Today, we are talking to Lorraine Widmer-Carson all about gratitude. We discuss finding your own way to be grateful and making sure it doesn't get trite, as well as how gratitude is a prosocial motivator.
What's been turning up the corners of your mouth these days? And, why?
In this conversation, we discuss how gratitude creates a culture of kindness and health.
We talk about:
- Getting honest with yourself
- Where to start, when it comes to a gratitude practice
- Why gratitude is a changemaker
- How to get to the story behind the feeling
- What gratitude is really all about
"Gratitude is a universal connector." - Lorraine Widmer-Carson
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To learn more about Lorraine and her work, visit grassrootsgratitude.ca. You can also find her on Instagram @Lorraine_Widmer_Carson.
- I'm Celine Williams, and welcome to the "Leading Through Crisis Podcast," a conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Lorraine Widmer-Carson, a long time community advocate turned author who recently released her first book, "An Ecology of Gratitude: Writing Your Way to What Matters." Thanks for coming on the show, Lorraine.
Thanks for the invite. Delighted to be here.
I'm excited to talk about this. When we first connected, I think I have a lot of thoughts on gratitude, and I think it's really important. So I'm really excited to get into that. But before we start, per usual, I always start by asking, the name of the show is "Leading Through Crisis," can you tell me a little bit about what that means to you or what comes up for you when you hear that?
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I've been thinking about this question. I was anticipating crisis, and I thought so it's some sort of disturbance. There's some disruption. There's something that's happened and a triggering event, I used to call them, and leading through, my style was always just kind of to wait and watch and get very quiet and try to figure out what's going on. And I think if I reflect on my work in community, the 2008 Financial Crisis. In 2013, we, our local valley had a flood. In 2020, obviously COVID. I'm still a member of community and I have friends and people that I care about. So in each of those, I was reflecting on how as a leader, and obviously as a leader who was growing older during those times, in 2008, the financial crisis was so far beyond my can, so far beyond my world. Running a community foundation with an endowment fund, that meant we have assets under administration, but it wasn't, I had nothing to do with the actual events that were unfolding.
Mm-hmm.
I was left in a middle management role where I've got a board of directors who are curious, what am I doing? And then a community that's saying, when are the community grants happening? We need more cash in our community. So there's an operating fund and there's an endowment fund. The endowment fund to me just became a sidebar. And at that time, my strategy was I talked to the advisors. I said, "So is our policy good? "Are we in good hands?" And the advisor said, "Well, your policy's your policies. "Now is not the time to change anything." So that was reassuring to me that we had to let the situation unfold. We just had to wait and see, and that aligned with my talents and abilities because I knew I couldn't affect the change. And also that crisis, something's happened, and it's not expected. It's probably beyond your control, and there probably isn't anything you can really do unless you're a first responder. There's probably nothing that you can do or I could do. And so as you're thinking in your business, in your community, in your family, when something happens, you just really have to get very alert and pay attention. So in 2013, there was a community, a flood, the Bow River, it was an extraordinary series of climactic events. A storm cell just hunkered down over our valley. At the same time, the snow was melting, and all of the little rivulets and streams just became roaring, roaring Torrance of river. And I was actually in Southern Ontario attending a wedding, and I felt guilty. I thought, I should be home helping my community. And I knew people were out sandbagging the river and I was in this state of, I had to watch. I had to look at the news. I had to call home and talk to the woman who was still working in the office and ask her how it's going and she said, "Well, it's actually really, really quiet. "There's nothing happening. "The highways are closed." And then I called a friend to say, "How could I, leader of a community foundation "that does community grant making, "how could I help?" And she, her response was, "Well, this is the time "where the big guys, the Red Cross, "the emergency responders, "the people that have the assets and the means, "they can pull in. "They can pull their resources and mobilize quickly." And that was a temporary serve for me, knowing that right here, right now, again, just wait if something will happen. And when I got home and the flood waters receded, and we witnessed the damage that had been done, trails, picnic areas, I live in a national park, I'm in Alberta. There had, in my area, there was quite a bit of damage to the landscape. So they built infrastructures. In the next Community, Canmore, there were more homes that had been affected. Other places in Alberta, there was loss of life. And there had, there was a Calgary Downstream tragedy that happened. And I couldn't not do something. So then we were able to start a community fund. So I was able to generate, and it was a bit of a turning point in our organization where by demonstrating this going a little bit outside of our mandate, it wasn't our exact geographic region, but it was a done with care and intention. And it was done after we'd done some research and we realized where the gaps were. So we couldn't be first responders, but we could help with the rehabilitation afterwards, the mopping up the damage. And the one fund we started was After The Flood, Matters of The Heart. And that was a fund that was so valuable in helping people get over their trauma, their sadness, their loss, their disconnection, their feelings of isolation, which then in 2020, when COVID hit, I was no longer working at the community foundation, but having a context in community in having been identified as a kind and caring person, I thought I gotta do something. So again, COVID hits, what can I do? How could I help? What would be my role? What would be helpful? And that's where I was able to start A Gratitude Goes Live Online Conversation with people from community who are just, we don't know what's going on, what's going on. We just need to talk to each other. So Leading Through Crisis, I think my style has been absolutely a wait and see, it's a more thoughtful, and the way I get there has always been with my journal, with a pencil and a piece of paper, asking myself, how could I help? What's going on? What do we know? Who are the players? Who might need some help? It's a deeply reflective kind of thought leadership that I personally subscribe to.
I appreciate you sharing that because I think that we glorify action, quick action, quick decision making so much that we miss the importance of pausing and being thoughtful and gathering information. And it is very important. And it is as important as having people who are able and do act quickly and effectively. It can never be everyone. It shouldn't be everyone. And it is really important for people to know that it is okay to pause. And just because we don't, and I'm saying glorify on purpose, because we do really glorify it in the media. We do really glorify it in a lot of business books and business cases and et cetera, et cetera, but it's not always the best choice to make. It's not always appropriate for the people involved to step into action or decisions that quickly, and pausing and being reflective and being thoughtful is important and it's not freezing, because the thing that I think people often equate is if I pause, I'm frozen. It's a fear, and that's not the truth.
Yeah. I agree with you. And thanks for agreeing with me.
Yeah.
That we agree. I think I probably frustrated some people in my work world. So I worked in the community sector, which is a charitable sector. It is the third sector. It's the public space. It's the greater common good. And so there's no one agenda when you're talking about advancement of education and benefit for everybody, you can't just get swung by the flavor of the day. You can't just get swung by where the easy money is. You have to do some more assessment. So I probably frustrated my board at times when I was seemed indecisive, but I was in research mode. I was in information gathering mode. And I ultimately it came to, where is the energy? You have to, there's a gut thing. There's a visceral something that has to kick in when everybody's telling you something, but it just doesn't feel right.
Mm-hmm.
But the energies, the bright lights are over there, the magnetic forces, you get a chance. If you haven't shot your wad if you're not brain dead or exhausted and you can actually pay attention to that other element of humanity, then you have a chance to do different work.
Yeah.
And, and you are, you may be seen to, I always said, I can make a decision, but I really wanna make the right decision.
Mm-hmm, yep, I think that's, I think it's really important to talk about that and for people to know that it's okay, 'cause I don't think they always think it's okay. And I know, and I, you mentioned when a few minutes ago about how this deeply reflective writing practice and coming together with this gratitude group. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that because, again, I think a lot of us hear how important it is to journal or how helpful it might be to journal or whatever and yet we don't make the time or we don't really think about it as being that helpful and it becomes that, listen, this is the example that I always use is I remember being in grade school and being like, this is what I did today and that's what journaling, that is the kind of mark I have in my brain of what journaling is, and I know a lot of people have that and that's not what you're talking about. And that's certainly not what the gratitude practice is about. So I'd love for you to speak into that a little bit and explain it to the listeners and.
Yeah, thanks. Yes, thanks. Absolutely. So for me, gratitude's a habit, and it's a mental hygiene habit. It's like flossing my teeth. It's every morning I get up every morning for the last, almost 30 years, and I'd go to my desk in the half light, I grab a cup, I usually take a cup of coffee. Now, there were times earlier when I just was, so I knew I was so tight for time, I didn't have time to make a coffee, but I made getting to my journal and I followed a method that said, write three pages. And essentially it is a stream of consciousness, but as I've grown older and more familiar with my thoughts I can say, okay, so what am I thinking? What's top of mind? What has to happen? I can use it as an action and a motivational tool, or I can just say, I am so bugged and I don't know what I'm gonna say. And I'm so resentful and I'm so angry. And I really want to just swear up and down and insult people, and I can, it's my safe place. And it is my personal coaching, my personal accountability. It's my personal tool to get me to the start line of my day.
Mm-hmm.
And it takes me from my dreams. Sometimes I would capture a dream, something, maybe it was a nightmare. It takes me from my dream world into my real work a day. And I would always, always write in the journal and I was supposed to be at the office at 10 o'clock. And I usually arrived at 10:03 or four, but I was ready to roll. I knew what my goals were for the day. I knew what I needed to do, and always, I didn't at the time call it a gratitude journal, but I'd always end with an affirmation of as working as a leader of a, there was one other person who was part-time. So often I was in the office alone having a board of directors, having various accountability partners, but I was the sole proprietor. I was responsible for whatever was happening. And you kind of constantly have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And I imagine there are lots of people who are working at home right now who are in a similar situation, they have to be their own accountability judges. They have to be responsible for themselves. And I would totally encourage everyone to take 15, 20 minutes and just get it out on the page first of all, clear your head, clear the deck, figure it out and end with something that's going well. If it's a whole bunch of negatives, if the kids all have COVID and your nanny can't work and your husband is missing in action 'cause he's busy off working on the other side, get it out. It it's your life. This is a chance to be emotionally healthy. And if you need to be negative, okay, go do that, but try to, at the end of it, try to swing yourself around to something what's going well, and what's one small thing I could do today? Like what'll make me really happy if I get the dishes done? If I clean up the kitchen? If that one file folder gets or email, whatever? Whatever it is. And don't be too hard on yourself. So the journal for me is it is a reflective place. It starts as a stream of consciousness, and as you gain experience and get past it, but I know so many people have, add ADA's voice of discipline and insult and judgment, and can't get past the grade school teacher who insulted them or whoever it is. So you have to put the inner critics aside, and honestly, that's how you get honest with yourself. If you can't tell yourself what you're thinking, how would you ever be able to tell your best friend or a therapist or a coach? You gotta get honest with yourself. And for me, the safest way for me to do that is my journal. And I don't know how I know what I'm thinking unless I write it down. I can't anymore, I'm too far gone. I can't imagine thinking without taking my pen on the hand. When I'm listening, when I'm in a situation where I really want to remember what's going down, I'll take my pen and my journal.
Yeah.
The gratitude journaling part really only came when I decided I wanted to write a book, after I had left my, lived my working career. I was working in, I called it the kindness. We were kindness, culture of kindness. And I really, really, really would love to be part of a culture of caring initiative, where we would be able to find organizations to co-create the conditions for cooperation, for connectivity, for appreciating each other, for accepting each other's, for arriving at this place of humility that I don't think we as North Americans have dialed. I think we've been a bit too competitive and self-individuation and judgmental and perfectionists and hard on ourselves, and then we end up being hard on the people we love as well. So in the culture of care, that's where I found, the research on gratitude just blew me away, that I only discovered it in, really from 2019, and it just totally aligned and resonated. And then I was gobbling it up that gratitude is, this is the change maker that we could use. You can read, people are stressed, okay. So is it diet? Is it your food? Is it your movement? Is it your physical? Is it that you're not breathing well? Is it that you're not sleeping well? On that list, gratitude is the one that can help impact each of those areas and reduce feelings of anxiety, reduce feelings of depression, reduce feelings of loneliness. I honestly, it's a magic bullet for me.
So how do you, it's, I'm, and this, the answer may be obvious in the sense that you might just tell me, I just write a few things I'm grateful for everyday, which is tends to be kind of the advice that is given over and over again, is like write down five things you're grateful for at the end of the day or beginning of the day or whatever the case may be. So I appreciate that might be your answer, but I'm gonna ask anyways, how do you incorporate gratitude into your practices, whether it's journaling or otherwise? And how has it changed things for you personally?
So I don't keep a daily gratitude journal.
Great.
I keep a daily journal. I just wanna note, I love that because that tends to be what people are told to do and I don't always think it's the most practical thing.
No, I think it would be great to do it, and I would certainly try, if any of the listeners do not have a gratitude practice at all, I would certainly recommend, try it for 14 days, try keeping a list, or try taking photographs, or try using some sort of creative tool that works for you. Is it your camera? Is it your pencil? Is it your pottery, your place? Something that's going to bring you some joy, 'cause you wanna find joy in your day. So I don't gratitude journal in that way everyday at all. And in fact, people that have find that it gets a bit trite. It gets a little bit re repetitive. It's a little bit boring. But I do have a journal. I have a variety of journals. I do have a journal, it's orange and it's spiral that I just wrote in this morning and I noticed the last time I wrote in it was March 7th. And on March 7th, and on March 7th, I was looking at my BHAGs. So my big, hairy, ambitious goals. And I was giving myself a score on each of those goals. So my BHAGs, they give me some joy, but they also hassle me. They don't move at the rate of, yeah. Sometimes they take a little bit longer.
Yes.
I have to constantly be rightsizing my BHAGs and my goals and objectives, and now it's book sales and opportunities to speak to people. So I have to rightsize the dream constantly. This morning, I decided I would write my TUT COMs. So my TUT COMs, that's trademarked but everybody's welcome to use it. TUT, turn up the, COM, corners of my mouth. So what's turning up the corners of my mouth? Well, I have two beautiful little granddaughters, and there's generally a little story or a little joke, or so I make it an anecdote. I really, and I think it's the story that you really have to work on. Just writing a list of, so I love my, I'm grateful for my husband, I'm grateful for my home, I'm grateful for my cats, I'm grateful for my family. Yeah, great, but give us the story behind that.
Mm-hmm.
Like what in your home? Go find that most amazing piece of artwork or a figurine or glass, or give yourself a sense of why it's important. It's, who gave it to you? Where? Why did it speak to you? So, and then the savoring and the appreciation, or sometimes it's just sitting in my first cup of coffee in the morning, I've actually gone off coffee, I'm I'm using decaf. It doesn't taste as great, but I think it actually is it's a better for me. I don't have the mid-afternoon flaws anymore. So I'm actually now appreciating my decaf coffee in the morning.
I think what you said about it can get trite if we're just making lists of gratitude, I think that's very true. And I think that's part of the reason that people stop. They might do it for a bit and then they stop, and then there's often guilt associated with it because people tell us that we should be pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, but I think that's a real thing that has definitely been my experience. And I love what you said about find other ways to find, if you were look at my camera, I take 700 photos of my cats every single day. That is my, that is a great form of gratitude because everyday I'm like, "Look how lucky I am to have these monsters in my home when I have stories of what they, it's a wonderful, easy way for people to think about gratitude differently and not get stuck in the, quote, unquote, structure that someone else had said, gratitude needs to look this way and be done in this way. And I love what you're saying around find your own way of being grateful. It doesn't there's lots of ways, like you said, pottery, photographs, other moments, tell the stories. Don't just say don't just say, I am grateful for my job, I am grateful for my car. Like that does get trite. I don't know how it wouldn't.
I know that some people swear, by, some leaders swear by writing their gratitudes at the end of the day, as a reflection saying what really went well so that it puts them, it helps them put the day away in a positive frame of mind. So you're trying to get into a positive frame of mind. You're not trying to write a letter to God necessarily.
Yeah.
It's for you, so it's for whatever works for you. And the other risk, and I don't know enough about gratitude in other cultures, but I do know that gratitude is a universal connection for every spiritual faith tradition in the world. And my gratitude is when I landed on the research that sees gratitude as a pro-social motivation, that's when I got aha, aha. This is what I'm talking about. I wasn't talking about faith-based gratitude, saying your prayers, if that's what you do, do that, that's fine, but there's another kind of gratitude, and I wasn't interested in the mystical magical liminal space of gratitude that is on the yoga mat and in a whole cultural community there, but I was interested in gratitude is a pro-social motivation. It's how we can rebuild social cohesion. I see gratitude as a chance to put teams back together. It's for Humpty Dumpty for sure, and it would be really cool for some multicultural inclusion diversity conversations to say, so how do you do gratitude in your culture, and how do you, what could I learn from you?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think we often get stuck in the, especially in North America, the religious view of gratitude and what that looks like. And I think you calling out that there are different lenses on it and it's important to be aware of them and that you're thinking of it differently, that they're all valid, but you're thinking of it differently. Your approach is different. It's very inclusive that way, and I appreciate you calling that out. So I'm gonna ask a very specific question before we kind of wrap this up. And I'm curious where the title for your book, "An Ecology of Gratitude" came from, 'cause I think that's, it's such a specific title and I'm, it's big and inclusive and interesting, and I'm just curious where that came from and what that means to you.
Well, thanks. I was a bit curious on what the title would be as well. "An Ecology of Gratitude."
Like all good authors, you're not, 100%, I get it.
Ecology, I studied biology. So I've gotta be a B/Sc from Queens University a long time ago, and I studied freshwater ecosystems. And in my book, I do talk about my experience as a freshwater ecosystem limnology student, and I traveled to Finland, and water is hugely important to all of us, clean drinking water is a Canadian birthright, which unfortunately not everybody has access to.
Mm-hmm.
Ecology for me is a transfer of, it's about relationships, and it's transfer of energy. And you could consider, and we're all in our own ecosystem of relationships. And in fact, there are papers that talk about emodiversity. So our ecosystem of our emotions, the ecosystem of our family systems. So gratitude is all about relationships. Ultimately, gratitude is, it's a really complex social emotion. It's a character strength, but in the process of understanding gratitude, something good happens and you appreciate it, and you think, gosh, that was great. But when you take your thoughts one step further and you think, I wonder what had to happen in order for this kitty cat to come into my life. Just think of all the factors, all the people, all the influences, and I wouldn't be able to have this cat if I wasn't in a safe and secure home. I wouldn't be able to have this cat if I wasn't able to care for it, or if I hadn't had an affinity with cats because I loved the one that was so important to me in my childhood. Whatever your personal story is. So gratitude just connects all the dots to you internally and then to you externally, and it is highly relational. And in terms of people learning to take their gratitude more seriously, and to get to a greater space of appreciation and understanding, it takes time and it's like a muscle. You have to train it, you have to find it, you have to look for it. It doesn't come easily everyday, and in fact, on the days when things are going sideways, when your computer melts down and the headphones don't work, there's gotta be something going right here somewhere. So just, okay, the power's on. Okay, we got power, that's good, okay? Audio's coming in. Like you just, you have to break it down and discipline yourself to look for at least something that's going well. And in the current situation, this horror and Ukraine and Russia and the stories that are just absolutely overwhelming and heartrending, 'cause the stories of compassion and kindness and people opening their doors and people trying to make a difference, that I think that it's our humanity. So to me, it's actually, it's our human strength that we just really need to get in touch with and it, and it doesn't come easily, so you have to convince yourself, you have to find the motivation for yourself to figure out how to get there. Okay, so how am I gonna do this? And I think, in my book, my hope is that with my approach of anecdotes and 30 days of stories and, and step by step, whether you do it 30 days in a row or 30 days over 90 days or 30 days over a year doesn't matter to me. It's up to you. It's me encouraging you to find the gifts in your life.
Yeah. I love that. Is there anything, before we wrap this up, is there anything that you want, that we didn't get to, that you wanna add to the conversation or that you wanna emphasize from what we spoke about? I think there was, we've covered a lot of ground and I appreciate your transparency and openness to kind of going with the conversation where it goes.
Yeah, well, gratitude does make you vulnerable and it takes courage, but leading with gratitude, I think, is a way for all future leaders to get more thoughtful and to try to get more gratitude into the workplace. And interestingly enough, I've had three men recently, and one runs a construction company, one runs a transmission company, one is a hairdresser, and those men were, and another who's a hotel administrator. They see the power of gratitude. And in this workplace retainment space where people are fatigued and dislocated, I think gratitude has a chance to rebuild some of our social cohesion and that will directly impact our resiliency. So any leader that wants to talk, co-create, think, if you want a thinking buddy, thinking partner, this is my space, and I am really curious how to get all of the science and all of, we hear people saying it needs to be done. How do we rebuild our post-COVID social fabric in a culture of care driven by gratitude? That's my call to action.
I appreciate that. And I think it's a really important call to action. Where can folks find you online, or what's the best place to find you, get a hold of you? All of that?
So, I have a website, grassrootsgratitude.ca. The CA is very important. So grassrootsgratitude.ca, that's my author's webpage. It's where you can buy books. You can also buy them on Amazon. You can, if you're in the Bow Valley, if you're in the Banff, Canmore Area, there are local and Calgary local bookstores, some indie bookstores. I published it myself, which is an interesting story in and of itself, but so it is available through another outlet called IngramSparks, and it's also Kobo and Kindle Readers, but sending me an email, and I'd be happy to talk to anybody. I'll offer educational discounts. If a team wants to get 20 copies and do it as an exercise or as a team-building, that would be thrilling for me, and I'd for sure try to get you 20, 30 copies, whatever, to put one on everybody's desk. Yeah. So I'm also on Instagram, Lorraine_Widmer_Carson, and I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn, but, yeah, yeah.
No, I was gonna say, we will actually post all the links as well in the show notes, so people don't have to necessarily remember them all off the top of their head, 'cause I recognize that can be challenging, but sometimes if people are typing, it's just easy to have them out there.
The two hashtags I use a lot are grassroots gratitude and kindness matters. So if you're in either of those Instagram hashtag groups, maybe you'll see me pop up there and I'd love a follow, I'd love a wave, poke.
Perfect. And everyone go follow Lorraine 'cause she's amazing, and this whole focus on gratitude, I think is fantastic. So thank you for taking the time to chat with me today, Lorraine. It was lovely, and I hope, I appreciate you very much and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and your week.
Thanks, Celine. It was been a pleasure. And to all your listeners, thanks for tuning in, and yeah, follow this lady, Leading Through Crisis.
Thank you. Thanks for joining me today on the "Leading Through Crisis Podcast." If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your Podcast App. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.