my past. For years I carried my mistakes
like a legal case against myself.
Every bad choice, missed opportunity, or painful
relationship became evidence that I had somehow failed too
deeply to deserve anything good. Once gratitude became a real
practice, those questions started a shift.
Instead of only asking how I screwed something up, I started
asking what that season taught me.
What did that relationship teach me about boundaries?
What did that relapse show me about where I was still in pain?
What did that job make clear about?
What I will never accept again? I still wish I had done some
things differently, but I am not using those memories as weapons
against myself the way I used to.
They are still painful in places, but now they also carry
information. One of the deepest layers of
gratitude in my life is Bonnie's story.
Everything she survived could have ended very differently.
There are versions of her life where she does not make it out.
There are versions where our paths never crossed.
I still catch myself wishing she could have escaped sooner.
And then I must remind myself that we do not get to change the
past. Gratitude helps me stop mentally
rewriting the story and start honoring the reality in front of
me. She is here, she is safe.
We get to build a life together. That is not something I will
ever treat as ordinary. Practicing gratitude has not
turned my life into some polished inspirational montage.
I still have days where everything feels heavy, where
old patterns try to drag me back, and where nothing seems to
move the way I hoped it would. The difference now is that I
have something to reach for. Instead of automatically
reaching for a bottle, a spiral, or a shutdown.
Before I grab my phone or let my thoughts run wild, I try to
ground myself in what is still good.
Some days it is big things like my marriage, my health, and the
fact that I am still sober. Some days it is embarrassingly
small, things like hot coffee, a dog leaning against my leg, or
five quiet minutes in the car where my brain finally stops
screaming. Gratitude does not erase the
hard stuff, it just gives me a steadier place to stand while I
face it. Taking a quick pause here.
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these stories. Now let's jump back in.
At its core, this episode is not about forced positivity.
It is not about pretending everything happens for a reason
or that pain should be tied up in a bow.
It is about training my mind to see the full picture instead of
only the damage. Practicing gratitude is really
me admitting that I spent most of my life staring at what was
broken and missing what was holding me up.
This practice became one of the quiet anchors that keeps me from
getting pulled under. In the rest of this episode, I
want to zoom out into how gratitude actually shifts the
brain and body and then come back to the practical side of
what it looks like to build this habit.
Honestly, one minute at a time. One of the reasons I take
gratitude seriously now is because it is not just a feel
good idea. It has real effects on how the
brain and body function. When someone intentionally looks
for things to appreciate, the nervous system starts to shift.
The body moves a little further away from constant fight or
flight and a little closer to regulation.
The mind stops scanning only for danger and begins noticing
support, connection, and moments of safety.
That does not mean life becomes easy, it means the brain stops
treating every waking second like a threat.
Assessment. Most people carry a negativity
bias that is not a character flaw, it is an old survival
pattern. The brain naturally pays more
attention to what is wrong than what is right because
historically missing danger had bigger consequences than missing
comfort. The problem is that in modern
life, this bias can trap people in fear, comparison, resentment
and scarcity. Gratitude interrupts that
pattern. It pulls attention back towards
what is actually working, even if it is small.
It teaches the mind that the story is not only about loss,
stress or disappointment. People practice gratitude in
different ways. Some keep journals and write
down a few things each night before bed.
Some say it out loud first thing in the morning.
Some build it into family dinners or bedtime routines.
The form is less important than the practice itself.
What matters is the intentional pause.
It is the moment where you say, here is one thing that did not
collapse today, here's one person who showed up.
Here's one part of my life I do not want to overlook that does
something to the mind. Over time, it builds A
counterweight to despair. There are countless real world
examples of people leaning on gratitude in dark seasons.
Someone sitting in a hospital room might be grateful for a
kind nurse, a working machine, or a family member who keeps
showing up. A person walking through a
divorce may be grateful for the one friend who keeps calling, or
for the apartment that is not much but is at least theirs.
A person in recovery may be deeply grateful for one sober
day after a week or month of hell.
None of those things erase pain. That is not the point.
The point is that pain no longer gets to be the only thing
visible in the frame. Gratitude can also change
relationships. When someone starts noticing and
acknowledging what their partner, friend or Co worker
does instead of only focusing on what they missed, the tone
shifts. Appreciation can soften
resentment. Saying something as simple as I
saw the effort that took, thank you for handling that, or I
appreciate how you showed up can build a different foundation
over time. People do better when they feel
seen. That is true in marriages,
friendships, families, and workplaces.
Teams work better when people feel appreciated, not just used.
There is an important boundary here though.
Gratitude should never be weaponized.
It should not be used to gaslight someone into accepting
abuse, staying in harm, or pretending A wound was OK just
because they learned something from it.
Being grateful for a lesson does not mean pretending the pain was
acceptable. Gratitude is not saying it could
be worse so I should shut up and take it.
It is saying this is painful and real and at the same time
there's still something worth holding on to.
Both truths can exist together. Both need space.
When gratitude is practiced in a healthy way, it becomes a daily
recalibration. It does not fix everything, but
it gently turns the mind away from only what is broken.
It reminds me that even when I am exhausted, there are still
people, moments, and experiences that give my life meaning.
That awareness does not erase the hard chapters, it just keeps
them from being the only chapters I read.
Gratitude has become one of the quiet anchors in my life.
But I did not arrive there in some peaceful, enlightened way.
I arrived there by slamming into enough walls that I finally had
to find something that steadied me for years.
I woke up and immediately jumped into worry.
What did I screw up yesterday? What is waiting for me at work?
Who am I disappointing now? My mind never asked what was
going right. It only wanted to know what was
wrong and what needed fixing. When I first started naming what
I was thankful for, it felt small, almost stupid.
I remember thinking that naming my wife, my family or the roof
over my head was not really going to change anything.
But over time I noticed that those few moments in the morning
became the only part of my day that did not feel like I was
already running. In those moments I was not
chasing achievement, I was not out running.
Shame. I was just acknowledging that I
had made it this far and that alone meant something.
I have spent so much of my life wishing I had done things
differently, that I forgot to be grateful I survived long enough
to even have regrets. That shift hit me harder than I
expected. I am learning to treat my life
less like a list of failures and more like a long, messy, hard
earned privilege. I get to wake up next to someone
I love. I get to cook in a kitchen I
helped build. I get to tell these stories even
when my voice shakes. None of that was guaranteed.
Gratitude does not erase grief, anger, or exhaustion.
It does not remove the hard chapters or rewrite the ones I
wish had gone differently. What it does is remind me that
those feelings are not the entire story.
On the days when my mind wants to drag me back into old
patterns, gratitude is the thing that quietly says, look again.
There's still something here worth staying for if practicing
gratitude sounds cheesy or unrealistic to you.
I understand that when someone is in the middle of real pain,
being told to just be grateful can feel insulting.
That is not what I am talking about here.
I am not asking anyone to pretend trauma, loss,
exhaustion, or heartbreak do not hurt.
I am not asking anyone to throw a positive label on something
that almost broke them. What I am inviting is a shift in
what gets your full attention. Think about the last few days of
your life. There were probably things that
went wrong. Maybe money is tight, maybe
health is shaky. Maybe your relationships feel
fragile. Those things matter.
They are real. At the same time, there were
probably also moments that did not completely fall apart.
A text from someone who checked in.
A pet curling up next to you, a song that hit at the right time,
a joke that broke the tension for a second, a quiet drive
where your thoughts finally slowed down.
Gratitude is about naming those moments on purpose so they do
not disappear under the noise of everything else.
You might also be someone who gives a lot to other people.
Cooking, caregiving, listening, working extra hours, answering
the phone, holding space when someone else is falling apart,
Those things can become so automatic that they stop feeling
meaningful. I want to invite you to look at
them differently. Every meal prepared, every ride
given, every time you showed up when someone needed you.
Those are acts of love. What would it feel like to
actually notice that instead of dismissing it as nothing?
Gratitude is not just for huge wins.
It is also for those small, steady ways you keep showing up
when you're tired. If the idea of starting a
gratitude practice feels overwhelming, keep it simple.
Pick one time during the day, maybe when you wake up or before
bed. Name one thing you are thankful
for. Not ten things, just one.
Say it out loud or write it down.
Over time, your mind will start noticing more without being
forced. You may still have bad days.
You may still doubt whether anything is really changing.
That is human. Gratitude does not demand
perfection. It just keeps nudging your
attention back toward what is still holding you up.
Most of all, I want to say this. If life has been hard, if you
have walked through loss, addiction, illness, betrayal, or
heartbreak, and you are still here, there is already something
to be grateful for. You kept going.
You kept breathing. You kept finding a way, even if
it was ugly and messy. That effort deserves
acknowledgement. Gratitude can be the way you
finally give yourself credit for surviving your own story.
Practicing gratitude has not made my life simple, but it has
made it more honest. It has forced me to look at what
is actually in front of me instead of only staring at what
is missing. Some days the list of things I
am thankful for feels long. Other days it feels like I am
clinging to one thin thread. Either way, I have learned that
there is almost always something there if I am willing to look
closely enough. A person who stayed a lesson I
do not want to relearn. A quiet moment that made the
noise more bearable. Gratitude is not a finish line.
It is a practice. It is a choice made repeatedly,
especially when it would be easier to shut down, spiral, or
go numb. When I wake up and ask myself
what I am thankful for before I do anything else, I am not
ignoring the hard parts of my life.
I am trying to face them from a steadier place that is available
to anyone listening. It does not require perfect
mental health, perfect faith, or a perfect life.
It only requires A willingness to pause and notice what has not
left you, even when so much has. Wherever you are right now,
there's at least one thing in your life that is still worth
appreciating. Maybe it is a person, a second
chance, or it is simply the fact that you are still here.
Hold on to that. Let gratitude wrap around it.
Let it remind you that even in the middle of everything you
have survived, there is still something in your world that
matters, and so do you. That's under the surface.
Not to ignore the pain. Not to force optimism, but to
understand the patterns that shape what we focus on every
day. If this chapter brought up
grief, exhaustion, or the feeling that life has been
harder than most people realize, take a breath and look again.
There's always something in your life worth holding on to.
Gratitude does not erase the difficult chapters.
It reminds us they are not the only chapters in the story.
Just a reminder, the stories and conversations in this podcast
are for informational and personal reflection only.
Nothing shared here should be taken as medical, legal, or
professional advice. Always speak with a qualified
professional about your own personal situation.
Thank you for listening to No One Is Normal.
If today's message resonated with you, you can find the book
No One Is Normal on Amazon and Kindle and explore more
resources at www.bradhill.com or www.nooneisnormal.co.
Remember, you weren't meant to be normal, you were meant to be
you.