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Ron Fruit: Welcome to the podcast, Coping Better, Connecting Our Positive Emotions, where we talk about positive emotion skills in relation to farm stress. Today we’ll be discussing gratitude, noticing and savoring our daily experiences in agriculture, a foundation of the WeCope series. I’m your host, Ron Fruit. Today we welcome our guests Beth Smetana, a retired licensed clinical social worker and behavior health program manager at UW Extension Health and Wellbeing Institute. And Brianne Mossman, the founder of the Will P Project. Today, with Beth’s help, we start with a definition of gratitude.

Beth Smetana: Gratitude can be defined as a feeling of thankfulness or appreciation, and of course, it’s going to be as different as each person who feels gratitude. Gratitude is something that often is expressed toward others, but it also can be very deeply felt toward something like nature or non-human sources like animals. Um, people feel gratitude for things as well as non things like beliefs and experiences. So there’s all different ways that gratitude is experienced by different people. And of course, there’s different ways that it’s expressed by people. In the same way, there’s different ways that people find it helpful to them to really kind of think about expressing their gratitude. Some people keep a gratitude journal and that really helps them to, um, have less negative emotion. Even better sleep quality is reported by people that keep a gratitude journal, feeling more satisfied with life. For other people, a journal might not be the way that it works for them. It might be affirmations or statements of gratitude, kind of three positive things in the morning. So however people express gratitude, it’s personal to them. But what we do know through studies is that when people develop a gratitude practice, it is related to a number of positive outcomes.

Ron Fruit: If you are wondering which comes first, the gratitude or the things to be grateful for, you are asking a very good question. Sometimes

Beth Smetana: People like to say, I’d be grateful if I had something to be grateful for, but it actually doesn’t work that way. Gratitude works by really noticing and amplifying and savoring those things that we already have in our lives. There’s a saying about, I, I’m not gonna get it quite right, but one way is that you can see everything as a miracle. And another way to look at life is that nothing is. So, I think gratitude really more, is more about that perspective of what can I be grateful for rather than, what don’t I have that I’d like to have? So it’s really taking a, an account and giving some thought to those things that you already have in your life and kind of thinking about, Am I grateful for this? Maybe somebody else wouldn’t be, but maybe to me, that thing, that person, that experience is deeply, deeply gratifying. So, no, I would say you don’t have to have certain experiences in your life to be a more grateful person.

Ron Fruit: Brianne feels that developing an attitude of gratitude can be a matter of perspective.

Brianne Mossman: I think gratitude is something that Beth did a really great job of expanding on, and it can be so broad. Sometimes it almost feels overwhelming, which is a little counterintuitive because gratitude, we don’t wanna be overwhelming. And so sometimes I like to bring it back down and look at gratitude as maybe just the small moments that bring a little smile to my face, um, but can also be the big moments that maybe bring relief. And it’s that whole spectrum, uh, of anything that can fall in between those small and those big moments. And really it’s keeping in perspective that it’s just being thankful for anything even against all odds. Because like Beth said, you know, we don’t have to have something be thankful for. It’s just recognizing that it’s there no matter what. And that’s especially when we need it. Even the most.

Ron Fruit: Brianne also believes you can find gratitude when you focus on your values.

Brianne Mossman: When you focus on your gratitude, it gives you something to pinpoint, because sometimes people might say, I, I just don’t know what to be thankful for. I can’t think of anything. Well, think about the things that are really important to you. Um, the things that bring about good emotion in you and being thankful for them, whether it’s family, friends, health, happiness. You know, there’s so many things and there’s a multitude of values out there. And if people aren’t sure what theirs are, you know, that’s a great place to start to take some time and to think about those.

Ron Fruit: Finding gratitude some days may require you to dig deep. Brianne founded the Will P project in 2020 after her brother committed suicide.

Brianne Mossman: It was a really, really difficult time in my life for my family and for I for his friends. And so I created this non-profit to share about suicide prevention and cancer support. And also a part of it is a Facebook group that I created. And each day I try to share a positive message, something uplifting, something motivating, something encouraging, and just sharing about being thankful about the lives that we’ve been given, you know, despite the hardships, the stressors, and the struggles that we all face, because we all face them, but we all handle them in a different way. And to bring it back to gratitude, you know, they say it’s hard to be mad if you have a smile on your face, right? Um, and sometimes you really have to dig deep to find that smile and to find that gratitude. But it’s always, always there. And I think if you invite others to share in that gratitude and openly share your own, your own gratitude, then that will help others to practice that as well.

Ron Fruit: Beth could not agree more.

Beth Smetana: Brianne did the best job of explaining that you don’t have to have these great, exciting things happening in your life to be grateful when she said, If you’re alive, you have something to be grateful for. So really, the perspective, the change in perspective totally changes the things that we see when we change how we look at them. So that was a wonderful way to describe that.

Ron Fruit: If you are not sure what your values are, maybe this is a good time to do some self-reflection.

Beth Smetana: Self-reflection is a good thing for all of us all the time. We live such fast-paced lives, and our society really puts a lot of importance on kind of glitz and glamour. And so just tuning in and finding really simple gratitude is a little counterintuitive in our society. So I would say first of all, that mindset. If your mindset is, when I get that job that pays me six figures, then I’ll be happy. Yeah, maybe that will happen and maybe it won’t. Or when I have that same car as my neighbor, then I’ll feel like I’ve really arrived. So really, when you’re thinking about gratitude, have you in your life defined gratitude as like the million dollar things that may or may not happen or that comment I made earlier? Do you see everything as a miracle?

Ron Fruit: Beth is growing a wildflower meadow, which caused her to think about a book she read and her own personal experience.

Beth Smetana: When you walk through nature and the color purple appears in nature, do you notice? So I think kind of reviewing your mindset for do I see everything as wonder or nothing? And then also I think sometimes perversely we resist just plain being happy. It’s like, Nope, if I let down, I might not strive and work too hard today. I can’t give in. So what would it mean to accept that I’m going to be happy with exactly what I have in my life and who I am? Again, that goes back to values and mindset. So I think reflection on what is important to me. We probably all can think of stories of people who came very close to losing things they value, and only then did they realize how much they actually valued those things. So that reflection and that focusing on what is important to us is pretty important for us to really give some thought to what am I really grateful for? I know at the end of the day, it is those small things that made me smile that really make life go around. Then the big things that you work and work for, and maybe they keep you happy for a while and maybe they don’t.

Ron Fruit: Much of Brianne’s gratitude has been shaped by her farm background. Her father was a dairy farmer, and today she is a farmer’s wife.

Brianne Mossman: Something that I I currently love to do is to be outside in nature and to just give thanks for the fresh air. In fact, that’s one thing that I really just love the savor. I go out on Gator rides with my kids, and we’ll drive and we’ll look for animals. We’ll check out crops, we’ll look at flowers, we’ll look for birds, whatever it might be. And I just love to close my eyes and let the fresh air just zoom past me and breathe deep. And I hear my kids talking and, you know, the sun shining and the warm sun shine on my face just, it feels so good. And sometimes we don’t take the time to do that. And I think kind of going, when Beth was talking, she reminded me of almost like with a childlike wonder, you know, looking at things and say, Do you notice the purple flower and how beautiful that is?

Brianne Mossman: Thinking back to kids when they say, Mom, look this, and, and it, you know, our growing up and we get tainted with all the things that adults have to deal with. We don’t appreciate those things like kids used to. And you know, we almost have to put on a different hat or our kid hat and just say, You know what? I’m just gonna have fun and I’m going to appreciate these things. Like I used to, like my kids do, like my grandkids do, whoever it might be. And it, and you can find a lot of fun in that. Yeah, we’re not used to doing that anymore and might feel a little silly, but it’s, it’s really rewarding and enjoyable, especially if you have a friend to do it with, that can definitely help.

Ron Fruit: Nighttime is a good time for gratitude.

Brianne Mossman: Every night my family says prayers together, and I always say, you know, Thank you Lord, for keeping us happy, healthy, and safe. Even on the days when in my heart, I feel a little bit of a sinking feeling, I say it anyways. And it’s something too that I’m role modeling for my kids. They’ve had a bad day, or mom’s had a bad day, or dad’s had a bad day. There’s still something to be thankful for. And, and we’re going to say that.

Ron Fruit: Thanks to our guest today, Beth and Brianne, for sharing their knowledge and experiences with us. If you are interested in more information on positive emotional skills, please check out all the episodes of Coping Better, Connecting Our Positive Emotions.

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Credits:  Coping Better; Connecting with Our Positive Emotions is a product of a generous grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through a partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) and is adapted from the original WeCOPE curriculum, a ROTA grant funded program through the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).