S2E31: How to Find Gratitude in Small Things
Over the past twenty-five years, I have been a freelance writer, a workshop designer and facilitator, and conducted market research. In 2010, I started blogging on mindfulness and gratitude to bring myself out of depression.
I have posted reflections on things in my daily life that sparked grateful feelings almost every week for more than a decade. This gratitude practice helped me elevate my mood and so much more. Hope and confidence became core aspects of my outlook.
NoSmallThing.net is not just a blog. My offerings have expanded, but my purpose has sharpened. Now, through writing (blog and books), courses and coaching, I have a clear purpose.
Social media and contact information:
website: https://nosmallthing.net
facebook https://www.facebook.com/NoSmallThingMindfulMeditations
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nosmallthingdeborahh/
linkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-hawkins-08958012/
Linktr/ee https://linktr.ee/gratefuldeb
Podcast transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged podcast by Damaged Parents where a grateful, lost, generous people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it.
There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole. Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose.
These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Deborah Hawkins. She has many roles in her life, daughter blogger, transformational woman, and more. We'll talk about how she went through a particularly challenging point in life and how she found health and healing let's talk
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Debra Hawkins with us. She has got the website. https://NoSmallThing.net. Over the past 25 years, she's been a freelance writer, a workshop designer and facilitator and conducted market research in 2010, though, she started blogging on mindfulness and gratitude to bring herself out of depression.
She's posted reflections on things in her daily life that sparked grateful feelings almost every week. For more than a decade. This gratitude practice has helped her elevate her mood and so much more. Hope and confidence can become core aspects of our outlook. Debra, welcome to the show. And thank you so much for bringing what I believe is such a beautiful message. I can't wait to hear your journey.
[00:02:55] Deborah S. Hawkins: Thank you for having Angela.
[00:02:57] Damaged Parents: I mean, you were in depression and purposefully found gratitude like did you hear about it? How did you,, how did you even get there from depression?
[00:03:07] Deborah S. Hawkins: Well, I think my story certainly starts in childhood and I think it's important to note because I didn't just lift myself out a run of the mill depressional being a little down, going through a down period in my life. I really was at a point, which was a culmination of many years of not feeling very valuable or not worthwhile.
And
that's why this gratitude practice and the changes that I've encountered are so important to me. And I wanted to like bring them out in the world. Basically I believe that everybody is born into kind of a family drama. So, In my case, I was the youngest child born into a family that just lost a little girl in the car accident, like a few years earlier.
And my parents were still kind of the whole family dealt with some grief about this that was not really dealt with very well. And what happened was, uh, I had a sister that was born after the accident. And she was like the golden child, she was like, so welcome to my mother. She was like a replacement for the child she lost.
And then I came on the scene about a year later. I was not treated the same, so I'm sure lots of people go through this kind of experience. But I went through a period where in my young life I was kind of beaten or abused by my sister.
That was one year older and it was too important for my parents to, catered to my sister because she was so important to them after the loss of this other little girl. didn't really understand why I just perceived that I was not treated the same. So I grew up not feeling protected. I would ask for this abuse to stop, I grew up not feeling protected and not feeling listened to
[00:05:13] Damaged Parents: so really there's this overshadowing of a child that dies and then a second child that replaces that child. And then you come along and just, aren't feeling heard, maybe even seen I'm thinking like just hidden. And then did you have another sister after you?
[00:05:33] Deborah S. Hawkins: No, I was, the final act. It was pretty obvious that I wasn't treated the same and it really played on me in a very negative way. I didn't feel worthwhile. I didn't feel protected. I didn't feel heard and seen in a good way. So this carried on throughout childhood. And I took this like further because in my teenage years or young adulthood, I didn't really feel like I wasn't comfortable in dating circumstances because I would go back and forth between just doing anything to be pleasing to somebody or other behaviors that weren't really healthy for me. And then also in the work environment, even though I was very smart, I didn't find a good career path.
[00:06:27] Damaged Parents: So would you say that you were living at either end of the spectrum, like in a very black or white world, you were either doing everything or not doing anything? Is that what you're trying to explain? Or was it something different?
[00:06:43] Deborah S. Hawkins: Yeah, I don't think that it exactly just that this feeling of not being worthwhile, that you might have as a child. Is hard to shake for years and years and years. And I just turned 65. And I'm like out of this now I'm still working on some things, but it really has a big effect on you. And I'm a writer. So I use sort of a writing analogy when they read something, that might have a first person narrator. Is this narrator reliable. So there are so many things I heard about how life works from my parents. That's the normal way you learn things. And it never occurred to me that they're not really the best narrators for my life story.
[00:07:33] Damaged Parents: Okay. So you really took on, which I think probably most children do. The identity that the parents were putting on you is what I'm hearing you say.
[00:07:45] Deborah S. Hawkins: Yeah, I think that's true. I, went through great attempts to win their favor, to be pleasing, to be the child they want. And yet it doesn't work to try to be something to be pleasing to somebody else.
[00:08:02] Damaged Parents: Okay. So you became this people pleaser in your family unit, and then you took that outside of the family and started doing it in work and all of your other relationships.
[00:08:12] Deborah S. Hawkins: That's probably true. I tried to please other people, I didn't act with confidence in lots of situations. I didn't really expect people would listen to me.
[00:08:25] Damaged Parents: Now I'm assuming, because you said that I didn't act with confidence, like past tense that you found that confidence and what did you notice as far as behavior in yourself, between acting with confidence and acting without confidence. And can you give an example of that?
[00:08:42] Deborah S. Hawkins: It's something that happens. I think he has to happen incrementally. And that's a very interesting to go through because when you're hurting, you want to fix it right away. And that's like, till you could make changes in a slow and deliberate way, they don't seem to really take root. It's like being manic.
You're going from being high. You had a good experience and then have a bad experience and you don't really feel like sure. Of going in the right direction. And I think a lot of that changed after I had been practicing my gratitude process for a while because I started this practice as a very low point in my life. And what I decided to do was basically I was in my fifties, early fifties and just moved to another town to start a career, a new career, and that didn't work out and I moved back to Chicago. And then I had a car accident. I worked temp jobs. I was not doing very well. And I said, I can't go on like this.
I wasn't suicidal or anything, but I knew. I couldn't like keep going with this mental burden that I was carrying. And I decided to, well, the only thing to do would be to start focusing on positives and giving them more attention. So, I started to write short reflections on things from my everyday life that I found uplifting or I could appreciate.
And I was a writer who was not writing. And so, between having a positive, place of focus. And I'm writing something, which was something that was natural to me, that it wasn't doing. I started feeling better. And then I actually read all the things I was writing and I started like wondering aha.
So these are the things I should look for and it really improved my mood. So it kind of progressed, but it took a while because at first, you feel better because you have a positive focus and then you have a little bit of a purpose and it keeps building in itself, but then you realize that it has subtle changes on you.
After a while I expected, I would find things that I would like. Or I could appreciate everywhere. And I didn't have that before. I knew from writing about my refrigerator, freezers ice maker, or simple things like how beautiful the tiles us looked in the subway station. That if I could focus on these types of things, I knew I could find something I could appreciate in almost any circumstance.
And that started to give me confidence about, approaching life differently.
[00:11:55] Damaged Parents: Now had you heard of gratitude practice or anything at that point had you, or did you just decide? I needed to be grateful.
[00:12:03] Deborah S. Hawkins: I've heard of quite a few gratitude practices. And I know like from different spiritual orientations, having a gratitude practice could be important, but I didn't I had to do it my way. I didn't really, I found some of the gratitude practices And in the day writing 10 or 15 things you were pleased about.
I didn't find that very uplifting because to me that was basically responding happily to external events. And I think that the most confidence boosting and most powerful experience of gratitude comes from yourself comes from within it doesn't come because somebody you have a crush on called you back or something else positive, like finally I use the, analogy finding , a parking place, close to where you parked.
Like Some people get thrilled about that. Well, that's nice, but it's not really a deep feeling of gratitude.
[00:13:09] Damaged Parents: So I think what I hear you saying is making a list is great and may work for some people, but I'm thinking your practice of gratitude went deeper than that when you were writing about the ice maker or the tiles you were, it sounds to me like you, almost that you wrote about the wonder of what you saw in the ice or in the tiles or whatever it was, you were grateful for.
[00:13:34] Deborah S. Hawkins: Well, I actually developed a whole system. For a gratitude practice, which I teach now I do facilitate a zoom course called helium for your heart, elevate your outlook with intentional gratitude. So my premise is that we all have personal gratitude themes. So what I care about. Like what lives find spirits might not be the same as what lifts your spirits.
And I really think that gratitude besides being a good feeling in general is a way to, celebrate yourself. It's what you're grateful for it's unique to you. And to whatever extent you can exercise, feeling grateful.
Naturally you celebrate your own values and that's really healing itself.
[00:14:28] Damaged Parents: So almost like a self healing process from life
[00:14:33] Deborah S. Hawkins: It was for me. So I'm kind of going back 10, 11 years. So what I did was I wrote these reflections, maybe 800 words or something, and I put them on a blog. I wanted to have an audience, but I really wasn't upon search engine optimization on all this stuff. So, whether I was right or not, it was really a good experience for me to have this practice. So, not every day, but at least once a week, I would post blog a little reflection about something I was grateful for. And after three years I read these reflections and I said, Oh, I realized I tended to write about a handful of themes and I realized that most people probably have their own personal gratitude themes.
So in addition to practicing, being in the moment to see what I'm grateful for in the moment, now that I know what my themes are, I could. asked myself so I could look for things by intention. I could ask myself, how do any of my themes show up in this situation? And that's really made a huge difference.
So it's kind of my own practice. It makes sense to me, but I see other people really resonate with this idea that what they value and care about is particular to them and is honored in this type of practice. It's not like a religious practice or something your parents told you like years ago when I grew up.
It was not common if your kid didn't eat their dinner, that their parents would say, you should eat that you should be grateful for that because kids in China can't eat that And that wouldn't make me grateful. I would just feel sorry for these other kids. So it's like important that you allow yourself to feel deeply. Be grateful for what somebody else tells you, you should be grateful And then it's natural to you and you give it some time to brew. And then it's, really wonderful feeling. If your themes are that you could start practicing seeing those things in the world that is.
[00:17:01] Damaged Parents: So, is that how you came, back to your writing? That's how you came back to your writings though. And is that one of your themes writing now? Like, Is that part of what you recognized in you that's important?
[00:17:13] Deborah S. Hawkins: It's not one of my themes I'll tell you some of my themes. I've always really valued writing. But I never thought about it as something to be grateful for. Some of my themes relate to surprises. I really love to be surprised because it's a reminder to be humble. Like things can happen better than you might've expected.
So my tendency might be to try to control something. And it's so wonderful when I get surprised when you let it go. So one of my themes is surprise Another theme is belonging. I really love, I really feel grateful for any situation where I feel I belong to a group or belong to mankind or whatever. So I looked at the themes they wrote about, and I saw I call them my grateful dozen I have a dozen themes that resonate with me and I could practice seeing them in other situations.
[00:18:22] Damaged Parents: So it became easier than to, be grateful because you knew what to look for.
[00:18:29] Deborah S. Hawkins: Exactly. Yes. I think that's true in like anybody's dating life or anybody's work life for, as we get older that it's part of being mindful. So I think of my approach as a very mindful approach to gratitude. It's like once you know what you're looking for, it becomes much easier to see it
[00:18:54] Damaged Parents: Yeah. The other thing that you said it's not like a church, you know, is that it really sounded like a very spiritual practice, but not a religion there's not any one religion saying you need to do this. Like where that might be a great step for someone else.
It sounds like you needed that. Just a very broad, spiritual experience to understand who you were and what you were about. Does that make sense?
[00:19:22] Deborah S. Hawkins: Yes, definitely. I think that's true. I recently had some reviews of my book, which is basically a collection of favorite blog posts. And I heard some commentary online about well, they it's called The Best to No Small Thing, Mindful Meditations. So I heard some people say, I read people say I know I should meditate, but I'm not good at that.
So I would write back, you don't have to meditate to appreciate. I think in a way just being grateful is like praying. It's like saying thank you. And I think that's a highest form of connection with source. We could act.
[00:20:05] Damaged Parents: Well, I agree. And for me personally, I think it's really easy to forget because I am very much a meditator now. Years ago it was not possible. I could not do it. There were extenuating circumstances where my fear and things would come up, so it just, I had to go a different route. And that doesn't mean just because this worked for you.
I'm so grateful for all the people who your style works for them. And you're saying, Hey, guess what? Hey, it's okay.
[00:20:38] Deborah S. Hawkins: Right.
[00:20:39] Damaged Parents: Instead of, you're not following these rules of the religion or the mystic or the, this or the that it's what works for you.
[00:20:47] Deborah S. Hawkins: Exactly. I think. really getting in touch with what's important to you as an individual, and examining it being mindful again, periodically to see how taking that out in the world. What kind of effect does it have? How do you. feel after you do this and noticing
what makes you feel better or not, and like moving towards what makes you feel better. So much of life, come to think is a choice about where you want to put your attention. So I don't say, well, not this, not this I don't want these bad experiences because to me just saying not this still, I have that in my mind. I have what I don't want in my mind. And I think the best way to do something
is to really focus on the things you want and you might not have had like a perfect experience of that. I never had a perfect experience of being parented, but I can build on things that I see that really feel like an experience being nurtured. And I could , ask myself, well, how can I build on those things?
And it's up to me to put my attention on what is positive and what I could do to make that kind of thing bigger. And my awareness.
[00:22:23] Damaged Parents: So I think in some ways, what I'm really hearing you say is it's not about pushing away anything that you might perceive as negative. It's finding within that experience, what you can be grateful for or where the joy might be.
[00:22:39] Deborah S. Hawkins: I think that's very true. I've talked to quite a few people that have been very depressed and upset since COVID and other people that are going through like some sort of grieving process for other reasons, for personal lifetime reasons. I'm not suggesting to deny what you feel, that you feel difficult, things that we, you go through challenges, but realize that why you are going through these challenges.
You also have the opportunity to feel good about some things in your life. And not to push back the difficulties, but to whatever extent you could give a little more and more attention to the things that bring you light and feel good. Follow that
it's instead of trying to push things away, as you were saying when we get quiet, when we think about what we've resonated with what feels good, not just pleasure, and I don't espouse doing things for just immediate high but as something that feels good and beneficial to you, keep doing those things, keep working on expanding that.
[00:23:57] Damaged Parents: So kind of like the long-term versus the short-term. So while going out and buying something new feels great for just a minute. What is something that can help you have that underlying joy instead of that, just moment of happiness.
[00:24:13] Deborah S. Hawkins: Right. I know you were asking about kind of, the effects on confidence and what you can do to move in that direction. So, I have two practices, in addition to this gratitude journal I tried to do every day. And one is I write a list of how I would like to acknowledge to myself from the day before I could be simple things like.
I got my shopping done before it's noon or something. It could be very practical or it could be I acknowledge myself for thanking somebody for paying attention to what happened to me immediately. I think acknowledging myself is really a wonderful way to rebuild myself esteem and also to see that I'm making progress.
It might be small, but I'm moving in the right direction of being more confident and living my life. So that's one thing I do is acknowledgments. And the other thing I just started doing is encouragement. I tried to pay attention to things that happen outside of myself. That is like, The universe encouraging me.
And when I think about this, it's like taking a compliment. It's so easy and automatic to say dismiss it. And I just want to say, well, thank you and move on. Like it's okay. Just to take the compliment and move on. I don't have to like diminish the thought or it's not a hundred percent accurate it's in the right direction and they want to keep going that way.
[00:25:59] Damaged Parents: So, what I'm really hearing is that it may not be someone saying something specifically, it's something you're recognizing and almost accepting the compliment from the universe or yourself or your heart, or however you want to look at it. Am I on the right track with that?
[00:26:17] Deborah S. Hawkins: Yes. And I don't mean to confuse you up. Recognize that many things I developed are sort of intuitive they're my own way of responding to my situation and making my experience better. But I do think there's things that many people could learn and take to heart from this. So I don't mean it's all about getting compliments, but that's one example that I think most people could understand.
We get compliments all the time and it's very common to dismiss them or reduce their impact like oh, they can't be true or negate them. And I go, no, just practice taking it in. And likewise, I tried to pay attention to what has happened to me. Like it could be a small thing that worked in my favor and try to like, maybe somebody calls me from out of the blue and they make an apology or they thank me for something it's like, I wasn't really expecting this, but it's really nice to know that the world, that life itself is trying to encourage me to keep going to keep looking for these things, because the more I could find these things and identify these things, the easier it becomes to move forward with more confidence.
[00:27:48] Damaged Parents: Right. And I'm really getting this underlying message that you're not looking for it from other people like going and looking for it. It's these things are happening and life, the universe, or God. Right. It's just bringing that to you in the time that is right for you.
And sometimes you don't even know you need it. And yet there it is. And instead of being like, no, it's okay. You know it's oh, wow. Thank you. That's fantastic.
[00:28:16] Deborah S. Hawkins: I think that's a very good observation that why this works for me and why I think it's important because too often in my early life, I was looking for other people to approve of what I did. And it didn't lead to me being happier. Like it's not their goal to make me feel approved of, but it's my goal to feel more confident about what I think can do.
[00:28:46] Damaged Parents:
So your confidence came from your own approval of yourself.
[00:28:51] Deborah S. Hawkins: Yes quite a bit,
[00:28:52] Damaged Parents: Hm. That is interesting to ponder.
[00:28:57] Deborah S. Hawkins: I think this has to happen slowly because there's a point where you do something and you have to wait to get a little feedback and the new ma I might say. Oh, I think this feedback is good, but I'm not getting the results I want. And then you tweak it a little bit and it becomes, it keeps becoming more, more natural, easier to do.
And I think it's really, I want to encourage everybody to look and examine their life. What makes them happy? What their values are. And. Really examine whether what they do, in actions reflects what they say they think they want, because if what they do does not reflect what they want, they either need to do something different or recognize that they have to change their values or goals.
[00:29:57] Damaged Parents: is that really what they want? Or maybe it's not what they really want because they keep going this, other way or investigating and going, okay. How come I'm not feeling in alignment with what I'm here for? I guess I think everyone has some purpose.
[00:30:15] Deborah S. Hawkins: I agree. And I think it's like the challenge of a lifetime to live your purpose. I used to say that oh, people have career objectives or family goals or different personal goals, but everybody's purpose is the same in some way. And that is to become more of who they already are.
[00:30:40] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I love that.
[00:30:42] Deborah S. Hawkins: and I think that.
Sometimes it's easy to do and sometimes when you've not been given the encouragement, it takes a while.
[00:30:51] Damaged Parents: Yeah, that's really beautiful. There was something on the tip of my tongue.
I lost it. That's okay. Cause That was a beautiful statement. I'm just, if it comes back to me, I'm going to ask you for your three things. So if it comes back to me, All around back to it after that. So if someone is in this situation, like where you were at the beginning, maybe you could give us a couple of different examples the beginning and the middle, maybe what are three things or a few things at the beginning.
And then as you got to the middle, that you would say. This helped or at least it helped me. And then, I mean, I don't know, maybe you have some tips on how to help them figure out what their journey is.
[00:31:33] Deborah S. Hawkins: I think one of the things I try to advise people and I certainly practice it myself is practicing being in the moment. It would be nice if we all knew our gratitude themes and could all see them. And it would be nice if everybody loved to journal, but they don't, you know, I love to journal. I am reflective by nature, but I recognize that many people are not comfortable with this and they have other ways to do things. So whether you take photographs or do other things to really be mindful, start by practicing being in the moment and then look at these moments and understand what you thought and what you felt I think that's really important that you understand that you really appreciate and enjoy something.
Or you want to avoid it mostly to focus on what you appreciate, because I think being in the moment and practicing that is a good exercise for so many things, because it helps us re-choose our mindset, the frame of mind, or what we want to put attention on constantly. It reminds us to that we have the choice, the power to reach, choose our values.
So I think being in the moment is really important for everybody.
[00:33:06] Damaged Parents: And I love how you related that to something different than what worked for you. Like the picture. If someone likes taking pictures, Going back to rounding back to the pictures and really just being curious and pondering. What was it that I saw or felt what made this picture beautiful?
[00:33:25] Deborah S. Hawkins: Exactly. That's actually what I hope one of my next books would be about. It's hard to take photographs, not for the purpose of being a photographer, but for the purposes of understanding your own mind or your subconscious, because if People experience joy or happiness, but so often they get there by accident.
Like Something just happens to have happened to them or a friend calls them up and says, do you want me to do this? Well, those things are wonderful, but it's so nice when you actually knew what you love and can practice and go there by intention to make that a deliberate part of your life. So I think that's a wonderful thing. I do also endorse journaling whenever possible. Even though again, I write a lot. I co-taught a college class as a guest, not too long ago. And I reminded people to ask themselves. What they expect out of this career that they want to embark on, or this course of study and practicing self inquiry is so important.
So that's, it's an aspect of mindfulness, but it not only helps in these spiritual or big life things it's like useful in so many other those choices. We have to make to ask yourself a series of questions. So you really understand how you feel because
so often people just do things automatically.
[00:35:06] Damaged Parents: Even just right now, do you know what came through my mind is I could probably go around and look through my house and. I wonder, just be curious about why do I have it? What purpose was that in? What did I find beautiful? or what is it about these things that I find them valuable where someone else may not like you're giving me so many ideas, just to be curious.
And as you know, I mean, as some of the listeners know right beside me, is that sign stay curious. So I'm loving this.
[00:35:41] Deborah S. Hawkins: I think that a wonderful point and very important, because if people know what is why something is the way it is or why they feel about something the way they do. They have a much better understanding of themselves. They have a much better understanding of what they want. And though they have no guarantee over the results.
They probably won't blame themselves for making a certain decision. If they stay consistent with their values. Like not everything works out, but it's really wonderful to get a good balance in risk taking to approach life in a positive way. But it all, I think starts when you live, what you value.
[00:36:30] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I am so grateful. I've gotten to have you on the show. This is Deborah Hawkins. She reminds us no matter what age we are, we still get to investigate what we find valuable and we will continue. I think what I also really got is there's not a finish line it's just a journey. There are continuous ups and downs.
You can find her at https://NoSmallThing.net. She's on Facebook at No Small Thing, Mindful Meditations. And she's also on Instagram with @NoSmallThingDebraH you can also find her on LinkedIn and she's got a link tree. We'll have all those links in the bio. Thank you so much for coming on the show Debra.
[00:37:11] Deborah S. Hawkins: Thank you.
[00:37:12] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of relatively damaged by damaged parent. We really enjoy talking to Debra about how she was able to find her gratitude. We especially liked when she spoke about how finding the awe and wonder in the things we're grateful for makes a huge difference. To unite with other damaged people connect with us on Twitter look for damaged parents will be here next week still relatively damaged see you then.
