Live Your Extraordinary Life With Michelle Rios

Finding Hope in Gratitude

• Michelle Rios

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Have you ever felt that expressing gratitude during life’s most challenging moments seemed impossible, almost like a cruel joke? Join me, Michelle Rios, on this special Thanksgiving episode of the Live Your Extraordinary Life podcast, as I share a deeply personal story about confronting the emptiness behind a seemingly perfect life. I found myself battling burnout and despair, questioning the very foundations of what I'd built. It was in this state of inner turmoil that a simple question, "What do I still have?" became a lifeline, revealing a path from darkness to hope by embracing gratitude not as a mere checklist, but as a transformative tool for growth.

This episode isn’t about settling for the easy-to-name blessings; it's about finding meaning in life’s messiness and the lessons in our struggles. Let’s rethink gratitude together, exploring how it can shape us through the hardest of times, whether it's a job loss leading to a newfound passion or heartbreak teaching us the value of self-love. As we mark this Thanksgiving, I challenge you to look beyond the obvious and reflect on the uncertainties and pains in your life, asking, "What is this teaching me?" Let’s uncover the power of gratitude to redefine our paths and bring us closer to our true selves.

WAYS TO CONNECT WITH ME:

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Live your Extraordinary Life podcast. I'm your host, michelle Rios, and today, in honor of Thanksgiving, we're talking about gratitude, but not in the way you might expect. We're not gonna skim the surface with a checklist of things to be grateful for Today. I wanna go deeper, to the places where gratitude isn't easy, isn't obvious and maybe even feels impossible. Because, let's face it, life doesn't hand us perfect moments tied up in pretty bows. It's messy, it's raw, and it's often in the hardest moments that gratitude becomes not just a practice but a lifeline. Here's the thing that no one tells you about gratitude it doesn't always feel good. Sometimes it feels like betrayal. Have you ever been in so much pain or faced such profound loss or uncertainty that someone telling you to just be grateful felt like salt in the wound? I've been there. I've sat in rooms where I felt so broken that the idea of being thankful felt laughable, and yet I've learned that those are the moments when gratitude has the power to change everything, not because it erases the pain, but because it shifts the weight we're carrying, just enough to help us take one more step forward.

Speaker 1:

Let me share something personal. There was a time when I was barely holding things together. On the outside, everything looked perfect, pings together. On the outside everything looked perfect Perfect family, wonderful husband, beautiful child, successful career, traveling the world the whole picture. But on the inside I felt empty. I was burned out, disconnected and completely out of alignment with myself. And one morning I woke up and felt like I couldn't do it anymore. I was sick of the treadmill, I was overwhelmed with the pressure and I was, frankly getting swallowed up by depression and despair. The weight of it all felt unbearable. My marriage was holding on by a thread. I didn't feel like I was showing up as the mother I knew I could be, and God knows what I was showing up like at work. I wasn't my best self, bottom line, and in that moment I wasn't grateful. Frankly, I was angry. I was angry at myself for not doing better, angry at the world for serving up what felt like a crap sandwich and in this life that I'd worked so hard to build, that in the moment just didn't feel like mine. And then something shifted. It wasn't immediate or magical, but it started with a single question what do I still have? Not what did I want, nor what had I lost or what wasn't happening. But what did I still have? And you know what? The question saved me. I started with the smallest of things the sun streaming through my window, the taste of coffee, the sound of a friend's voice. None of it solved my problems. The sound of a friend's voice? None of it solved my problems, but it did crack the door open, just enough for hope to creep in, and that was everything. Here's the truth that no one likes to say out loud.

Speaker 1:

Gratitude isn't just about counting your blessings. It's about facing the hard truths of your life and asking what is this teaching me? What if we could be grateful for the struggles that shaped us, for the moments that broke us open and forced us to rebuild? It's uncomfortable, I know, open and forced us to rebuild. It's uncomfortable, I know, but those are the moments that define us, that push us closer to who we're meant to be. Think about it the job you lost that forced you to pursue your passion, the heartbreak that taught you how to love yourself, the failure that showed you resilience you didn't even know you had. Gratitude for these moments isn't easy, but it's transformative. I want to challenge you this Thanksgiving Don't just be grateful for the obvious your family, your friends, the food on your table.

Speaker 1:

Take a hard look at the parts of your life that feel messy, uncertain or even painful and ask yourself what is this teaching me?

Speaker 1:

How is this helping me grow? Who am I becoming because of this? Gratitude isn't about glossing over the hard stuff or pretending everything's fine. It's about finding meaning in the mess and learning to trust that even the hardest chapters of our lives are part of our story. I can't end this episode without expressing my gratitude for you, my community, your support, your encouragement, your messages, your texts. They mean more than I can say. You've allowed me to share my story, my lessons and my truth, and in doing so, you've given me immense purpose.

Speaker 1:

So thank you for being here, for showing up week after week and for being part of this extraordinary journey. My promise to you is this I'll keep showing up too. I'll keep sharing the raw, unfiltered truth of what it means to live authentically, to live boldly and to live an extraordinary life, because we're in this together this Thanksgiving. Let's not settle for surface-level gratitude. Let's get uncomfortable. Let's dig deep and find the courage to be grateful for the lessons in the struggles, the beauty in the brokenness and the strength in the uncertainty. Because here's the thing living an extraordinary life isn't about perfection. It's about embracing all that life serves up the joy, the pain and everything in between, with an open heart and a grateful spirit. Happy thanksgiving, my friends. Let's live it fully, messily and authentically. I'll see you next time.

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Michelle Rios

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