Mojo Monday: Embracing Gratitude and Pain Simultaneously: A Lesson in Mental Fitness

In this week's Mojo Monday, Carly Taylor shares a personal story about her daughter’s frustrating injury, exploring the importance of balancing painful emotions with gratitude. Carly emphasises the vital role of developing mental fitness in helping us respond to life's challenges rather than react. She discusses how acknowledging both pain and gratitude can provide emotional balance. Carly encourages us to practice mental flexibility by allowing all emotions to be present and finding space for gratitude without dismissing the hardships.

00:00 Introduction and Inspiration
00:54 The Taylor Challenge: A Personal Story
02:33 A Lesson in Gratitude
03:42 Balancing Emotions: Frustration and Gratitude
04:13 Mental Fitness and Flexibility
05:14 Practical Tips for Navigating Challenges
05:54 Conclusion and Weekly Sign-Off

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi, everyone, It's Cally Taylor here for this week's Mojo Monday.
So we had a bit of a life blip this
week and it is the inspiration for today's episode because
I kind of thought, well, this sort of thing can
happen to anybody at any time, so it could be
a helpful topic. So if you've been listening to this
podcast for a while, you'll know that there's a message

(00:32):
that I really come back to quite often, and that
is when life throws challenges our way, and it will
if we've done the work on our mental fitness, we'll
have the tools to respond rather than react, and how
we respond will hugely impact the path we take, both
emotionally and physically. So here's the Taylor challenge for this week.

(00:59):
My daughter, who is nineteen. She plays in the women's
first soccer team for our local soccer club. She's in
State League three and she's not shy of a tackle.
In fact, it's been noted that she has what's called
white line fever. So the moment she steps over that
white line, she's got this fierce competitiveness and it kicks

(01:20):
in and last Sunday, while going in hard for the ball,
her legs went one way, her body went the other,
and she hit the ground in complete agony. She had
to be stretchered off the field. And three days later
and MRI confirmed what we suspected, and that is that
she's got a ruptured ACL. So we were in the

(01:42):
car today and she was telling me how frustrated she
feels and her team. They're in the middle of their season.
She loves the game, she loves hanging out with the girls,
she loves going out dancing, and she's been training hard
at Crossfitch. She's seeing stronger every way. So everything was
going well in her life. And we've also got this

(02:04):
very active holiday booked diving and hiking in Malaysia, so
you can understand the frustration that she's feeling. So yeah,
she was feeling pretty down. But then she said something
that made me really proud. And it was a bit
of a tick, a bit of a parenting tick because
Paul and I have been really trying to teach our

(02:26):
kids to have good character, and I think this statement
was a big tick for that. So what she said is,
I'm going to be so grateful when I can just
walk properly again. And she said, I'm grateful that I
actually have legs to do that, and I thought that
was really cool because on one hand, she was telling

(02:48):
me about how frustrated and down she was, and then
on the other hand, she was telling me that she
was actually grateful for what she did have, and that
really got me thinking. We often hear that we should
be grateful for all the good things that we have,
and gratitude, of course, it absolutely plays a powerful role

(03:10):
in our well being, and the science tells us that,
but there's this subtle pressure, I think, and I think
this can come with the language that we use, because
that pressure can really creep in. It's almost like we
can feel guilty if we're feeling sad or frustration or angry.
We feel like maybe we shouldn't be feeling those feelings

(03:31):
because we should be grateful. But here's what I said
to my daughter, and this is why I wanted to
do this podcast today, so I wanted to say this
to you today as well. It's okay to feel frustrated
or whatever painful emotion that you're feeling and grateful at
the same time. They're not mutually exclusive. One doesn't have

(03:54):
to cancel out the other. And I think this is
a really powerful message for not only us, but also
for our kids, because we will always have these automatic
emotional responses when hard things happen, especially when that thing
matters to us. Painful emotions are just part of being human,

(04:16):
so it's natural that these automatic emotions show up. But
this is where mental fitness comes in. When we build
that muscle, that mental fitness muscle, we get better at
responding to those emotions. We don't ignore them, we don't
try and shove them away, but we don't get swallowed

(04:37):
up by them either. So we can hold frustration and
gratitude simultaneously. Because if we only focus on the pain,
then that's where all our attention goes, and so that
is what the feeling of the pain, or that painful
feeling is going to exacerbate. But if we can pause

(04:57):
and acknowledge the pain and also bring in what is
still good and what is still true in our lives,
so what we're still grateful for, then that can help
us find that balance and it kind of takes the
sting out of the painful stuff. So this week, if
you are navigating something hard, try this. Allow your emotions

(05:21):
to be there, all of them, So don't try and
fight with them, just allow them to be there, and
then gently ask yourself, what else is true? Right now?
Can I make a little space for gratitude for the
good stuff, not to erase the hard stuff, not to
ignore it, but to sit beside it. So that is

(05:44):
mental flexibility, and that is mental fitness, and it's a
big part of what keeps us steady when life throws
a curveball. So I hope if you are going through
a challenge, or even if you're not going through a challenge,
I hope that will help you when when life's challenges
do hit. And have a have a great week, and

(06:08):
I'll catch you next week. See yea