#300 Practice EXTREME Gratitude for Your Child’s Life & Health: A Sobering Message

Rachel Denning (00:14.893)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. I'm lacking the energy and excitement this morning, as I'm sure you noticed, because we got up and got into our morning routines. We're going about our day, and then we got some super sad news. And we've just been...

Spending the morning praying and crying and sad and broken hearts and still feeling it. Our good, good friends, their one year old is in critical condition in the hospital right now.

Rachel Denning (01:06.937)
And our daughter, Alia is with them. Yeah. And it's just, it's so sad. And so today's the day we record podcasts. We thought, you know what, we'll still record something.

We'll just be honest with our feelings and our thoughts and maybe share something here that's helpful for all of us when we're facing tragedy and challenge. But I think more importantly, things like this happen, for me, it man it just reminds me to cherish, absolutely cherish every moment we get.

Because things like this have happened to us when we had our terrible car accident, what was it? 15 years ago. Man, I can't believe it's been that long already. 15 years ago, and we almost lost our daughter, Aliyah, who's there with them? Yeah, the one who's there with them. Yeah, she was three, and she was ejected from our van. And it snapped her femur in half.

and a matter of inches would have ended her life. And it was a serious reality check. And all the things we were worried about and stressed about and frustrated about just didn't even matter. All of our plans and all of our strategizing and all the stuff and things that we get so worked up about just literally don't matter. Well, it is...

always amazing to me how when things like this happen and whether they happen to someone else or they happen to you, someone you care about, it has this power of bringing into focus everything that really matters, which is what you're talking about. And it is amazing to me how that works. How you're right, everything we were previously worried about, suddenly like, doesn't matter. It's not even important.

Rachel Denning (03:18.315)
Yesterday, I took my rabbit to the vet. Well, my daughter's rabbit. And we were all worried about it. And now I'm like, it doesn't matter. Not that she doesn't care about the rabbit anymore, but suddenly the perspective of that is shifted when you realize, I guess, what we care about more. We care more about the people we love. We care more about our friends, our family. Those are the things that really matter.

So It does create this very powerful, strong paradigm shift that helps us to focus on what actually matters, what we actually care about, what's most important to us. And I guess maybe that's the only message today. That we have had that paradigm shift again today. And...

If there's a positive thing that can come out of things like this, that is it. To share that paradigm shift with others so that they can take their current life and remember, be reminded about what actually really matters. Exactly. As you can imagine with all the coaching we do with good families like yours, we often hear stories of

Moms and dads and kids being so upset and fighting all the time and yelling at each other. And this is on daily basis of, you left your shoes out. You're jumping on the furniture. We took you to a restaurant and you climbed over the table or under the table. And you took your stuff. you broke that thing. you embarrassed me. And we make big deals out of it. And in the moment, it seems like a big deal.

And not that we're saying, you know, we should just, because of what's most important, that we should all act like barbarians. We're not saying that either. at all. guess, thank you for pointing that out. I want to point, like, when the overreacting that we do, that we're getting so upset when, like you said so well, it's like things like this are a great reminder for all of us to bring it back into focus, to shift the paradigm, have a quick reality check. I'm like, well, hey, wait a minute, I don't...

Rachel Denning (05:41.239)
I don't want my children behaving like that, but I don't need to blow a gasket and I don't need to reprimand and get after them. Like I've, can gently lovingly correct them and say, come here, I'm, I'm so grateful to have you.

Rachel Denning (06:02.637)
Yeah, I mean, that's the... that is the driving emotion, I think. It has to be. Is this reminder that through all of that, through all of the chaos, all of the challenge, all of the frustration, all of the irritation, and in fact, in spite of it, with the proper perspective, we can reduce those emotions because instead what we can be experiencing is gratitude.

Right. And I know that we have talked about this before, specifically in our coaching, but perhaps on the podcast as well. And in our coaching, we've called it extreme gratitude because This isn't the first time that bad things, know, bad things have happened to us or that we've heard of things happening to other people, traumatizing, sad, terrible things, whatever word you want to use there. But when it happens,

Again, it always brings this paradigm shift and reminder, but for me, I've tried to maintain that viewpoint as much as possible and as long as possible, not in a morbid sort of way, but in a way that helps me be a better parent, right? When I remember how I feel in moments like this, because not only do I mourn with someone who's mourned,

morning and cry with them, I also feel much more gratitude for my own children and my own, their own safety and their own health and wellbeing, which is a natural response. And so that's the key. That's the, the benefit of something like this is that it can help us each be better parents on a daily basis remembering

that life's fragile.

Rachel Denning (08:04.195)
We have to remember that. And I don't know how to say it any stronger than just cherishing, cherishing those moments and loving them. And instead of feeling the anger, resentment, frustration, irritation towards them and all the little things they do.

Rachel Denning (08:27.031)
choose instead to feel that extreme gratitude and love and remember that it's just an enormous privilege and still correct the behavior and still raise them and still do the laundry and make dinner and pay the bills and but man but it's interesting that I I feel that I think that I've become good at this with that sort of mindset because there's been

I can think of certain touch points over the years of a situation like this that has impacted me and influenced me and

Because of that, I have learned how to be able to correct them with gratitude and love.

Rachel Denning (09:20.301)
discipline them or to, well, whatever. Those are the only two words I can think of that really matter. Discipline and correct them with love and gratitude. Like it doesn't have to come from a place of irritation and annoyance and frustration. I can love them to death and I can be so grateful that they're alive and that can be my underlying emotion and feeling and still I can correct their behavior. Still I can...

Discipline them for things that they shouldn't be doing But it's done from this place of sincere gratitude because you're alive You're healthy. I'm so grateful for that and I love you so much So let's not do this thing, right? And it's amazing how well kids respond to that when you so much better taught them and train them It's incredible to me that I mean my kids respond great to that

You don't have to get upset. You don't have to yell. You don't have to be angry and frustrated and irritated and annoyed. You can actually teach them all the things you need to teach them from a place of extreme gratitude that they're alive and well and healthy. I love that. So we're approaching them no matter what's going on, all the stuff and things. We're approaching with a heart of love versus a heart of irritation.

And this concept we got from a Muslim general in around the 1100s, Saladin, who he said you can go, he can be in war, and he was in war, and he says, I can go to war with a heart of peace instead of being in war. You you could be in peace time with a heart of war. And this is a great reminder for that, that we can have hearts filled with love and we can approach

the irritation, the frustration and the infuriating circumstances. And we can separate the person from the behaviors and the actions and have a heart of love instead of a heart of irritation, a heart of gratitude instead of a heart of resentment.

Rachel Denning (11:34.143)
and just cherish them. It was about 15 years ago as well that we had the sacred privilege of attending the funeral of a little boy, of a distant cousin of mine. And it was sacred ground to be there and to see that. And one of the things they said that just struck with me the whole time is they were so incredibly grateful for the time they did have.

He was four and my second son was four at the time. So was very relevant to me and they kept focusing on how grateful they were that they had had those four years.

where immediately my mind was like, what about all the rest of the years? And they, as a family, chose to focus on the four years they did have. And that, man, that struck me. It was powerful. And it was shortly after our accident where Aliyah had been so severely injured. so those things, I planted them deep in my heart, and they have been a guiding influence since that time. So the last 15 years, they have been a predominant

influence in my mind and in my heart of how I approach life and marriage and parenting and my sister lost her husband and Rachel's mom lost her dad and her husband, her second husband, so twice. So we've kept this in our hearts and made it real and let it be a

governing influence in our lives. We're not just like, that was tough. then two weeks later, we're back to our old, bitter, frustrated selves. We're letting this transform the way we interact and the way we see life. And it's been such a blessing. And it's made all of our relationships better. hopefully this is helpful.

Rachel Denning (13:45.945)
to somebody listening today that we don't have to wait until it hits close to home. We can learn even today from this message of hearing that, saying, know what? No, I'm going to do things differently and set some alerts and set some reminders. Remind yourself of the way you want to be and how you want to show up and how fragile life is and how precious it is.

and to behave differently.

Rachel Denning (14:23.577)
I'll share one more story. I read this when we were newlyweds and the gentleman telling the story was already quite old and he had learned the lesson when he was a young man. So it was quite a while ago and he had gone to visit this lady who was an old widow at the end of her life.

And she said, I want to teach you something, because he was recently married. So this was long generations of separation when I learned this. I'm glad I learned it then. She had sat down with him, and she told him the story that when she was a newlywed, she'd gotten really angry at her husband. And they were fighting over something that morning. And then he said something in anger as he's leaving for work. And he slammed the door, and he left. And she just couldn't leave it. She had to get the last word in. So she chased him out the door.

ran out of the street and yelled something after him as he was walking away. And then he went onto a construction site and was killed that day in an accident. And she was telling him, just in the story, she didn't even remember what they were fighting about. She couldn't even remember it. It was so insignificant. But what she had lived her entire life with was the pain of knowing that the last word she said to her husband, who she cherished so much and loved so much, was something in anger.

some little stab about some insignificant thing. And when we all stop and think like, well, no, you know, way if she had known that she could lose him, that she was going to lose him, that she would have just dismissed what they were arguing about. And then there's no way in the world she would have chased him down to have the last word. I guess that's one of the lessons I want to share today is like when.

When we keep that in perspective. and it's not like every day we're waking up worried that one of the people we love are gonna die and we're living in fear. It's not that. It's just being instructed by that. we're educating. Being aware of it. Yeah, the awareness and the education. So we're educating and directing our thoughts and our feelings to the bigger picture. And so, hey, In the big picture of how much I love you, am I really gonna get upset about this? No, I'm not.

Rachel Denning (16:37.751)
I can still say something, but am I going to get upset? No way. And when I remember how much I love you, Rachel, and you do something that's annoying, I'm like, I just dismiss it. Who cares? It's because I love you so much. And we can talk about it, but I'm talking about it through my love. Just this enormous amount of love and appreciation I have for you. That's where I'm going to talk about it from. And it's so much easier to talk about it.

And you're more receptive because I'm just coming from this big place of love and we can talk about it. So we're not saying you just dismiss things and ignore them, but you operate from this extreme gratitude and immense love. While you were talking, it made me think of something I've heard Jordan Pearson talk about a lot because if any of you have listened to me, you know I'm kind of obsessed with Jordan Pearson. I've listened to like over 300 hours of his podcast.

But something he says over and over again is that, you know, in life, suffering and tragedy are inevitable.

Rachel Denning (17:47.587)
But that doesn't mean that we can always, that there's always the possibility of making it way worse and turning it into a living hell by our actions, words, and behaviors. And so, you know, I think that's also another reminder for us is that, yeah, you know, and maybe some of you listening now even are going through terrible things. You're suffering, there's tragedy, there's trauma, there's, you know,

difficult circumstances you're dealing with and

I'm not here to belittle that in any way because that's real and that pain is real. But there is truth, I think, to be found in that saying that there's always a way of making what we're experiencing worse by saying mean things, by being filled with bitterness, by, I don't know, cursing God. Not that, you know.

that may be justified in some sense to feel that way. I'm not discounting that at all. But if we do that, I do believe that that behavior, that attitude is only leading to making our situation even worse rather than doing whatever we can to make it as less hell-like as possible. And so The answer I do believe is gratitude, is focusing on

what is in your power to do, to say, be some sort of strength for those around you, especially, you know, those that rely on you. Because ultimately, that's the only thing that can make it any less painful, if possible. Agreed. As opposed, especially, to making it more painful and more hell-like.

Rachel Denning (19:52.375)
being useful and serving, doing more. And if you are going through something, don't try to numb yourself away from it. Don't try to avoid it. Feel it. Experience it. And I remember when my little brother died, just the waves of emotion that would come. And I think it was like that. It was like the ocean.

Waves would come in and tide would come in and I'd have some good moments and then another wave of big emotion would come and I would just weep and cry again and hurt and ache and it still comes. The waves are smaller now. I still miss him and every time I think about him I... You know I do though when I think about him? I just cherish the memory of him and I cherish our experiences and I cherish the...

the time we did have together, which unfortunately was too short. And man, that was a hard lesson for me. I wish I had spent way more time with him.

Rachel Denning (21:06.489)
I wish I'd spent more time and that I'd been more fully engaged when we did spend time together.

Had I known that his life would be so brief?

Rachel Denning (21:23.766)
I would have been more engaged, more deliberate, more intentional.

Rachel Denning (21:32.821)
And so so feel it and be in it and even as hard as is to hope sometimes hope have hope.

And I would say, guess my invitation, because this is what I'm going to do today, and I invite you to do the same as just absolutely love on the people in your life.

Spend time with them, hug them, tell them how much you love and appreciate them. Apologize if you need to, reach out to people that you feel like you've needed to but you haven't. Make things right. And make sure that people in your life know how much you love and appreciate them. And then here's the most important part, back it up by being better.

back it up, like let this love and gratitude drive you to become a better human being so that we prove our love and our gratitude through our actions and long-lasting improvements. That's the way to show it.

Okay, that's it. Love you guys. you're, if you're suffering, if you're struggling, if you're hurting.

Rachel Denning (23:02.489)
Keep your head up.

There's hope. There's healing.

Let us know if there's some way we can help.

and just keep moving forward. It's hard. We've been there.

We've been in hard times and it's tough. It's so hard to even know what to say or what to do. Because it's just so painful. Life can be so hard. And when you think about this in particular, it's so hard because we love. It's that love that makes it so difficult when we lose. Love you guys. Thanks for listening.

Rachel Denning (23:48.899)
Thanks for being great humans. Reach upward.