Do you ever just catch yourself feeling a little extra cranky, nitpicky, or just sort of over it… even though nothing is technically wrong?

Yeah, me too. 🙋🏼‍♀️

It occurred to me the other day (as I was falling asleep) that maybe I could use a little "attitude adjustment". 😳

And I'm pretty sure that that’s exactly what sparked this week’s episode of The Karen Kenney Show where I share a simple practice that came to me in the middle of the night:

The little "librarians" in my head call this sucker a “​Gratitude ​Salad.” 🥗 😆

OK, so instead of doing the same ol​' same ol' and just kinda' going-through-the-motions gratitude list...

I​'m gonna' walk you through how to build a more alive and specific practice by adding different “ingredients” like:

- A person you’re grateful for (and why – with details)

- An animal – past or present – that lights up your heart

- A place​ that holds a special memory or turning point for you

- A thing that carries real meaning or has brought comfort in your life

- A feeling you love to experience and want to welcome in more

In this episode, I also talk about:

- Why our brains are wired with a negativity bias and how to gently interrupt it when it starts working overtime!

- How a fresh take on gratitude can help when you’re feeling fried, discouraged, or overwhelmed by our crazy-ass world

- A sweet story about Stephen Colbert and laugh lines that has stayed with me

- Simple ways to actually feel the gratitude in your body ​- ​instead of just think​ing about it in your head

If you’ve been feeling a little whin​y, worn thin, or just not yourself lately, I made this one with you (and me) in mind. ❤️

KAREN KENNEY BIO:

Karen Kenney is a writer, speaker, podcaster, certified spiritual mentor, and coach.

She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-bullshit approach to spirituality, self​-development, and transformational work.

Karen helps people to navigate this whole “being human” experience using practical tools, universal principles and stories, and a variety of resources.

KK has been a yoga teacher for 25+ years, has been giving Thai Yoga Massage since 2008, and began teaching it to others in 2015.

She's also a Gateless Writing Instructor, the creator of WRITE CLUB, and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.

She coaches clients individually in her 1:1 program THE QUEST and via her HEART-TO-HEART DAYS using Voxer.

She also leads a group program and community called THE NEST.

CONNECT WITH KK:

🙋🏼‍♀️ WEBSITE: https://www.karenkenney.com/

📬 GET MY EMAILS: https://www.karenkenney.com/signup

📝 WRITE CLUB: https://www.karenkenney.com/writeclub

🪺 THE NEST - COACHING + COMMUNITY: https://www.karenkenney.com/nest

🗡️ THE QUEST - 1:1 MENTORING: https://www.karenkenney.com/quest

❤️ HEART-TO-HEART DAY: https://www.karenkenney.com/hearttoheart

🫙 TIPJAR: https://www.karenkenney.com/tipjar

🆓 SPIRITUAL TEAM FREEBIE: https://www.karenkenney.com/freebie

👤 FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/karenkenney.writer/

📱 INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/karenkenneylive/

📺 YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@KarenKenney

It's the Karen Kenney show. Hey, you guys,

welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super duper excited.

I'm mostly excited because number one, I'm talking to you.

So, hi, hi. Thank you so much for being here. But also, you

guys, can you see, like, you can't really see, but maybe you

can see a little bit of the sun in the background, it is such a

wicked nice day out here, and I'm gonna go for a little run

walk in a minute, so I'm jazzed about that. But before I did,

before I get out there, get all sweaty, I was like, okay, I'm

just gonna like share something that happens to me, so and it's

gonna apply to you as well, okay? So hopefully it's helpful.

All right, fingers crossed, everybody, let's just cross our

fingers that this is helpful, so you know that we call it like

the liminal space. It's kind of like the in-between space, you

know that space right before, like you're still kind of like

half asleep, and you're just waking up, or it's the middle of

the night and you wake up for a second, or that time at night as

you're falling asleep as you're going to bed. Right, there's

kind of this place we talk about where, for me, it's when the

subconscious is like really, really like open and open for

business and available, and is sometimes just kind of

whispering secrets or saying things, right? So I keep a

little mini notebook, a little mini notebook, spiral notebook,

and a pen next to my bed at all times, right, because I know

inevitably I'm gonna wake up in the middle of the night, or it's

like first thing in the morning, or as I'm going to sleep, and an

idea, a thought, an inspiration. The muse is like flying overhead

and dropping something, and I always used to say to myself,

"Oh, I'll remember that, and then the next morning, like it's

like the tail end of it, like I can't even, like I couldn't

quite grab it and bring it back into my mind, so I'm like, I'm

like, screw that. So now I keep a little spiral notebook and a

pen right next to my bed, so I can jot things down as they

occur to me. So look at that, I'm just gonna hold it up and

show it to you. This is random little piece of paper, right?

It's like the writing is like, so these, these down here I

wrote this morning, but for those of you who are listening,

it's a, it's a small little rectangular piece of paper, and

it's got writing on it, and it's like really messy, and it makes

no sense, you know. Why? It's because I wrote it at like 430

or 330 whatever time it was, when I got up to pee, and so all

of a sudden this word pops into my head, and I know why this

word popped into my head, it's because I had been thinking

before going to bed that I maybe needed a little bit of an

attitude adjustment. Okay, guys, you know how there are just days

when you feel like everything, every little thing is annoying

you. We've talked before about how our brains have what we call

a negativity bias, right? It's always looking for the negative

stuff, it's always looking, and it's not just looking so it can

find things to bitch and moan about and whine about and

complain. It's not that it's often looking for things in your

environment to keep you safe, right, to make sure it's always

like Dan, well, Robinson, but it's really, really easy to kind

of get in this loop of like negativity or nitpicking and

just tearing down everything. So the other day, and you guys know

me, you've been around the block long enough, I mean, if you're

new here, hello, thank you, I'm so happy you're here, but those

of you who have been here for like six seven years, like you

know, like I tend to be a pretty positive person. I am able to

find the silver lining in most things, and I, I do, and I look

for the good, right? I look for the good, the beautiful, and the

holy. But every once in a while, I'll be having a day, and I'll

catch myself, and I'll be like, Jesus, you're just like really

kind of critical on things, like, what, what is going on,

and usually it's because if I'm out of balance, if I'm tired, if

I feel like I'm, you know, have been forced to do a bunch of

things that really I don't want to do, like, and whatever that

is, right? No, I'm adult, nobody like makes me, but sometimes you

got to do things because you got a whole lot like make money or

blah blah blah, whatever it is, so I just found myself being a

little cranky or a little whiney or whatever it was, but I didn't

really like where, where, where my mind had been, and I was

like, you need like a little attitude adjustment, Missy, and

I was like talking to myself, and then I go to bed, so in the

middle of the night I woke up, and all of a sudden this word

pops into my head, and this is the word, the phrase is

gratitude salad. I was like, oh my god, I was like gratitude

salad. I'm like, what the fuck do I.. what does my brain mean

by gratitude salad? And I started to think, like, I love..

I love how the little librarians up in my brain, right? I have, I

could think of my subconscious mind as like my head, like the

my brain and my mind is being like a library, and I have these

little librarians up there, right, and they're in the to the

Dewey Decimal System, and they're always like pulling,

they're like they're like pulling out their little card

rack of like the card catalog. Of like memories and thoughts

and stories and meaning I've assigned to things and habits

and patterns and all my bullshit, all my stuff, my

fears, my anxieties, right. It's all up there, and they'll just

like pull it forward, like drop some stuff down. So I'm like, oh

my god, gratitude salad, and I started laughing because I just

had a salad, like for dinner, right, as part of my dinner, and

this is what stay with me, because I make this make sense

for you. Like, why do you give a shit about the gratitude salad?

Because this is what I started to think about. So many people

are told, right, if you're suffering, if you're upset, if

you're not happy, blah blah blah blah blah. They're often the

prescription they get is to have a gratitude practice. Look,

gratitude. gratitude practice is awesome. It's fantastic. It can

be so helpful, but what happens with, like, any other thing that

we do? If you tend to do it daily, or all the time, or once

a day, or start your day that way.. blah blah blah. So many

people, at some point, just start to go through the motions,

right? They'll be like, yeah, I'm grateful for this, and

they'll write a couple of things down, but they're, they're doing

it from their head, right, they're not really feeling the

gratitude, they're not really doing it, they're doing it more

like rote, right, like rote, like regular old whatever,

rather than more like a ritual or whatever, and so I started to

think about like this gratitude salad, and it's like when I make

a salad, I don't know about you guys, but I'm wicked picky when

it comes to like the textures in my bowl, the colors in my bowl,

like how things look now. Don't get me wrong, I can eat a very

basic, like, like you know, iceberg lettuce salad if I had

to. Hello, as a vegan, I've had to eat many, you know, not, not

so fantastic salads, but and my salads aren't wicked fancy,

right? So, if I make a salad, let me, let me tell you what I

mean. So, if I make a salad, right, I always want some sort

of like greens, right? It can be like mixed greens or whatever,

and then I always like to add in some crunchy romaine lettuce,

right, and I dice it up, and I like it real. I don't like the

ends that are like green and wilty, like I really like the

crunchy bits, you know what I mean. So I always have like a

good crunchy base for my salad, and then I throw in like

matchsticks, carrots, chopped up celery, like I said, it's not

super fancy, but and then I take little tomatoes and I dice them

up, you know, and then I put on some sunflower seeds, right, and

then maybe some really yummy vegan croutons, if I have them.

Then, of course, a dressing. Okay, so there's these elements,

is these elements to this salad. So, when I started thinking

about the gratitude salad that my subconscious delivered to me

as a solution to my fucking bad attitude, I was like, okay, my

salads have these different textures, these different

flavors, these different colors, right? And I really think about

it when I'm making it. I don't just throw it into the bowl,

right? Like, I break up the lettuce, I chop it to the right

size, I, you know, everything is just like made with

thoughtfulness and with care, and especially if I'm making one

for my sweetie too, because he makes it slightly different.

Okay, here's what I'm saying. So it's so easy to just do like I'm

gonna write down three things that I'm grateful for, Marin

Rama, and I'm like, but I, you, are you really feeling grateful?

Are you really putting a variety of things in there? And I was

like, okay, well, if I was gonna say to my students, or one of my

clients, my yoga students, or one of my clients, or if I was

giving a prompt to, like, some of my writers for a write club,

or whatever, I would say to them, Okay, here's some elements

that I want you to think about. So, as a practice, I'm just

throwing this out there in case you find it helpful, because I

have found this really helpful, right, since I've started doing

this, since I had the thought of God of gratitude salad, instead

of God salad, instead of the regular old God and variety,

right? A little gratitude salad has different elements. So,

here's some ideas for you. So, this is how I've been kind of

keeping it fresh when I find myself, right, getting a little

whiney or just a little ungrateful, you know, when you

can just start to take people or things for granted, or you start

to, like, I don't know, just not appreciate people, place things,

like your even the basics, like your health, your wealth, your

whatever. We can be rich in lots of different ways. So I started

doing this. Okay, so each day, right, I'm going to try to think

of a person I'm grateful for, an animal that I'm grateful for,

and now I'll just throw some other things. Right, it could be

a place you're grateful for, some place you visited, some

place you grew up, some place that has the best vegan waffles,

like whatever it is, right, a thing that you're grateful for.

Now, a lot of times we're told that we shouldn't love things,

just love people, love animals, and I agree with that, but there

are certain things that might hold, hold something really

valuable to you. There might be some sentiment to it, right,

which leads us to the next thing, which is a feeling. So,

when you do your gratitude. Practice, see when you're

thinking of this person, you know, if you can now, not

everybody can visualize in their mind, but for those of you who

can, who can imagine, who can see, right, who can, you know,

like has has visual ability in their brain, try to really see

that person, and don't just see them like as a still shot, see

if you can see them as a movie, see if you can see them as a

movie in color, maybe it's like their laugh, or there was

something about them that you loved when they would do a

particular quirky thing, right? Try to really see them. I'm

already picturing somebody in my head right now, and you can see

if you're watching this, you see my face, I'm just smiling, my

eyes just lit up, because it was like, oh, I started when I

closed my eyes, I started the movie in my head, and I saw this

person, I saw them in color, and then I saw them up close, I

brought them up close rather than in the distance, right? And

when we do that in our brain, and we see this person in color

as a movie in motion up close, right, we can actually start to

like generate some biochemical, like a physiological response,

right. And then take a moment to envision that person, and I

always say, if there's somebody in your life that you're

grateful for, and they're still alive, they're still with us,

let them know, send up a flare, write them a handwritten note,

snail mail, like, like, go old school, like, right. And

obviously, if you can't afford, I'm not being fresh. If you

can't afford a stamp, and you don't have time to, like, get to

the post office, or whatever, at the very least, like, call them

up, or shoot them a text, whatever you got to do. But let

them know that you're grateful for them, and why go the extra

distance, be specific, give specific feedback, right? Maybe

it's an animal that's alive, that was a beloved pet that's no

longer with you, a furry kid, right? Or maybe it's just an

animal out in the wild. Maybe you're lucky enough to have,

like, a porcupine that lives in your yard, or a groundhog, or

something special. There's a particular bird that visits that

you love, right? And really, again, take a moment and let

your hat, let your hat actually feel the feeling of that

gratitude, right? Maybe it's a place, maybe it's some place,

the place you got married, the place you fell in love, the

place where your child was born, the place where you got your

first book deal, the place where you discovered, oh, I'm a

musician, or what, you had the epiphany, right, like, oh, I'm

gay, I'm this, I'm that, whatever the thing is, right?

Wait, some, some place that holds meaning for you, maybe

it's a cemetery, or you know, whatever, your old school,

right, with that one teacher who just really saw you and got you

and loved you, whatever it is, right. And then think of a

thing, right, I can just show you right now, hold up this

little fox that I have, right, my little, my little fox that my

sweetie got me, right. She came all the way from Ireland, and I

love my little fox with his little green scarf, right. And

he sits on my desk, and I'm so grateful for this, because when

I see this, I not only think of my sweetie and his love for me,

and he knew that I really wanted this little fox, but also the

artist that made it, and I just so appreciate the reminder of

people's creativity, you know, so like a thing, and then you

could also be grateful for a feeling, right? Maybe there's a

feeling that you love to have, right, when, and when you have

it, you're just like, oh my god, right? So do all of this with

feeling, so when you're building your gratitude salad, right,

it's like maybe the person is like the lettuce, right? You

know what I mean, it's like that's the bulk of it is the

humans in your life, and then you know maybe the carrots are

the other critters, you know, it's like the animals, like

whatever, but when you're building your gratitude salad,

like sprinkle some interesting shit in there, like some stuff

that maybe you hadn't thought of being grateful for, looking at

it from a different perspective, you know. One of the things that

I'm also grateful for sometimes is really good stories, right?

I'm like, oh my god, it's one of the things I love the most about

Write Club. So, if you've been listening and paying attention,

right, so I'm a certified gateless writing instructor.

I've been doing writing workshops since 2004 In 2014 I

got certified as a gateless writing instructor. And so I do

these writing workshops. I've taught week-long workshops at

the Omega Institute. I've done them locally, I've done them

online. I've been doing this for a wicked long time. Right, I

just did one in the fall for the International Women's Writing

Guild online, but locally I'm going to be doing them once a

month in person. I'm holding up my friend's card, it's the 11th

Letter Writing Gallery at 146 North Main Street in Conkin. My

friend Jocelyn Wynn owns the writing gallery, and I'm going

to be holding them there. And our first one is this Saturday,

may 30, from one to 4pm and if you want to join us for that,

you guys, if you're a local writer or somebody who would

drive from Mass, Vermont, Maine, whatever, just go to Karen

kenney.com/write Club, one word, and all the info is right there.

Okay, so one of my favorite things about Write Club. Of is

after we do like the embodied meditation, we do the prompt, we

write, everybody gets a chance to read, and then they get a

chance to receive only loving, positive, uplifting feedback,

right? They get feedback about where their work is strong and

where the power is, and where their genius lives, their

creativity, it's like such a powerful and positive way to

write in a group, but one of my favorite things is getting to

listen to people read their work, to read the stories that

have been inside of them, now coming out, hearing their voice,

and hearing stories. So, when I was thinking about my gratitude

salad, I was like, oh man, what's a story that I'm grateful

for lately. And some of you may know that Stephen Colbert, the

amazing Stephen Colbert, has been taken off the air. His show

ended, but before that, I was watching something, and his

wife, they asked his wife or something, something about

Stephen that she loved, and she says when I met Stephen, he was

around, I think that she said like 27 or something like that,

and she's like he was only 27 but he already had crow's feet,

he already had crow's lines and crow's feet around like his face

and mouth by 27 because from laughing and smiling so much

already in his life. Now, if you know Stephen Colbert's story,

you know it's also mocked by tragedy in deep loss, you know,

but the fact that she said by 27 one of the things she fell in

love with him for is that he already had crows feet at 27

from laughing and smiling so much. That story has stayed with

me, and I think about it. I think about it throughout the

day, and I think about him smiling, and I think about his

genuineness, and I think about his character, and what we've

gotten to know. I mean, of course, I've never met the man

in person, but what I've seen of him over the years, and I love

that story that she fell in love with the fact that he already

had wrinkles because he had laughed and smiled so much, and

I just thought, oh man, right, to have that kind of essence and

energy that somebody would fall in love with you because you

walk around with so much joy and so much life and so many stories

right within you. I just thought it was so cool, and so I just

wanted to share with you guys, because look, it's so easy right

now, it's so easy right now out there, with the world being such

a fucking crazy shit show, it's easy to just get focusing on all

the things that aren't working, all the things that are going

wrong, and look, those things do need our attention, this isn't

about gratitude, and then we just like put our head in the

sand, and we don't do the work that needs to be done. I'm not

saying that, but we also won't get there if we're always

exhausted, if we're always miserable, if we're always

feeling hopeless and helpless, right? Change is not going to

come if we have no energy right to enact the change to become

the change to be in the world is change to help change happen by

the way we vote, by the people we put in office, like all those

things we do need some energy, some joy, some mojo, you know

what I mean. And so I do think that just having a regular old

gratitude practice is fantastic, and it's amazing, but sometimes

we need to, like, you know, we need to shake it up a little

bit, we need to shake the salad, we need to make a little

gratitude salad, sprinkle in some things that maybe normally

wouldn't occur to you, right? So we often think of, like, a

people, or I'm grateful for this, I'm grateful for my

health, yes, but let's get more specific. Let's get more

curious, right? Like, right now, as I'm talking to you, I can

hear the call, because I live in the woods, I can hear the call

of like all these different birds right now, and I just

think, like, oh my god, that's so cool, right? And there's

people that I follow online who are incredible photographers of

wildlife, and there's one guy named Marty Woodward, and Marty

is known really for his work, is like marketing and helping

people grow their business, but on the side he photographs

birds, and he just told this incredible story about how he

drove 800 miles to try to find this one bird, and when he went

to take the picture of the bird, he hit the video button instead,

so we didn't capture what he calls the shot, but he captured

this amazing video of this multi-colored, beautiful,

gorgeous bird, and he shared it with us, and I just thought, ah,

I'm so grateful for Mahdi for sharing that, you know, so this

is what I'm saying, you guys. There's so much to look around

and be discouraged by, and be disappointed by, and be scared

of, right? There's so much horror and brutality and

violence and unfairness and racism, and you know, sex

trafficking and child abuse. I mean, look at humans have been

doing horrendous. Awful things for 1000s of years, but there

have also been people out there doing amazing things, and if we

let our brain and this negativity bias like take over,

we're in big trouble. So we need the little librarians in our

head to sprinkle in like some goodies into our gratitude salad

once in a while. So that's all I wanted to share with you. I go

out for my run now, but while it was fresh on my mind, I was

like, I don't know, maybe other people, maybe other people want

to make a little gratitude salad of their own, and they need that

little reminder, you know, to take a look around at the world,

take a look around at the immediate world, and then like

span out, right, like zoom out, and really take a good ganda,

take a look around, there's some incredible people out there.

There's some incredible humans doing really powerful and

beautiful things in the world, very talented things, writing

incredible stories and books, and making music and artwork,

and loving each other, and serving their communities, and

serving their neighbors, and they're getting out there, and

they're activists, and whatever. There's some incredible,

gorgeous animals. I mean, Mother Nature is just wild. Like, if

you just spend a little time, like looking around at certain

even leaves, like sometimes you just look at a leaf and you

think, oh my god, like, how does nature know how to do this and

create these things? You know, it's so incredible. And there

have been places and things that we have been gifted, and you

know it's so easy to just walk by things every day, and you

kind of stop seeing them, and this happens in marriages, it

happens in relationships, partnerships, it happens with,

you know, your pets, and you know, we just start to things

just start to get blurry, so I want to say, like, lean in real

close to your life, look at these things, feel these

feelings, think about stories and memories, and really let

yourself feel the full depth of them. Let your hat just light

up, and, man, dive into that delicious gratitude salad. And

if you make a gratitude salad, I would love to hear about it.

Seriously, send up a flare, write to me. Send me a message

or a note. Go to my website, my contact page. Send me a little

something. I would love to hear what's in your gratitude salad

for today. You guys are the topping. You guys are the

sprinkles on my gratitude salad today. So, thank you every week.

Thank you every week for tuning in for new listeners. I know I

have some new listeners, Jocelyn and David, I'm very excited

about that, and every once in a while I hear from somebody who

said, "Hey, I listen to your show, and I'm always blown away.

I'm like, "You do, so it really does mean a lot to me. So, thank

you for spending some time with me. I hope you have a fantastic

day, and, like I said, if you're interested in Write Club or

joining the Nest, or anything I do, you can find out everything

on Karen kenney.com and if you want, whatever is happening, new

things that I'm creating, workshops and stuff like that,

the best ways to get on my mailing list, right? I usually

send out one newsletter a week, sometimes you'll hear from me

twice if I'm letting you know about a class or a workshop or

something wicked fun that's happening, and you just go to

Karen kenney.com/sign up, that's how you get on that sucker, and

I would love to have you join us. So, thank you for being a

part of my podcast community. Have a fantastic rest of your

day, and like I said, I hope you make a little gratitude salad

today. Okay, wherever you go, may you leave yourself and the

animals and the people in the places and the environment

better than how you found it. Wherever you go, may you and

your energy, your presence, your love, and your attitude of

gratitude, your little gratitude salad be a blessing. Bye. Hey,

thanks so much for listening to the show. I really love spending

some time together. Now, if you dig the show or know someone

that could benefit from this episode, please share it with

them and help me to spread the good word and the love. And if

you want to be in the know about all of my upcoming shenanigans,

head on over to Karen kenney.com/sign up and join my

list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch. Bye bye.