How to Gladden Your Mind and Feel Better Every Day

I’m Dr. Deb Butler and you are listening to Thinner Peace and Menopause and Beyond. This is episode number
467. And don’t forget, every Wednesday I have Jumpstart Wednesdays where you can get all kinds of information
and coaching on a free zoom platform by joining me at Dr. Deborah Butler.com jump. Stay tuned to the next episode.

Welcome to Thinner Peace and Menopause and Beyond. This is Dr. Deb Butler, master life and weight coach and as
always, your coach. If you’re a woman and you’re smart and you’re successful and you’ve been struggling with
weight your whole life and now menopause is making it harder than ever and you are ready to make this the last time
you ever have to go on a diet again, then this.

Podcast is for you.

Stay tuned.

Well, hello, hello all my dear beautiful friends all over the world. It’s a beautiful day over here and I have something
that I want to share with you. And it’s one of my most valuable downloaded podcasts, my mvp. And the reason that I
want to share it with you today is because I’m getting ready for the frst time in four years to go on a fve day silent
retreat here in St. Louis, Missouri. And this is what we call at least where I go. It’s insight meditation and it’s using
the Buddhist philosophy and the meditations and being very quiet. If you would look at the schedule, it makes me
laugh. So I’ll just tell you what the schedule is. If you look at it on any given day, it’s going to look like this. 6:00, sit,
7:00, eat breakfast, 7:30, walk, 8:00, sit.

And basically that’s the way the whole schedule looks. Sit, walk, sit, walk, sit, walk, eat, sit, walk, sit, walk, eat for fve
days. And it’s with guided meditations and with a very special teacher.

And the goal is to be able to become the observer of my own mind and be able to watch it and sit with myself
without any external anything, the Internet, nothing. It’s just me and myself and it’s a group of people, but it’s silent
and they call it noble silence as a way of saying that, you know, there’s nothing negative about this. This is just about
respecting the people that you’re with and giving everybody the opportunity to stay within and what it’s like just to be
within with no distractions. Everything is taken care of for you. So this is something that I’ve talked a lot about in my
podcast, but since I haven’t done it in so many years, I probably haven’t talked about it. But I’ve done some online
retreats and listened to some of my favorite teachers.

And the most valuable podcast that’s been downloaded, probably for good reason, is when I talk about the idea of
gladdening your mind. And I got this concept from Tara Brock, which is a well known Buddhist teacher and
philosopher. And so I want to preface my introduction, talking to you now with this gladdening of your mind
technique that I would love for you to learn. I’m going to remember it when I’m in my meditations for fve days and I’ll
be thinking about you and thinking about how to make my communication with you better because I’m going to have
plenty of time to be inside and fgure it out. So for now, what I want you.

To do is whatever it is you.

Do when you listen to my podcasts, sit, back, walk, read, not read, please don’t read while you’re listening to me. Or if
you are reading, please listen to me too. Or take a bubble bath, which is what I love to do when I listen to podcasts
and listen to this very special episode on how to gladden your mind.

Enjoy.

It’s a privilege to be with you today, no matter where you are in the world. And I have a lot of things that I’d like to talk
about, which I say every single time because I always have a lot to talk about. But one of the things that I’ve been
really interested in lately is I’ve been listening to Tara Brock, who is another Western psychologist who teaches
Buddhism and who is very big into meditation. She’s written many books and I really love to listen to some of her
talks, her dharma talks on the brain.

And one of the things that she was talking about this time that I wanted to share with you is that she talked about in
Buddhist psychology, one of the ways that the brain and happiness is talked about is to talk about gladdening the
mind, which is another way of saying how to make you happy. But I love the term gladdening your mind. And she
went over three different ways on how you can make yourself happy by attending to your mind and make it happy, or
as she puts it, gladdening your mind. Now the frst two things that she talks about, the frst two steps I’ll go over, but
I’ll go over it kind of quickly because I think you know about it. But I still love it and it’s still a reminder to you to not
forget to do it.

So the frst one is one way to gladden your mind is to point it in the direction of gratifcation. So, you know, the more
grateful you are, the better you feel inside of yourself. And when you feel better, you do better. And the way our
minds function is that there is a negativity bias with all of our minds, which means most of us, including myself, we
have inner complainers. Everything we don’t like, that’s kind of how we go. And everything we’re afraid might happen
and all the things that could go wrong and how bad things might happen. And really, that’s kind of the way our mind
has. And our brain works, is it protects us by saying, what about this and what about that? And we could walk around
all the time looking at the negative, which is called the negativity bias.

But when we talk about gladdening our mind, which means we don’t point it towards the negative, which is the way
that it wants to go, we point it in the direction of how we want it to go. We, meaning our prefrontal cortex, we,
meaning the observer who’s watching all of this. And those of you, if you don’t understand what I say, observer, it’s
like many times especially awareness is all about seeing what’s going on in front of you.

And mindfulness is about seeing what’s going.

On in front of you without judging it. And the observer is that part of.

Your brain that watches all of this stuff.

So there’s a part of you that watches you go negative and watches you go positive. And you, the observer, the
prefrontal cortex has the option to decide which way you want it to go. And when we talk about gladdening the mind,
we’re talking about pointing the mind in the direction that we want it to go so that we can create.

More of the feeling of happiness.

So, you know, in the model that I talk about, all the times that.

Our thoughts create our feelings, and our feelings create our actions, and our actions create our results.

This is not far from that.

What you think creates how you feel. Where you point your mind to what.

You want to think is how you create a feeling. So when we’re gladdening our mind, the.

First thing that she talks about is to be grateful and to think of three things every day that you’re grateful for.

I know you have probably heard this.

Before, so I’m just reminding you right now for you to think about three things that you’re grateful for. Because, listen,
when she was talking about This I go, yeah, yeah, I.

Know, I know.

But I don’t do it every day. I don’t do it all the time. In fact, sometimes I let my mind do its inner complaining and run
towards the negative and scare the heck out of me. I just let it do it. I forget and so do you. So this is a reminder right
now for you to think of three things that you’re grateful for right now. In this minute. It won’t take you any longer than
30 seconds for you to decide what you want to be grateful for today. And listen, if you’re in the car and you’re driving,
you can be grateful you have a car. If you’re out walking, I know a lot of you like to walk with me. Well, you can be
grateful that your legs are working.

And you know what, you just might be grateful that you can hear me. But I mean, it’s so easy to point our minds that
way once we get it out of the guck of negativity.

Okay, so number one, the way you gladden your mind is you think of.

Three things that you’re grateful for.

The second step Tara Brock was talking about was to be kind and to give. So to give to people who are less
fortunate, give to people who are suffering to get you out of your own mind. Because a lot of times our brains can
become very self absorbed with ourselves. And usually when our brains do that, our brains do not point us to joy and
happiness. Our brains point us to all the things that are wrong. Brings out the inner complainer and sees everything
that’s not right, every place you’re not doing enough and how everything could better if you could just change
yourself. That’s the nature of the mind. You don’t want your mind going that way and it doesn’t have to. So the
second thing that she says is to be kind and to give to others who are suffering.

And what she says, and I know that this is probably true, that you have noticed yourself, is that when you go to help
somebody else, you forget about yourself. And helping somebody else feels good inside of you. I know I’m not telling
you rocket science. I know you’ve heard this. This is a reminder. Don’t forget to do it if you want to be happier, if you
want to gladden your mind. I love the term gladdening your mind as opposed to, hey, you want to be happy today?
How about I want to gladden my mind? Now the third step that she talks about, and this is what I want to talk a little
bit more about. And then I’m going to talk to you a little bit about the course that I’ve created and how all of this
comes together.

So the third step that she says is that you need to savor. Now, I did a whole podcast on savoring, and I want to talk
about it here because it’s the thing that I think makes the biggest difference to me, and it’s the easiest thing to forget,
because the nature of our minds want to go to what’s wrong and not what’s right. But savoring means that when
something. When we notice or we feel something extremely joyful or positive, it’s the nature of our mind to switch
gears and go back to the negative as quickly as possible. Now, what she says and in the teachings that she studied
in Buddhism, what they have found is that if you can keep your mind in savoring mode for 15 to 30 seconds, that
means if you notice a beautiful sunset.

And I talk about sunsets because I just came back from Lake Michigan where we had this beautiful house that was
overlooking. We were on a cliff overlooking the lake, and every day was a sunset. Now, these were beautiful sunsets.
They were not like the sunsets I’m used to seeing. And I think all sunsets are lovely. But I made it a point that I would
watch these sunsets with Michael, my husband, every night and just watch it go away. And I could feel this feeling in
me about the miracle of life so easily, watching that sun go down. I also noticed that as the sun was going down and
I was relating this to myself about what a miracle it is. And I can’t believe it happens every day.

And then, not only that, the beauty of the whole thing, my brain wanted to move on to what’s wrong and what do you
have to do so quickly that there was no way I spent 15 to 30 seconds keeping my mind right there. So I wanted to do
an experiment with you to show you what 15 seconds feels like, because she said 15 to 30 seconds. So I’m just
going to do 15 seconds with you. And what I want you to do is I want you to think about either you’re in a moment
right now where there’s something for you to savor.

I mean, maybe you’re just feeling really grateful for something right now and you can savor that feeling, or for me,
One of my best memories that I love to go back to is the birth of my third grandchild when I was there. I will never
forget that experience, even.

Though my brain wants to forget it.

All the time and talk about what’s.

Wrong and all of that. That moment and what it did to.

Me and how it felt in my body, I will never forget it. And the way I will never forget.

It is I will savor that moment often by pointing my mind to that memory and then holding it there for 15 seconds. So
for you can either go to a memory that you remember that has that feeling, or maybe you can just conjure it up right
this minute. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to time 15 seconds for you. 15 seconds on the podcast is going.

To feel kind of funny.

But I want all of you that are listening right now to think of a moment, think of something. And when I say go, I want
you to keep your mind on that until I tell you. Time is up. On your mark, get set. Savor for 15 seconds now.

Okay, time is up. That was 15 seconds. I can’t wait to go back and hear this podcast to see what that sounds like, to
have that kind of empty space. But that was 15 seconds. She said 15 to 30 seconds. But what was it like for you if
you took that moment and spent all 15 seconds keeping your mind on it? What does it feel like in your body right
now? Now, I’ve given you examples. Like, I have a lot of beautiful moments with my husband. We have a beautiful
relations, and yes, we have problems. I’m not trying to make it sound like, oh, it’s just beautiful, and there’s nothing
ever that goes wrong. I’m just saying I do have a lovely relationship with my husband. And there are moments when
I’m with him that I want to savor longer.

They happen all the time. And I watch my brain just fit around so fast from these beautiful moments. And so I’m
practicing that with him, too, that when I’m with him. And either we have this moment together where it’s very
intimate, or we have this moment together where we’re just laughing out loud. I savor it. I want to time it for 15
seconds. At least in my head, you all know what 15 seconds feels like. Now, you start practicing it enough that you
know when it’s 15 seconds. And I promise you, all the three things that I told you on how to gladden your mind,
savoring is by far my favorite. So I want you to try that out this week.

Now, as I’m speaking about savoring and joy, if you want to lose weight, you have got to be able to get that brain
under control. Because your brain is what controls the show. The way that I work and the way that I’ve teached over
the years, and the reason I feel like my clients are so successful is because what I do is different from everybody
else. I do not tell you what to eat.

I almost don’t even care what you eat, but I care a lot about what you’re thinking. The major thing, the major point of
this centerpiece process that I teach is can you eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full? That’s it. And after
talking to thousands of women over the years, that is what trips everybody up is this. I don’t even know when I’m
hungry. I don’t even know when I’m full. I’ve been doing diets for so long, I don’t even know. I’ve been restricting
myself for so long, I don’t even know if I’m hungry. I don’t even know if I’m full. I just know that sometimes I just want
to eat.

And I’ll tell you what, when you’re in menopause, if you’ve been thinking like that your whole life, that somehow eating
is helping you feel better, and now you’re in menopause, you feel worse. Menopause does not help you feel better.
In the beginning, right?

Because there’s a lot of imbalance going on. There’s a lot going on inside you, outside you, and there’s a lot to deal
with.

And I do believe that this phase of life will take you into your best phase of life if you use it correctly. Now, I use food
and I use your weight to help you manage your mind. But as you’ll hear from many of my clients, it’s not about the
food. That’s all they ever say as they lose weight and start to feel alive again. I just had one of my clients write me a
letter and said, I feel alive again. I feel like myself. I feel better than myself. That’s the point. Now, if you’re one of
those women and you’ve been struggling with weight your whole life, and menopause is making all of this harder,
most of the women I talk to, you know what they say? I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I don’t even know.

Just like I don’t even know if I’m hungry. I don’t know. And that is because this is all the things that we’re wired. We’re
supposed to know how we feel. We’re supposed to know how to Eat when we’re hungry and stop when we’re full. We
were made that way. And through ongoing dieting, we have learned how to ignore our bodies and ignore our minds.

So you know what you need to do frst, you’re going to gladden your mind this week and you’re going to gladden it by,
number one, giving to others, especially when you feel at your worst. Number two, you’re going to think of three
things that you can be grateful for every day. Let’s just say for the next seven days, every day, remind yourself of
three things and the third step, and my favorite step, is savoring a special moment over and over again for at least
15 seconds. And make sure it’s 15 seconds because that’s the research that shows that’s what changes the brain
otherwise. Oh, yeah, that was nice. Two seconds and we’re off to the races again. Oh, that’s beautiful. And we’re off
to the races. Yeah, but I’m not enough and I don’t do enough and I got all this stuff to do.

Oh, my gosh, get that brain going. I’m going to help you jumpstart it, and right now you’re going to jump it by doing
these three things as soon as you stop listening to me. And of course, I would never end this podcast without saying
to you, no matter where you go, no matter who you’re with, please, please be very kind to yourself and I will see you
next week. Bye.

Bye.

If you’ve been following my podcast and you’re loving all the tools that I teach you, but you’re just not sure that you
can do it or apply it by yourself, then please go to Dr.debbbutler.com work with me and you can fnd out if the
program that I do and the coaching that I do will help you get to where you want to be, to learn all the tools that I
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