What does finding grace look like when you’ve checked every box, built the life and business you were supposed to want, and still feel like something’s missing? In this intimate solo episode, I talk frankly about the quiet ache of achievement without fulfillment. Through personal stories and scientific research, you’ll be reminded why gratitude is not just about saying, “thank you.” It’s about building a life practice that brings more abundance, joy, and resilience.
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Show Notes | TranscriptGratitude isn’t just a feeling, it’s a necessary ingredient to living boldly, especially for women over 50. This episode highlights the mental and physical benefits of gratitude, and offers practical tips for fostering more gratitude in your life. You’ll also learn about upcoming changes to the podcast, plans for a transformative retreat in June, 2026, and an invitation to attend my Awakening Your Inner Light online workshop.
You’ll discover:
- Why complaining becomes a habit (and how gratitude breaks the cycle)
- A simple nightly practice that strengthens your connection to something greater
- How to write gratitude letters that heal—even to those no longer here
If you’re ready to stop performing and start feeling again, this episode is your permission slip. So, grab a cup of tea and let’s get into why gratitude truly is the “spice of life!”
Resources:
Attend the “Awakening Your Inner Light” workshop on Nov. 20, 2025: bit.ly/innerlight2025
Learn about the upcoming Good Grief Retreat: gloriarand.com/good-grief-retreat
Join the Soulful Women’s Network: https://www.facebook.com/groups/soulfulwomensnetwork
Receive daily inspirational email messages: bit.ly/LoveLightNotes
Need support? Go to engagewithgloria.com to schedule a call.
Connect with Live Love Engage:
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TRANSCRIPT – Finding Grace When You’ve Done Everything Right (But Feel Empty)
Welcome: The Power of Gratitude Practice for Women Over 50
Namaste. What are you grateful for today? Have you thought about being grateful for anything today? I hope you have. I’m grateful that you are here listening and or watching on YouTube. And that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. We are talking about the power of gratitude, finding grace in gratitude, just appreciating gratitude for gratitude’s sake, all of that. And what that has to do with living life with purpose and living life fully and loving deeply and engaging authentically and all the wonderful things that we’ve been talking about on this podcast for, can you believe, the last six years? Yeah, it’s hard to believe that it’s been that long. I can’t believe it. But anyway, yeah, we’re gonna get into all that in just a second. But for those of you who seem to have just stumbled onto this podcast today, I wanna welcome you and introduce myself. I am Gloria Grace. I am a confidence catalyst who empowers women over 50 through my love method and energy healing. to boldly live life on their terms.
Finding Purpose Through Daily Gratitude
And this is such a big topic for me, living life boldly and doing it with gratitude. Sorry, my eye just moved to, I have a vision board up on my wall, and in the middle of the vision board it says, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? I know life can be, challenging sometimes we all have our ups and downs when we’re trying to grow our business when we’re trying to just live life and especially this time of year as I’m recording this it is the middle of November and it’s actually my daughter’s birthday today as well. Happy birthday Allison and It’s, this is the time of year where things just start getting really hectic, you know, with holidays and end of the year planning. And we’ve talked about that on this podcast a little bit. And I know we’ve talked about gratitude as well, but since Thanksgiving is coming up in a couple of weeks, I figured let’s talk about it again because gratitude is the spice of life is what is coming to me.
Why Gratitude Matters for Living Authentically
Well, yeah, I guess you could say that. I think. If you’re not grateful for being alive, if you’re not grateful for whatever you have, even being grateful for things you don’t have. Without that expression of gratitude in your life, Life can be pretty lonely and unpleasant even, and expressing gratitude It just gives us more to be grateful for. I mean, plain and simple. And like I said, I know I’ve, I probably talked about this when I was doing, earlier this year, I was doing these Wisdom Wednesday videos on LinkedIn. And I know that I definitely talked about gratitude on there. So if I haven’t talked about it on the podcast, you might want to. check me out on LinkedIn and see if you can find those old recordings somewhere. I’m sure if you search my name and then you search gratitude, maybe search Wisdom Wednesday as well, I’m sure it’ll come up.
How Gratitude Improves Mental Health and Well-Being
So why is gratitude so important? Because I’ll tell you, for me, for one thing, it makes me feel good. I bet it makes you feel good too. When you start thinking about things that you are so happy that you have, or the people in your life that bring you joy, or the clients that you have, or maybe just being grateful that you get to get up in the morning and you know, kiss your spouse, or you get to play with your cats. I have cats, or your dog. But just to be so appreciative of whatever it is that you have. It can wipe away any bad mood that you have, because let’s face it, things happen in our lives that knock us off balance or certainly you know you pick up the phone and look go scroll through social media or go to your news website and you’re bound to look at something that could make your blood pressure rise. Well that’s no way to be folks.
Living Fully and Loving Deeply: The Connection to Gratitude
I, we’ve been talking about here, we’ve been talking about for the last six years on this podcast about how to live fully, love deeply and engage authentically. And gratitude plays a role in all of that. If when you’re not grateful, for what you have. When you go around feeling miserable and complaining, and I know people like this. In fact, I was raised by someone like that, God rest her soul. My mom, she was a lovely lady in so many ways. She taught me, I mean, she taught me how to read when I was three years old for crying out loud. And she fostered in me a love of reading at an early age, because we used to go to the library, take out books all the time. She also fostered in me a good sense of justice and being able to, you know, to know right from wrong. And the importance of taking care of people who don’t have as much as we have.
Learning Gratitude and Compassion Early in Life
I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before, but I remember one Halloween and maybe I was, I don’t know, seven or eight years old possibly. Maybe even a little bit older probably because You know i’d already spent several halloween’s going out and collecting candy you know saying trick-or-treat as we do here in the united states and you get candy well one year i remember that. I didn’t go trick-or-treating for candy. Instead, I went trick-or-treating for UNICEF, the organization that helps children all over the world, helping them to be able to have enough food and, I think, medical treatment and things like that. I don’t know exactly what their mission is, but I know that that’s what I did. I remember carrying some little probably a cardboard container or something and going to my neighbor’s houses and saying trick or treat for UNICEF. And I don’t remember feeling like that was a burden. I was happy to do it. And I think that’s, again, that’s what I’m grateful for is that my mom taught me that it’s important to think about others who are less fortunate than you are. I could always have, we have plenty to eat, and she could always get me candy some other time, so I could do this that time instead.
Breaking the Cycle of Complaining vs. Practicing Gratitude
And I know I was starting to say that she did also like to complain. And I remember we would go out to eat at a restaurant and she would complain about her meal. And, and that happened frequently. And I think that because that just sort of became a habit that that’s, she always seemed to have something to complain about. So, all right. So, so yeah. So when you’re complaining, like I said, I love my mom, but this was a bad habit that she had of, instead of being grateful that we had money to be able to go out to eat to a restaurant, that she had a job that supported us, she would complain instead.
How Focus and Visualization Shape Your Reality
And I do believe that being grateful for the things that we have in our lives just brings more to us. Because the converse is true. You know, what you focus on expands. And if you want to focus on having things to be grateful for, then be grateful for what you have now. And even express gratitude for things that you don’t have. Because you can get into visualizing and I’ve got, oh, okay. I’ve got cats in the background that were, one had been sitting on a chair for a very long time and the other cat decided, it’s my turn. So I’m grateful that I have cats that amuse me, even while I’m trying to record a podcast like this, but it’s okay. okay where am i going with this all right let’s focus focus sorry i’m letting the cats distract me i don’t know or maybe not you know um oh i know what i wanted to talk to you about about gratitude so This is gonna be a shorter podcast than normal.
Life Transitions and Reinvention: What’s Coming in 2026
I will tell you that right now because I am grateful that I’ve had the past six years to do this podcast. And I want to let you know that we’re going to be changing things up a little bit in 2026. So I’m, the podcast is going to get a new name and we’re just, just tweaking it a little bit, but I just wanted to just kind of plant that seed because it’s a new year and it’s, and I, as I said, I’ve been doing this for six years, which is a long time. And I actually, this podcast I started actually 10 years ago. And the original name of the podcast was Write, Sell, Succeed. And write is spelled W-R-I-T-E because I was doing copywriting at the time as my primary business and the intention of the podcast at that time was to use it to promote my online marketing services. And so I did that for probably about nine months or so. And then life got in the way as it does. And so that was when my sister was going through her cancer journey. And I decided to put the podcast on hold. And I didn’t pick it up again. So that was in 2016.
Building Community Through Authentic Connection Over Six Years
I took a break, picked it back up again in December of 2019. And I’ve been here every week since and it’s been a joy and I’m so grateful that I’ve had this opportunity to speak to some amazing people. And in fact, in December, I’m going to treat you to a couple of Encore episodes, something I haven’t done in all of these six years of doing this podcast. I haven’t done Encore episodes, but I’m going to do that. I’m going to share with you again two of the most popular ones from this year. and I don’t remember the guests at the moment, but I will share those with you in December as I start getting ready to ramp up to do the new podcast, because we’re going to have, it’s going to have a new open and new introduction and some new graphics. So it’s going to look a little bit different but I’ll still be me and I’m still essentially going to be talking about the same things but I am going to I was going to ask some different questions of the guests that we have on in fact for one thing I was working on that today actually I was it was like coming up with some new questions to ask because I want to I want to be fresh. I want to create something new.
Gratitude Affirmations: Visualizing Success Before It Happens
And I think that’s part of gratitude as well, is being able to be grateful for what you have planned. And again, that’s what I was starting to talk to you about a little bit ago, too, about visualization and being grateful and sort of imagining what you want to have happen and you can be grateful and just even use affirmations and say I’m so grateful that this has happened as if it already has happened even if it hasn’t. boy, I bet I confused you right now. Let me, let me give an example. Because I, I, I’ve done this and I do this.
Creating Vision and Goals: Planning a Grief Retreat for Women
So you could say, let’s say, so today is, you know, we’re in November. So you could say, let’s say you want to achieve a goal by June of next year. And actually, you know what, I do have a goal. in fact I’m going to even going to mention that here now too, is that I am going to be co-facilitating a retreat, a grief retreat in June of 2026. So what I could do as an affirmation that also includes this bit of gratitude is that I could say I am so happy and grateful that it is June 25th and we have a sold-out retreat. I am so grateful that we’ve got 15 amazing women that have come with us to Black Mountain, North Carolina to take part in our Good Grief Retreat. I am so grateful because I will tell you that this really does work. That type of visualizing, using an affirmation, and then being grateful, even though it hasn’t happened yet, but just imagining that it already has and being grateful for it.
Manifesting Your Dreams Through Gratitude Practice
Because the last time I actually, I did a solo retreat, I did my Unplugged to Recharge retreat a couple of years ago. I did this is every morning I would spend some time visualizing the end of the retreat actually and how I felt leaving. That’s what I’m probably going to do for the Good Grief Retreat too. I think I’m going to do that. Because I would just, I would picture myself driving in my car, driving back home from the retreat and just feeling so wonderful that everyone got so much value out of the retreat. And I was so, and I just filled myself with such gratitude. And when the retreat happened and I was driving home that day, it dawned on me that, oh my gosh, This was exactly what I visualized as I visualized myself driving down the freeway, just feeling so happy that the retreat was a success. So I’m gonna do that again and I’m going to encourage, I have co-facilitators, I’m not doing this retreat alone, I’ve got three other wonderful women who are gonna be also working with me on that retreat and I’m gonna encourage them to do that too.
Building Partnerships and Collaboration in Women’s Networking
To visualize it so that we have 15 amazing People, probably women, but men, I don’t think we’re gonna turn away men either, but probably women. Anyway, to come to this retreat. So I will be talking more about this at another time and I’ll give you links and all that good information when we start officially marketing, but you heard it here first. So it’s coming, so mark your calendar now. It’s June 25th to the 29th. It’s a Thursday through a Monday. And we’re going to be at the Lodge at the Light Center in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It’s a beautiful place. In fact, I saw before I started recording the podcast today that Patricia, one of the other leaders of the retreat, sent me some pictures. She sent me a picture of the Lodge. So she’s actually in Asheville right now with her daughter. So they decided to go and take a look at the place so in person so that we could see it Because she like me lives in Florida So, okay, let me see anything else I want to say about the importance of gratitude yeah, so it’s you know, it’s it’s been proven to really improve your Mental health your physical health being grateful and
The Science Behind Gratitude: Better Health and Rewiring Your Brain
And I just remembered, yeah, I had a whole bunch of notes about this because I have a wonderful organization networking group called the Soulful Women’s Network. And we were gonna be meeting this week, but we had to wind up canceling it. But I had a whole bunch of notes. I just remembered that, because we were gonna talk about gratitude. So I’m gonna see if I can find any of my notes about it. Ah, yes, so I did want to, here, you know what, I’m gonna go ahead and share it with you today because, yeah. Like I said, it is good for your health.
Research-Backed Benefits: Gratitude Letters and Mental Health
There’s been studies that have shown that people who wrote gratitude letters regularly displayed significantly better mental health than those who didn’t. And in fact, brain scans suggest that gratitude might even have the power to rewire our brains for the better. Well, that makes perfect sense to me. And so you get better sleep and immunity, maybe even possibly reduce pain. I would think so too, because if you’re feeling grateful, I think that it just really does. I think it raises those endorphins in your body, you know, those good hormones. Um, it’s also good for building stronger social bonds and building resilience and there’s a couple different ways that you can build gratitude.
Simple Gratitude Practices You Can Start Tonight
I mean, for one thing, just treat yourself with kindness and do some sort of gratitude practice. I mean, I will do, before I go to bed at night, I write, I have a journal that I write in and I will go write in that journal several things, like at least three things that I was grateful about that happened during the day. And it could be something as simple as, I found a penny on the street today. I am so grateful that I found a penny today. Because hey, you know, even though I guess the United States is going to be phasing out the pennies, there’s still legal tender, and I’m going to celebrate finding one. Because it’s one cent more today than I had yesterday. That’s abundance. That’s prosperity. And who doesn’t want more of that?
Connecting to Your Higher Power Through Daily Gratitude
I also, one of the things that as we just allow ourselves to feel gratitude, there’s a quote here from unity minister, Eric Butterworth, who said that, the flow of intelligence and love and peace and power come through us and manifest as us effectively. And he said, the practice of gratitude gets us into a full of greatness consciousness. That’s a pretty good reason to be grateful. And I think that’s what it is. I think being grateful really does connect us with our higher power. It just strengthens that connection. And yeah, it’s a wonderful, it’s really a really wonderful thing.
Expressing Appreciation: Writing Gratitude Letters That Heal
So I encourage you, to find ways that you can be grateful. Do I want to say it that way? That’s not quite what I want to say. How do I want to say it? Find things that you can be grateful for every day and appreciate them and maybe make a list of people that you’re grateful for. Maybe even write them a letter And you can also write a letter to people who aren’t around anymore. Maybe someone who is no longer in your life, either maybe you’re just not friends with them anymore or something happened, or maybe they’re physically not in this world anymore. Their body, you know, they have passed on.
Forgiveness Practice and Healing Through Written Gratitude
But you could still write them a letter and just say how grateful you are that they were in your life. Because I’ve been taught, and I’ve done this, that sometimes it’s a good idea to write letters to people who treated you badly, or who pissed you off. And that’s a good way to be able to get all those emotions out, and you can then just release that anger. And it’s a good part of a forgiveness practice. You don’t necessarily mail this letter to them, but it’s just really for you. But I think it would also be a good practice to write a letter to someone about what a positive difference they made in your life and all the wonderful things that they’ve done for you. And then you could, again, if they’re here in the flesh, you might wanna even just mail it to them.
Paying Gratitude Forward: Creating Ripple Effects of Appreciation
In fact, just out of the blue, send it to them. That would brighten their day, I tell you. I know, I’ve received letters in the past sometimes from people who thanked me for something, and it just makes you feel so good. And you know what’s also good about that? Is when you do that, you know, you’re feeling good, you’re feeling grateful. And so about this person and what they did. And so you send them that message and now they’re gonna feel grateful for receiving this and knowing that they feel appreciated. And then they’re probably gonna wanna then pass that on to someone else. It’s not a great, talk about pass it, paying it forward. Paying gratitude forward. be a wonderful thing to do.
Honoring Spiritual Connection: Writing to Those Who’ve Passed
And as I said, you can also write this letter to someone who’s not here anymore, because I believe even though there may not be physically here, their spirit still lives on. And I’m sure they would appreciate hearing from you anyway, even if they’re not here to actually physically read that letter, they’re gonna feel your vibe. And I think it’s gonna really pay off for you, again, making you feel good. And who knows what good will come of that. So I encourage you to do that today.
Letting Go: Releasing What No Longer Serves You
And also release stuff that doesn’t serve you anymore. I’m actually gonna spend some time doing that. I had a thought this morning that I’ve been holding on to some old letters and things that I don’t think my kids really care about. And it’s old stuff that I don’t really need to hold on to anymore either. Just that’s a thought too.
Join the Awakening Your Inner Light Workshop
So I also wanted to, before we close out the podcast today, is I wanted to do, we’re gonna do two things. The first thing is I wanna share with you about an upcoming online workshop that I have. It’s just a 90-minute workshop, and it’s called Awakening Your Inner Light. And during this workshop, I am going to be essentially teaching you the love method, what I call my love method, which stands for let go and let God open your heart to receive, value your uniqueness and embrace your divinity.
Experiential Learning: The L.O.V.E. Method for Personal Growth
And so we’re going to do, we’re going to do some experiential exercises to really bring home how these concepts can really help you to, again, live fully and love deeply and engage authentically, but most of all, to love yourself, to really be comfortable with who you are. And so I encourage you, it’s gonna be on Thursday, November 20th, 2025. That’s at 1 p.m. Eastern time. So you can go to bit.ly forward slash inner light, L-I-G-H-T 2025, and you can register. I’ll have it in the show notes as well. But I would love to see you there. Because, yeah, I did this workshop in person a few weeks ago. And it was just really wonderful. And everyone participated. And we did some exercises. We paired up. We journaled. And it was just really, really, really powerful. And I figured I want to do it online as well.
Creating Transformational Experiences for Women Over 50
So that’s my plan. So again go to bit.ly forward slash interlite 2025 and you can get all the information there. We’re doing it on Zoom and you can you can sign up and register for that. And I encourage you to do that and show up because I’m not going to record it because it’s not really something that you can go back to and do. I might record just the teaching part of it, but not the exercises. Hmm, yeah, actually, now that I think about it, maybe that’s what I’ll do. I’ll record the teaching part, but not the exercises, because they’ll be in breakout rooms, so.
Subscribe and Stay Connected Through the Transition
Okay, one last thing before we go today. Oh, and I also wanna encourage you to subscribe to Live, Love, Engage, even though I know the name is gonna be changing, but still, I encourage you to subscribe, because that way you will be notified when the change comes through. And then you can still decide then, okay, well, maybe it’s not for me or maybe it is. We’ll see.
Light Language Message: Speaking to the Soul
But anyway, um, as I like to do when I do these solo episodes is I’d love to be able to share a light language message with you. And light message is, it’s an inter interdimensional, uh, form of communication. I, never quite know what it’s going to sound like when it comes through. Sometimes I speak, sometimes I sing, but it’s a language that speaks to the heart. Your heart can feel it and your soul can resonate with it even though you may not be able to translate it necessarily. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, but I encourage you to have an open mind and an open heart, and allow what comes through to be for your soul’s highest good and, and, and fill you with gratitude.
Creating Space for Spiritual Connection and Energy Healing
So if you are listening to this podcast right now, while you are driving, I would encourage you to pause this and come back and listen to it sometime when you can be in a quiet room. And you can just be still close your eyes and listen to it. So So that’s what I’m going to do is I’m setting the intention that the message that I share will be for your soul’s highest good and the highest good of all concern.
[Light Language Message]
Okay I hope you received that with the love that it was intended and I’m so grateful that I have been blessed with the ability to do this and that I get to share it with you and I intend in 2026 to figure out a way to be able to have these messages go out on a platforms too because it’s it’s good stuff and I want more people to hear it so I have to I have to work on that.
Closing with Gratitude: An Invitation to Share and Connect
One thing at a time you know I’m grateful again I’m grateful for you I’m grateful I have this opportunity to be with you each week and I yeah I’m just I’m just so grateful for everyone who listens to this podcast and I’m yeah, I’m just grateful. There we go. I’m just grateful. And I encourage you to go out and be grateful as well.
Support the Show: Leave a Review and Share Your Thoughts
And one way that you could be grateful, that you can express your gratitude, I should say for the podcast is to actually leave a review on Apple. That would be really amazing. And if you happen to watch this on YouTube, leave me a comment on the YouTube channel as well on this particular video. So that would be wonderful, and I would be very grateful for that. So until next time, I encourage you to go out and live fully, love deeply, and engage authentically.
