Welcome to the Bethesci Barker Podcast. My name is Matthias. I'm a psychotherapist based in Spokane, Washington, and this is podcast about mental health and moving towards what's meaningful despite hardship.

I did a survey recently and I asked kind of the people on my email list just to fill that out.

The question I was asking was a few things just asking a little bit about what people are going through and maybe which topics would be most relevant to focus on in the coming months and also which kind of domains of my social media world are most valuable

and if I could be putting more effort into something what would be most valuable and kind of a really high up answer was the podcast. I'm pretty inconsistent.

If you're a regular listener you know that I'll post every week and I'll just like drop off for a couple months and that's no good because yeah there's this is a really valuable kind of outlet to be able to consume some of the ideas that I'm putting out.

So that's that's good and fine. I need to be more consistent on this. I think you know when I think I've talked about this before when the baby came about six months ago.

I was working like 65 hour weeks making all sorts of great content writing and videos and podcasts and then when baby came I had to cut some stuff back and so one of the things I cut back was YouTube

another thing that was less consistent was the podcast but I understand this is a this is valuable. So I think my plan moving forward is to kind of come out with one of these every other week.

That feels a bit more manageable just in the schedule and I've been kind of reposting some of the older talks that I've been doing but actually you know when we get done with those my plan is to come out with some new content some new ideas some new kind of many lectures on various topics.

So I'm excited about that that's looking into the future kind of want to plan on doing so every other week let's let's hang out with that and I don't know I'll be flexible to see if I can ramp that up in the future or if there's going to be seasons or have to ramp that down but just want to let you know I didn't forget about you.

I'm happy to be doing this and and this is a good space. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts myself so I see how valuable it is.

Alright today we're diving into the topic of gratefulness this was a video that I did with a big headache when I was really tired at the end of a long day after seeing a bunch of clients and and really the topic of this one is how to settle into a place of rest and gratefulness even amidst hardship hope you enjoy.

Oh I'm tired big headache to not quite a migraine but I've taken some ibuprofen and it's still the headache is still pushing through.

It's been a long day I am I got to the office at 6.30 this morning it's 6.30 pm now so I'll be going home after this.

I'm recording this a little bit before Thanksgiving season knowing that it's coming up and I thought I'd do a talk on gratefulness and which is which is good in a temperate or not temperament in a state or a mood that I'm in right now.

I don't feel very grateful or mindful or present with all the positive emotions I feel fatigued and cranky and hungry and all those things so this will be good because I mean if we're being honest it's like I don't know gratefulness isn't something that is useful in the moments where we're just kind of already grateful.

It's the utility and reflecting on gratefulness is in the moments where you feel fatigued and the reason for that maybe is because it pulls you out of the past it pulls you out of the future it puts you in the moment and it takes you out of the failures or the frustrations or the discontentment with the way things have been.

It pulls you out of the worry and the concern and the rumination and anxiety of what's coming.

And it brings you right here because all you have is what's right here right now and so I'm going to do something kind of different I was thinking we'd do a mindfulness activity I think we just meditate for a little bit and that's unusual for me I don't really do I haven't made a mindfulness you know intervention video or anything like that before because well honestly I mean most of them that I see are just wicked cheesy and

I got it terrible I don't know all of them I mean I have a few of them that I like and that I use for just my own kind of mindfulness meditation but yeah it's intimidating to suggest that you do mindfulness even in therapy because I think some people are like really we're just going to sit quietly and close our eyes and breathe but here's here's the reason maybe that I think it would be advantageous and helpful it's like I actually want to progress through a movement of ideas within a mindfulness setting that I think would be really hard to digest just in a moment.

I just just in a lecture and I want it to be kind of a progressive mindfulness meditation something that gets maybe more and more proximal to the heart of things that matter so not just grabbing a low hanging fruit but actually trying to accomplish something trying to that's not the right word.

Trying to hone in on something that would be transformative that's it so yeah if you'd like go ahead and find a comfortable position in your chair you could set the phone down or you can prop it up so that you can see me if you like but it's not only take a few minutes maybe six to eight minutes at most so let's start you can close your eyes you can fold your hands whatever is most comfortable for you and let's start with a deep breath

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