Fowl Play & Gratitude Grit: A Reality Check Into the Value of Gratitude

EP33-Fowl Play & Gratitude Grit

Cinnamon: a turkey for you, he's in the big brown shoe, it's Thanksgiving,

Erin: Well, I don't even know what that is. Is that, does that date me? I mean, should I know what that

Cinnamon: Jimmy Walker, used to say dynamite, that's right, yeah, it's Adam Sandler from Saturday Night Live. It's the Thanksgiving song. Yeah,

Erin: Wow.

Cinnamon: I don't know if it, predated the Hanukkah song. Oh, but Ed and I sing it around the house all the time.

Erin: You do? It's just like your go to, all the time 

Cinnamon: Yeah, so Ed is one of those people who just responds To questions and comments in movie quotes. And then I look at him like a deer in the headlights most of the time. I'm getting better. It's taken, nearly 10 years. But I'm definitely improving and I'm like, ah, I like that. but yeah. It gets worse around the holidays because of things like the Thanksgiving song and Shitter's full, Clark

Erin: oh, well yeah, Shitter's full is always the good, you know,

Cinnamon:Yeah, so, but I'm like, did you just spend your whole life in a movie theater? And what kind of brain do you have that you remember this stuff?

Erin: My brother is the same way and Rob speaks in, he'll answer questions or say things in song lyric. I said one day, I was like, you should just go through the entire day and see if you can only communicate by responding in song lyric. Anyway.

Cinnamon: Yeah, I actually received some letters, that were multiple pages long, and it was a regular occurrence that I would get these letters, and it was nothing but a string of song lyrics. That ended up making sense. It wasn't disjointed or anything. But But that was, I was 16. Anyway,

Erin: Now we can go, I am 16 going on 17.I know that our listeners love when we just serenade them at the intro of every episode, but that's just how our brains work. Okay, hey, tomorrow's Thanksgiving.

Cinnamon: Sure

Erin: I am baffled.

Cinnamon: Wait, before we talk about your bafflement, what are you doing? What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Erin: We have our open door policy Thanksgiving. extravaganza. Rob tends to make way too much food because we never know who we're going to get, but at our home, of our moms are gone and,

Cinnamon: both of your dads are not. 

we are very committed to changing the idea of what Thanksgiving is because What I have noticed through the generations and watched through my family and I see in other people's family is there's this level of stress that comes with Thanksgiving and this kind of like have to mentality and it's a missed opportunity as to what it's really about.

It's about connection. It's about giving back, and so We decided, I don't know, probably about four years ago that we would have an open door policy and so if you don't have a place to go for Thanksgiving, you come to our home 

Cinnamon: Or what about if you do, but you prefer to not go there?

Erin: Oh, that happens too.Like we have had that where it's like, no, I'd rather be at your, and we have a crazy family, you know,we're goofballs just like everybody else.

Everybody has a crazy family. but you know, it's the most sober yet. Craziest party in, Columbus, Ohio. I would say we have a lot of fun. Usually some board games get whipped out. obviously there's always football humming in the background, but it's a great time. Are you staying home? 

Cinnamon: I am. there's definitely been times in the last four years that I would have really liked to have been a part of it. but I'm in a place where... prefer where I've been. we are staying home. most of, as most of my family is in Denver at this point. And, we tend to not do holidays anymore cause it's just so nuts to try to buy plane tickets for nine people and it's, or we don't go out because of other things.

And, so three years ago, I think. Ed and I started hosting. So this will be year three. And the funny thing about this, I was having a conversation yesterday and we were we actually were talking about weddings. And how much work goes into it for just like one day, and then it's over. And it's like, wah wah.

And I said, that is how I feel about cooking for Thanksgiving. you put in all this work, and in seven minutes. You're done. but yeah, so my whole entire life, we had Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house and then after she passed away, my mom and dad lived in her house and we continued to have it there and it was always family, but then now that my last sibling and her family moved to Denver, it's like they're sucking them out of Ohio, like on a straw.

 Ed and I decided that once we moved into this house, we wanted to host and so now my parents travel the day before Thanksgiving and come down so they don't have to drive in the dark because they don't like that at their age and then We get up and start cooking and Ed smokes a turkey and the smoker, because of course he does, he smokes everything. I mean, smoke a sofa, 

Erin: meats getting Yeah, 

Cinnamon: we get a mail notification. So I know what's supposed to be in there, versus what may be in there. And I was like, are you expecting some packages? And he was like, yeah. I got the turkey brine that everybody has been talking about, so we're going to try it.

And I was like, okay. so Ed insists on smoking a turkey, which is so tasty. We also have, people who demand that we have Honey Baked Ham.

Erin: I'm actually a ham person myself I prefer ham to turkey so I usually get a little tiny baby ham But I'm sure it will be delicious. 

 Cinnamon: here's the crazy thing, and I think this is, one of those things that speaks to, why the ripple effect is of sobriety and recovery, is that I'm the youngest, you know that, but I'm the youngest of three girls, and my mom is a good cook, the girls are a Good cooks. My grandmothers were great cooks and bakers and then there was me. And so I would like bring a cheese ball or the ice or napkins, you know, something that I really just couldn't fuck up. And so I went from, can you bring a piece of cheese for us to share to making the entire meal minus the meat by myself.

Erin: And last year my mom tried to help with the noodles and my dad said he would only come this year if I did not let her touch the noodles. So, yeah, I think I've upgraded. You have upgraded. And, I want to say, one, my husband is practicing the trumpet upstairs right now. Because, 

Cinnamon: can't even hear

Erin: I'm imagining it'll probably be in the background, but that's okay. Yay! 

Cinnamon: Is this his like prisoner form of passive resistance, like stealing the forks? He just plays the trumpet. I'm here.

Erin: he's got a lot of gigs coming up and, you know,

Cinnamon: what do you mean a gig and a trumpet? what's that about?

Erin: because my husband's a musician and several bands 

Cinnamon: Are you married to a rockstar, Erin?

Erin: totally a rock star.

Cinnamon: I bet you are so grateful.

Erin: Oh, I tell you, I am so grateful that my husband is so committed to following his passion, bringing joy to the community with music and not giving up on something that he's been doing since he was a young lad.

And he, he put the trumpet down for years and, shifted to different horns based on what the band needed. And so it looks like we're going back to trumpet. And

Cinnamon: Really? What are you gonna do with the big sousaphone?

Erin: Yeah, that He

Cinnamon: Rarely do you walk in to someone's garage and find multiple sousaphones just hanging on the wall. Just, I don't know if you knew that, but yeah, that's not standard.

Erin: That's the norm to me. But I wanted to go back on something that you had talked about with the family, with the fact that everybody has moved across the country and, this pressure of everybody getting together on the holidays. My experience of the holidays for years has just been this immense pressure of what society says it should look like, It's the calendar!

The calendar says it's Thanksgiving, so therefore we better kill ourselves to make it this thing, and 

Cinnamon: Make ourselves miserable in an effort to be happy?

Erin: or make ourselves miserable in an effort to make others happy based on expectations of how it's looked in the past. I know that our grandparents did things a lot differently.

Things have gotten a little more informal over the years for a lot of folks. I mean, there's still families that sit down with the fine china and, it's like this whole thing. But there's just so much pressure and what ends up happening during the holidays is extreme anxiety. Extreme feelings of not being good enough, not meeting expectations, letting people down.

You know, we're already dealing with seasonal depression that then on top of that gets heightened throughout, yeah, the darkness. But yeah, there's so much, pressure that we put on ourselves during the holidays. And so that was really why we wanted to create this episode today.

Leaning heavily into what it's really about, what Thanksgiving is really about, and that would be gratitude. At the end of the day, it's about giving. It's about gratitude. It's about connection, 

Cinnamon: Giving. Thanks. 

Erin: Giving. Thanks. Hence Thanksgiving. Get it?

Cinnamon: Oh my god. Sometimes.

Erin: we are just..I know, we are just so smart. So, that's what we wanted to touch on today, is. The benefits of gratitude and we have sprinkled it in throughout various episodes But we wanted to be very intentional with the benefits of what a life looks like when you are living in gratitude. What are the health benefits? What are the physical health benefits and the mental health benefits?What's available for you by focusing on gratitude?

Cinnamon: to my experience in the past in the mental health sphere, galaxy, domain, whatever, the idea of having gratitude or expressing gratitude or documenting gratitude, It's always been seen as like, woo woo, right? Like, how is expressing gratitude going to change my shitty situation?

 My perception is we've never been super vocal as a mental health community. about making sure that along with the sentiment, we're actually providing the information of how it's Either not just or not at all, woo, because there is Science behind how it improves our mental health, how it changes our brain structure, and what it can combat, what it can, create in our physical bodies.

and what the alternative is. Like, how detrimental complaining is to us. And I think a lot of people who are complainers, or tend to be like those negative Nellies or Debbie Downers. it's not always fun to be around. You know, we all know that person, right? That is a chronic complainer.

Like, they will find something to complain about no matter what. But they're actually, structurally changing their brain and making themselves sicker.

Cinnamon: and there is a reason that it's almost like the snowball effect. Once you start down that path of complaining, it makes it harder and harder and harder to not complain about everything and see all of the negative all the time.

Erin: Mm hmm. but there's actually a specific thing that happens to the brain from extreme complaining, from being that person, and that's that it shrinks the hippocampus. 

Cinnamon: Yeah, 

Erin: it actually is altering your brain in such a way that, yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, and that, and  what's important about the hippocampus? I was just gonna ask you. 

Cinnamon: yeah, basically today is not going to be this super duper scientific y, response, but basically, it's in our limbic system. It's in that, what we call mammalian brain, or animal brain, or it's our emotional brain, and The job of the hippocampus is basically to help regulate our emotions and Process and store and sort our memories 

I mean, that's the tricky thing about the brain is that There are so many pieces and parts, even connected to what is affected by post traumatic stress, or depression or anxiety. But, there are some key parts. in the limbic system, the two pieces that we tend to talk about the most is the hippocampus and the amygdala.

And the amygdala is like our threat detector. And so, basically, our amygdala... Is screwing our hippocampus because the hippocampus isn't what's doing it, It's the amygdala finding those perceived threats, which a. k. a. first world language are complaints. and so the amygdala finding all these threats, we vocalize them or think them and our hippocampus suffers.

And keeps getting smaller and smaller. Now our amygdala is still getting more and more hypersensitive and overreactive as that's happening. so the more negative we are, the more skilled we are at finding the negative.

Erin: Yeah. 

Cinnamon: Who likes to be around that guy?

Erin: nobody. In fact, I'm in a point in my life now, at 42 years old, where I'm like, oh, I don't have to be friends with you? Oh, just because we're blood doesn't mean I have to have you around? Oh my gosh, I didn't know I had that choice! I talk to folks all the time, like, ugh, Aunt Jane or whomever is coming, and ugh, and I'm like, why? Because she's family. Okay. And? we get to choose.

Cinnamon: Please, have Aunt Jane call me so I can explain why she's not invited. Oh my god, that could be another service we offer. People call us, tell us what family member they want To uninvite from holidays and then we make the call as very sensitive mental health professionals.

Erin: Or we could teach our folks how to be empowered and use their voice. And

Cinnamon: I think the other one would be more fun.

Erin: The other one would be more fun. And also, we are two people. 

Cinnamon:  You keep reminding us of that.

Erin: As if we don't have enough on our plate, but one more thing too I wanted to talk about is about the hippocampus is that is one part that's actually Destroyed when it comes to Alzheimer's that we hear about it being affected there and stress all the things that happen to our brain as a result of post traumatic stress it's wild That we don't think about the impacts of that, but that is why circling back around a gratitude It's so important because we can Create these new pathways as we've talked about like these new exit ramps off of the main highway to different ways of thinking and We know that when it comes to gratitude we are getting those hits of those yummy Juicy chemicals that we love so much, which is the dopamine and the serotonin, which then, 

Cinnamon: how many of our people are on, SSRIs or other psychotropics that are basically trying to give you more serotonin and make it more effective. And here we can have the shortcut of just. Saying thank you,

Erin: Yeah, I was reading something that said, if there was a magic pill that can make you feel this way and I was like, well, I mean, kind of that's the goal, and it definitely helps. So I'm not saying stop taking your drugs and start living in gratitude because

Cinnamon: right?

Erin: don't do that. because there's definitely a lot of benefits and taking those medications.

And also. You can beef it up even more by focusing on living in a space of gratitude. but what is gratitude? well, as we touched on, it's the quality of being thankful, like showing appreciation, being kind, and I love how you said it's woo woo. I'm like, Oh, so you're just an a hole like all day, every day.

Cinnamon: I saw this thing on social media and it talked about the effort that is put into diminishing the importance or validity of empathy and one of the things that I know is definitely common in the Midwest is the dismissing of compliments. we are the worst people at using a two word sentence and then just shutting up.

Thank you. We don't know how to do it. And so, we're having these opportunities where we're potentially getting these hits of serotonin and dopamine. And we're sabotaging ourselves because we're like this old thing, or, you know, I only paid two dollars for it at the thrift store, or I got this at TJ Maxx, like I didn't even spend any money on it.

who cares? I said you look good. Say thank you. Allow yourself that dopamine, that serotonin, don't diminish it. But that almost tells me how much is that person complaining. Living in the negative and I think I'm guilty of it. I know you're guilty of it. we do it all the time. I think humans do it.

I think women do it a lot. but yeah, just thank you for that compliment Right. It's the giving and the receiving. And so when we don't give a lot, 'cause we're so focused on the negative and when we do get, we're diminishing it by. turning it into a negative rather than just saying, thank you. have no qualms, giving kudos where kudos belong. I love the feeling of telling somebody how fabulous they are and seeing that little afterglow that comes from it, So it does feel good and I like to be that kind of person versus any other kind of person I could be or have been.

Erin: Yeah, I would say that I'm very good at expressing gratitude and giving compliments and inspiring people and lifting people up and just being that little ray of sunshine

Cinnamon: You

Erin: for a lot of people. And I would definitely say that I'm guilty of just saying thank you. I have gotten way better. Way better.

One, because I actually believe the stuff that people are saying to me most of the time now, because I've done a lot of work to see how what they're saying is true, as opposed to being like, you don't know me. You don't know what goes on in this fucked up brain. Right? Like, I'm 

Cinnamon: If knew me, you wouldn't be saying that.

Erin: right, which I can't take away other people's perception of me when I'm being authentic, when I'm already being my most authentic version of myself, what they're seeing is accurate.

so when the masks are down, people are seeing the truth of who you are. but yeah, so circling back around, One of the big things about gratitude is that overall it just improves your mood, Like you're able to start looking at how the glass is half full versus how everything sucks.

So it's like this magic potion, this elixir to all you can see is the doom and gloom. And you can begin to see like, Oh, it's raining again. It's gray. It's nasty. Ooh, but look at that little flower over there. Poppin up, or, look at that nice man who ran over and put the umbrella over that lady to cross the road, or whatever, you're able to start seeing more of the beauty and less of the dark and scary.

Cinnamon: what you just said made me think of something. When I teach clients about the behavior chain, I use it as an empowerment tool. because if I say, Erin, you made me angry. Well, What I'm saying is, Erin, you have control over my emotions. I do not. And instead of saying, Erin did this thing, and now I'm angry.

The behavior chain is like, Erin did this thing, I had interpreted it, or I had thoughts about it, or I made meaning out of it, and then I had a feeling.

 for me, understanding the behavior chain is that it gives me my power back. And it shows me that I have a choice. And so, if you do something and I create a different meaning, Like, she's not an asshole, she's having a bad day, how can I show her some compassion? Obviously, my feelings are going to be generated differently.

And when I teach the behavior, chain, I always use the example, I've hydroplaned and wrecked a car, on Thanksgiving. oh my gosh, in like 2004, 2005, I was coming home from Chicago. And so I'm not a big fan of driving in the rain, which I'm probably going to have to do today. but my parents are farmers.

my mom's reaction to rain is, ugh. The crops need it. We really needed some rain and so her feelings about it are like relief and joy and gratitude where mine are like doom and gloom and fear, right? And so I use that example. The activating event is it's raining and it didn't make me feel a certain way and it doesn't make my mom feel a certain way.

Our interpretations are what differentiate us. So. As I'm building up, that cup half full, I inadvertently am giving myself more grace, other people more grace, I'm unshackling myself from these toxic emotions, this negative Nelly, the skepticism, right? The people that are like, oh, well, you know, I'm a skeptic, or what is it when you're a pessimist?

Yeah, a pessimist. And, that kind of thing, you actually do have control over that. And... it is to your advantage to change. So when people are like, yeah, I'm a pessimist and they say it with pride I want to be like, I'm so sorry.

Erin: when I hear people say, yeah, I'm a pessimist, I hear that as deflection. Like I'm not gonna do anything about it. Like I'm clear that this is how I show up and I'm not gonna do anything about it. Like a defiance behind it, 

Cinnamon: I'm gonna sit in the chair with my feet up and point at all the stuff that's

Erin: Yeah, and then I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you're choosing that. And, I do see that. It's scary to change.

Cinnamon: and so this might be good news that it can also be an inside job, So if you're not ready to go from negative Nelly to perky Patty and everybody's like what's wrong with you? Are you today? Then start doing it internally, So even thinking about gratitude Can help improve your brain as well as your mental health. So it doesn't have to be where you're out on Front Street and you're like, hello world I'm gonna be happy now. 

Erin: Free hugs!

Cinnamon: Right? It can just be like, okay So my first thought is I can't believe those kids left All of their shoes and their backpacks in the foyer, you know, I love my foyers. Instead you walk in the door and you're like Look at all these tiny little shoes.

They are not going to be tiny forever. I am going to go in and squeeze the crap out of my little tiny footed person.

Erin: And then 

Cinnamon: Right? 

Erin: them to put their shoes away.

Cinnamon: And then I'm going to ask them in a calm voice, Hey, everyone, let's go grab a pair of shoes that belong to you. And let's all race upstairs and see who can meet at the top of the stairs with no shoes properly put away.

And, you know, dad and I will go check and make sure they're all there. Like, I don't care how you do it, but like, how much sweeter is our life if we're not so grumpy all the time? And I have been grumpy all the time. And it's miserable, like it's not fun, just like I don't enjoy being angry.

Erin: Yes, but I have a golden nugget that I bet Our listener will really appreciate of one of the benefits of gratitude. I've done a duh nah nah nah nah nah nah… better sleep!

Cinnamon: Yes,

Erin: okay, how many of our folks are not sleeping or their sleep is garbage and by Rebuilding neuropathways and those new Exit ramps, you in fact can begin to improve your sleep and gosh, I feel like that's something we, it's almost turned into a joke.

Like when we're doing assessments, one of the assessments we're going to do is about sleep. Uh, what's that? You know, it's kind of like this whole little joke, because it's such a big thing that goes on in this world.

Cinnamon: common. And normalized. They're like, yeah, my sleep's bad, but why do I have to answer in a way that reflects it's bad? Because this is just my normal, like it hasn't gotten worse. And I'm like, Yeah. but is it bothering you?

Erin: Right. Yeah.

Cinnamon: Yeah. it also is going to improve our immune system. and decrease stress and anxiety, it starts to rewire our brain to actually see the good stuff and not all the negative stuff.

 It actually reduces chronic pain. That was one I would not have guessed that it can help, do that. And, when I read that, oh, this will help improve relationships. I thought, yeah, because if I'm not so miserable to be around and I'm noticing people's strengths and gifts and expressing that and I'm not the negative Nelly, yeah, people are going to want to be around me and it makes it real easy, much easier to have a positive relationship with someone when I'm not walking in the room and people are rolling their eyes and like, oh, let's see what she's going to bitch about now.

Erin: Yeah. 

Cinnamon: It also is going to affect our self esteem. It's going to level us up and, you and I both learned probably from the same woman because we did share a sponsor for a long time. we build self esteem by doing esteemable acts. 

So when there's been a lot of self betrayal, Like, I can't trust myself.

Basically, keeping your word is the way that we start building that. But also, that positivity starts to make us feel better about ourselves.

Erin: Yeah.

Cinnamon: Because if we're critical about everything and everybody else, why wouldn't we be the same way about ourselves?

 Erin: and going to more of a woo woo side, and I talk about this a lot, which is the law of attraction, which is like attracts like, the things that we focus on, we And so if we want to create positive, beautiful things and lower our cortisol levels, and, get these happy juices flowing, we get to focus on things that are positive versus things that are negative.

It's that whole like, hey, cinnamon, think of an elephant. What's the first thing you think of?

Cinnamon: Damn it. I

Erin: Stupid elephants, you know? But if I'm like... Today is a beautiful day. Not it's going to be a beautiful day. It already is a beautiful day. Then you're going to be able to focus more on the beautiful things that you notice versus today is going to suck.

Well, you're right because you said it will. I promise if you decide that today is going to suck as soon as your eyeballs open, It's gonna.

Cinnamon: It's gonna

Erin: It's gonna because exactly because you're just going to find all the reasons to prove that you're right. Which is why, what if you just focus on how it will be beautiful or why you're excited about hanging out with old crotchety Aunt Jane at Thanksgiving, just pour Aunt 

Cinnamon: Krusty Aunt June. 

Erin: This Thanksgiving. yeah. Mm-Hmm?

Cinnamon: let me ask you this. Because, I think this is a, a language that I probably wouldn't have chosen myself. we've said it in so many ways, but that we just simply become more likable,

Erin: right? our peers and our family are more likely to enjoy our company and like being around us.

Cinnamon: you know, that's crusty old aunt Jane is she's not very likable, right? what people don't like about crusty aunt Jane is that my God, she complains about everything. If it's not one thing, it's something else. And how much would we all be willing to have aunt Jane over for the holidays?

Cinnamon: if she didn't do that, so even just using the phrase, that person has become more likable, so if you're wondering, especially with a lot of our people with post traumatic stress, and we talked about this early on, the issue of isolation and how it propels the injury further and further into that black hole and it speaks right into this, The, I'm complaining, so people have slowly stopped calling and checking, Cause even people who are suffering from an injury, if they're miserable to be around, you can show compassion, and it's still only gonna get you so far, because everybody's got a limit, 

Erin: Yep, they do. Let me give you a few easy ways. To actually get into this space of gratitude. I would highly recommend a gratitude journal. People hear the word journal and then they're like, I don't do that. I don't write. But, it doesn't have to be this long drawn out thing.

But I do encourage you to grab a pen, use actual paper, And write down several things that you are grateful for in your life. And I think the biggest key is to try to think of something new and different every single day. Even if it's only three things. Like, doing the same, I'm glad I have a roof over my head.

I'm thankful that I have food in my fridge. And I'm thankful I have clothes for my body. No, like, get intentional. Get 

Cinnamon: Find the granular, right?

Erin: Yeah. 

Cinnamon: I'm grateful that, the teacher was kind to my child when we were running late and I had to drop them off a few minutes late to school. They could have made a bad start of a day way worse, and I'm super grateful that they didn't. when I worked in a women's treatment facility early in my social work career, I had a general rule.

if you were going to use. Anything on your list that you've used before? I'm grateful for my kids. No it's you can't write that. 

Erin: your kids are you grateful 

Cinnamon: What about your kids? like I'm sure you're grateful for your kids and you will be grateful for your kids every day So let's work your brain and the muscle And I want you to think about the interactions that you've had with your kids and what you've seen And it's so easy to think of that negative stuff this happened or that happened or they did this or I did this But the reality is like there is this beautiful tiny little human that Charms the shit out of you every day Even if it's, you know, we love our Glennon Doyle and in opposition to like Carpe Diem seize the day.

She's like, screw that. That's too much work. Seize the moment. And so she says Carpe Chiros, K A I R O S. And so it's that metaphoric moment in time where it's you're just going about your day and your kid. Just turns and looks at you and you're like, holy cow. I made that. Or, I saw a picture of some firefighters in their station with a baby that, they had done a run on.

And in every picture, somebody different was holding the baby.And it was hilarious. I mean, some of them look very natural holding a baby. 

Some of them did not. Uh, right? And this baby, I think the incident happened in July, and this baby was still pretty damn tiny. So I can only imagine how many days old it was when they had to go to their house.

 But can you imagine looking down and being like, this baby is alive because I showed up. I mean, that baby's gonna go on. To learn things and be things and have more family and it wouldn't have happened 

Erin: Mm hmm. 

Cinnamon: EMS worker not showed up.

Erin: And I love that you touched on that because with all the ugly that our folks see day in and day out, there's also so much beauty. And even Jessica touched on that in her episode. several weeks ago about, I can't think of one dispatcher, there's a most dispatchers have had that baby that they've delivered and we're able to look at how beautiful that was versus the hard things that come across sometimes.

And yeah, I love that you brought that up. So things that you can do is the gratitude journals, 

Cinnamon: can I add into your, so you said use pen and paper, write it down, which we know that when you use pen and paper, it accesses a different part of your brain. And I always say, if I raise my hand to answer my question, it's going to be very different than if you say, take five minutes and write down your answer, like two very different answers.

I would also say, based on what we said earlier, you can voice speak it. Into your phone or an app and if you can't grab a pen and paper also think it right like maybe the gratitude journal or the list is the pinnacle of What we would ideally like to see folks take the time to do but if that's not feasible We have other options think it talk it that kind of thing and okay, and now i'm not gonna interrupt Yeah, I won't 

Erin: gosh, you're right though. Anything is better than nothing. we will take all forms of gratitude today. Thank you. We will be accepting all forms of gratitude, however you would like to be distributing that. We accept it. but yeah. And then also show thanks too. When. It's the barista at the Starbucks when you're heading into work and you're grabbing that coffee, say thank you.

Cause I imagine that they would love to hear a little bit of appreciation. Open the door for the person at the store. do just those little tiny acts of kindness. It goes so far. It goes so far. It makes you feel good about yourself. Make an impact on someone's day and it seems like it's nothing and trivial But you never know that person that you have the door for maybe they're Having a super hard day and that felt extra kind to them make eye Contact is another one, and that's a very tricky one too is making eye contact with people to acknowledge them When they're speaking, or when they're walking by, I, it's so funny how many people I will intentionally try to make eye contact with and then I look down even more.

I'm like, aw, you need a hug.

Cinnamon: Well, you know What I was thinking when you just mentioned about opening the door for people. when people open the door for me I Absolutely make eye contact and I say thank you 

one, I'm not used to it, I've been a single woman for a really long time. I've opened many a door, So the idea of other people opening the door for me, it's weird. I always grab it first, and so I've had to practice that. But part of being intentional about it is I look somebody in the eye, and I say a very enthusiastic, thank you. Because I think... When people do kind things in a situation like that, right?

Somebody opens the door, you're like, yeah, thanks. And you walk through. So if you're doing something like that, it might be small, but you did an act of kindness I want you to feel good about it. And so to say thank you, meaningfully 

Erin: hmm, 

Cinnamon: it's a boost for someone else

Erin: yep. Boom. 

Cinnamon: and so easy.

Erin: So easy. Pause, get present, look at someone in the eyeballs, say thank you, then walk through the door. So I think we've beat this thing down. I think we've proven our point. We have hit on the importance of gratitude. I also want to say Be safe. I know some of you are working and I know holidays look a little bit different to a lot of you all but be safe and be patient.

And if you are one of the fortunate ones to have the time off to be able to go to your in laws or whatever and you're not feeling comfortable, it's fully reasonable for you to have an exit strategy. It's fully reasonable for you to be able to use your voice and say, Okay, an hour's enough. Thank you for the food.

 thank you for all your hard work and I'm going to go ahead and go home now. That is okay too. The most important thing is taking care of yourself, and, don't make it more uncomfortable than it needs to be. 

Cinnamon: I've got a couple of things, our civilian listeners, please be extra safe because the more safe you are, the easier kind of day. Our first responders have, and we know that Thanksgiving is like one of the most traveled days of the year here in the U. S. So be safe out there, be extra cautious, know that, the people on the road aren't the only ones that you will be impacting, and this may sound silly, but If you as a civilian are wanting to show gratitude to our first responders by dropping food off at either a fire station or a police department, please do not make it.

Go buy it. They don't like homemade food. They love the sentiment, but there are so many of them that do not feel comfortable eating food that was made in somebody else's house. So please buy. 

What you would like to take to them. Buy them a pie, buy them pumpkin cookies, a pumpkin roll, anything.

And if you are a great baker, more power to you. This is not the day. Unless somebody knows them personally. But I've ran into that a lot. 

Erin: Yeah, the don’t know whose cat has been walking across the kitchen counter, 

Cinnamon: absolutely. And you can even like somebody and still not want to eat food made in their kitchen.

Erin: Yeah.

Cinnamon: So that seems like a very bizarre thing, but I have seen many a homemade dish that I know time, love, and energy has been put into that has ended up in the trash can.

So just while you're at the store getting all your ingredients for your meal, if you want to grab a little something extra and drop it off. at your nearest fire or police department or dispatch center, please do so. Dispatchers will be there 24 7 and they're going to be working 12 hour shifts, a lot of them.

so I am sure, they would also appreciate some snacks and treats and may not be the most common recipients 

Erin: Yeah. 

Cinnamon: Yeah.

Erin: We are so grateful for all of you. For who you are in this world. For who you are, the community. The differences that you make every day. I know there's this And I'm just feeling about being called heroes, so we won't go there, but you are exceptional individuals in our communities.

And we quite literally could not live without you. So. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for everything that you do for us. We love you all tremendously and we are wishing all of you just the most blessed and beautiful Thanksgiving possible. Whether you're at the firehouse, sitting in your cruiser, or sitting at your Aunt Jane's We hope that it's beautiful and you receive many blessings.

Cinnamon: a great holiday, everyone.