Gratitude and Connection

Amjed: 0:01

I can see clearly now the rain is gone, no more obstacles in my way. I can't sing, but that's like the second episode recently that I'm singing at the beginning of. In today's episode I talk about gratitude again, like I did in the Thanksgiving episode and I believe I didn't do it intentionally, but I believe it's a different take on the subject and then I also talked about the importance of human connection and how connecting with other people for me really introduces a lot of air and light into my life. Hi, this is Amjad, a simple, beautifully broken man living in a complex world. Join me as I navigate the dark and bright spots of life, sharing vulnerably and reflecting deeply along the way. May you find some benefit here. That is through me, not from me. I must warn you to enter at your own risk, for in this room my humanity is showing.

Amjed: 1:06

Welcome, my fellow humans, to episode 54 of my Humanity Showing, and I'm struggling with how to open this topic. I have an idea of something possibly to share that's been helpful for me, just not sure how to open it up. So I may sound kind of garbled here in the beginning, but the one thing I was trying to avoid, and so I've recorded a couple of shots at this opening and deleted them after the first few seconds because I'm like I don't, that doesn't make any sense. But what I've been trying to avoid is what I've been doing, which is go into this little philosophical piece at the beginning, or what almost sounds to me like a little bit of a self-centered piece, where I'm talking about the podcast itself and saying, oh, let me tell you how the podcast is going and then get into the topic. So, in an effort to avoid that, I've been struggling with how do I open up this topic? And then I started to share and realized that I might have been giving too much detail about one individual in the topic. So I was like, oh, I can't do that because that could be easily identifiable. And then, yeah, so I know, I said I wasn't going to talk about the podcast, but just talk about podcasts in general or the podcast.

Amjed: 2:37

And what I have found is that this is a very difficult medium to work in because there's almost no feedback loop, and I don't know if that's a product of the fact that I haven't really, you know, I don't have a large listening base and maybe that's what that is reflecting, but it's just there's just so little feedback, so I don't know what's working, what's not working, what's helpful. What's not helpful, you know, is it reaching the audience that it could help, like that my story could help or that my shares could help. But anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest and you know my goal has been to not turn these into lectures, which is why I've been so against using the AI language for the description, because it sounds like a class that I'm giving on some topic. It's like oh, come on, I'm going to tell you how to fix all your problems when the AI writes the little description. But I was curious, so I left that on last week and I'm planning to do that again this week. And just see, you know, like does that help get it out there to the audience? Like do people need to read that thing that says, oh you know, I'm going to solve all your problems? And then they log on and go this guy's not solving any problems, he's just talking about himself.

Amjed: 4:09

But you know, the name of the podcast is my Humanity Showing, Not your Humanity Showing, so that you know that definitely has been. That's on my mind a lot I try to share from the first person and this is what's worked for me. This is what my journey has been. It may or may not work for other people, but I'm just sharing my experience with it and what's happened for me and how I went from being a person who was struggling with severe depression including and up to suicide attempts, and dealing with all kinds of other mental health and emotional issues, to feeling like completely overwhelmed with gratitude, and I it's. I let me get my words here.

Amjed: 5:14

It hit me really strong a couple of days ago. We had just a really busy day and got off of work a little early and ran to go do some errands and because my family was coming into town for the holidays and I, my wife and I were, you know we stopped and got something to eat and we, you know, did all the stuff and I don't know. It was just a really nice day overall, had a good day at work and a good day after work and just really enjoyed spending time with my wife. And we stopped at a place of worship and you know I prayed and then, as I'm sitting there in this place of worship and I'm thinking I have a really good life, I mean I have just really, especially when you compare it to where I was 20 years ago and beyond, or 10 years ago and beyond. It's just really amazing to me that that I can be given this new lease on life and I, as we left from there, we were getting in onto the highway and it's, you know, it's Christmas time in the US and other countries that celebrated and the traffic was just insane.

Amjed: 6:38

So I'm about to get onto the highway and I can all I can see is a sea of red, like all these red lights on one side of the highway and white lights on the other side of the headlights on the other side of the highway and it's all these brake lights from all the cars. And it was kind of early evening time, right after sunset, and I looked off in the distance and I could see just all the buildings and all this stuff and and I honestly no exaggeration had this thought of what a beautiful view from here, like this is so pretty. And Then I thought, boy, this gratitude things getting out of control. Like I'm grateful for traffic now, like that's what's happening, like sincerely grateful for traffic, but I guess it's a good problem to have. Yeah, you know, it's just looking at the traffic and thinking to myself what it? You know, how beautiful is that like? It just seems so beautiful. And If I can find gratitude in traffic, then something has significantly changed inside of me in a way that I never imagined.

Amjed: 7:48

And you know, on this topic of gratitude which, interestingly, wasn't the topic that I had in mind for today, but I guess I'll just continue to pull on that thread, on the topic of gratitude, it's, what is it? There's a friend of mine who says something like the and I'd rather have an attitude of gratitude than something else. I forgot what the other something else is but an attitude of gratitude. And then I have another friend of mine who says that gratitude is the. It's the best remedy for self pity. It's that best pity, like the best medicine for depression, is gratitude. I just stopping and saying, okay, what, what am I grateful for? What am I grateful for? And if I think about, you know you can think about gratitude from a couple different ways, like one, I can think of it in terms of gratitude. You know, this attitude of gratitude right that gratitude is a is an attitude. It's so the way that I view the world, and I'll pull an old definition that I'm sure I've shared before, that I heard someone say that it what is attitude? And they said it's and the angle of approach. It's how I, how I approach things. That's my attitude. What? How am I approaching it? How am I coming to a particular thing?

Amjed: 9:11

And I, as soon as he said that the way I imagined it was like a plane landing, like the attitude of the plane, you know which is, and I don't know if this is like a technical thing, but you know, if the, if the nose of the plane, the front of the plane, is too high, then the tail will hit the, hit the ground first and it'll rip the tail off. If the nose is too low and the tail is pointing I mean the the front of the plane is pointing too low down and it just crashes into the ground. So it has to be just right, like the, the, the angle of how the plane comes on to the ground and the speed at which it comes, the way that it lands on that runway is, you know, the tarmac is the exact like. It has to be almost just right. And I was watching a video of a plane that was trying to land in really windy conditions and was. It took like three tries for them to finally be able to land the plane, and you know that for me is, you know, it just shows that like that angle has to be just right. So the angle of approach, the angle of approach.

Amjed: 10:20

So if I think of gratitude, that is an angle of approach how am I approaching things in my life? So, how am I thinking about my work? Am I approaching it from a perspective of Let me tell you all the things that are wrong with my job. Let me tell you all the things that are wrong with my boss. Let me tell you all the things that are wrong with my, my co-workers? Or am I approaching it from an angle an attitude of gratitude, of let me tell you all the things that I'm grateful for about my job. Let me tell you all the things I'm grateful for about my boss, or about my co-workers, my family. What's my angle of approach with my family? And is it, you know, let me tell you all the ways my family is messed up? Or is it let me tell you all the ways that I'm grateful for my family? And so on and so forth? I mean I can apply that in so many different ways. So that added that gratitude as an attitude.

Amjed: 11:15

So, starting with that, then I can also think of gratitude as an action, and you know. So let me explain that one a little bit, because it's like okay, gratitude as an action, in other words, what am I doing to express my gratitude and reinforce it? So if I'm grateful for something, then I you know it, kind of it should change the way I behave about that thing. So if I'm grateful for my family, then the way I treat them should look different and perhaps there's more opportunity for me to be of service to them if I'm grateful for them, you know. And so that gratitude helps recalibrate the way I view them and then it results in a different change. So that attitude changes and the action changes.

Amjed: 12:11

And you know, it's kind of the chicken or egg thing, but most of at least the circles that I'm in, say like, take the actions first and let the attitude follow, let the feelings follow. But you know, so I guess maybe that's it, it's meant the feelings follow, but for me I may not feel as grateful, but I can still act grateful, act as if I'm grateful, and then that reinforces that attitude and it reinforces that gratitude that I have, so that the you know the attitude or the angle approach, the way I'm thinking about things, and then it's the actions that I'm taking to reinforce that. I feel like both of those kind of come at the same time, and then the result of both of those? The result is a state of gratitude. So for me, what that means is, you know, that I am in a I'm almost in this like, like I was describing earlier. I'm looking at traffic and all I see is gratitude, because I it's like I'm in a state of gratitude. It's almost like my condition has become a condition of gratitude and there's no. You know, I don't have to think about how I'm thinking about it, I don't have to worry about how I'm acting about it, because I'm just in that zone. It's like my body has sort of transformed into this like, where I'm just wearing the skin of gratitude and I see everything and I interact with everything through that new body that I'm wearing or that new skin that I'm wearing, and so that you know, kind of it's another way to look at gratitude for me, and so that you know, just kind of what is gratitude.

Amjed: 14:04

That was the first part of that, and then the second part is how does that help? How does that shift? What is that? What is the change you know I talked about. You know, if a plane tries to land at the wrong angle, it can all kinds of bad things can happen. Either way it could crash, but you know. So what is? What does gratitude do for me?

Amjed: 14:26

And, just reflecting on that for a moment, for me gratitude represents, you know, it's, it's where I'm thinking about, what I have versus what I don't have and, as a result, it counteracts that negative cycle. So, if I think about my negative, self-destructive cycle, which is, you know, and actually now that I'm thinking about it, gratitude for me represents an outward focus versus an inward focus, and I've shared about that quite a bit and I'm sure I'll share about it more, because it's such a major part of my life in the sense that you know, when I'm looking at the world, when I'm looking at myself and how the world treats me and what's happening to me and what's going to happen to me, that self-obsession I think I just shared about it a couple of episodes ago and you know that how I'm being treated, or, you know, am I a good person or a bad person or whatever that is like. I've just all that inward focus, then I self-destruct because I can't take that internal focus. It's, it's a short circuit. It's like I'm plugging back into a power source. But if I have an outward focus and then I'm in a much healthier position. So that's kind of a summary of the previous episode. But so if you want to get more on that and you can go take a look at that and go listen to that one.

Amjed: 16:09

But for me this, what gratitude does is it helps point my, it helps point me outward. So if I am you know I'm not entirely sure if I'm making any sense, but you know it's like it reinforces that outward look and so I buy. I'm just checking to see like which episode it was. Anyway, if I find it before we, before I stop, I'll throw it in here, but I'll mention it. I'm trying to remember which episode it was that I talked about that outward focus and versus the self-word focus. So I think it's something about service and let's see.

Amjed: 17:05

Yeah, now, for whatever reason, I don't remember what I called it. Yeah, that's, how's that for? Oh, it's kind of funny because I just realized, and on the Thanksgiving episode I reflected on gratitude as well, so it's. I'm now I'm curious, like how different that one is from this one. But boy, yeah, I talked about gratitude just recently, but I think I want to say it's different than what I'm sharing today, so it's interesting. But, yeah, so that outward focus, it really helps me to to get out of myself and stay grounded and being of service to others and so, yeah, with that I'll kind of now that I noticed that I have a whole episode on gratitude and for fear that I'll repeat half of it, I'll stop. But you know, I'm just glancing at the transcript right now and it looks like it's relatively different than what I'm sharing about today. So that's kind of interesting.

Amjed: 18:09

Like that I could do two episodes on gratitude and not them, not let them be identical. It goes back to that, what I always say in the beginning about being this, asking for this stuff to be through me rather than from me, and, yeah, I'll stop on the gratitude thing and just kind of transition to, I guess, like how, a holiday message yes, how's that? We'll do a holiday message. So it is Christmas time and we just finished wrapped up Hanukkah. Recently there's Kwanzaa coming up and other religious you know kind of things and other holidays and festive things, and there's lots of time off and the weather's shifting and for me, this time of the year and I guess that's why I'm so fixated on this gratitude thing because historically this time of the year has been just ripe fuel for me to get caught up in, to get caught up in this idea of oh, I found it drowning in a sea of me.

Amjed: 19:30

That was, it was episode 47 drowning in a sea of me. That's the one where I talk about self-obsession, but I just glanced down and saw it just now. But so this, you know, this holiday time was like really a ripe time for me to go deep into depression. And as soon as the weather would change and the holidays, and all of a sudden my regular routine is off and I'm you know, I'm not working, I'm not this and then all of a sudden I'm just sitting in a corner somewhere and thinking about what would be the best way to end my life. And you know it's a.

Amjed: 20:12

It's a scary time because there's a lot of triggers for me about the holiday season and you know everything from. I see what everything around me looks like, so happy and wonderful and fantastic, and and I feel like this is a time of the year for me that it's extra important for me to focus on my mental health and my emotional health and my spiritual health and really looking inward and saying, okay, I know I said don't look inward, but you know like, really trying to protect my emotional well-being and my mental well-being and my spiritual well-being. And so I tend to do a lot of support activity during this time of the year. I make a lot more phone calls, I connect with a lot more people, I share where I'm at, openly and transparently and honestly, rather than go into a little cave by myself. And so I guess what I'm saying is that this is, you know, another remedy for depression.

Amjed: 21:26

For me is connecting with others rather than isolating. And if I because my tendency is to isolate when I get depressed or when I get emotionally triggered or you know, and then what happens is that cycle it just repeats. So, you know, I start thinking about myself, I start spending more time with myself and I might isolate with fantasy, you know, like watching lots of movies or shows or reading fantasy books and, just like you know, kind of going down this isolation cycle where I'm not really talking to anyone, or, even worse. I start thinking about all the ways that my life is messed up and I am messed up and the cycle just keeps dropping and dropping and dropping as I'm going downhill in a really unhealthy way. And the opposite of that is for me to make connection. So I guess this also ties into.

Amjed: 22:30

The gratitude thing is like if I'm taking the actions of gratitude, then part of that is I make connection with others and I reach out and I connect with other people and it's through that connection that I get light and air. So all you know it just reminds me of an old Pakistani serial, like a show. They call them dramas in Pakistan but it's, like you imagine, like a 14 episode. I think it was like 14 or 16 episode serial show and I in the show there's this one scene where there's it's kind of like Ben Hur. There's where you know they finally get the sister and the daughter I don't remember if they got him out and something in my brain says they got him out, but they were in this like dungeon that was like four levels deep underground and that may not even be accurate to the story of Ben Hur, but that's how my brain recollects it, but just this idea that you know there's this dark, dark place inside of me where I can isolate, sit in that dark space and just go deeper and deeper and deeper. And I know people who unfortunately have a someone I know very well who did that during COVID you know we were in quarantine. This person you know the people were isolating this person went into their room and didn't come out for a few months and when they came out, just not well at all.

Amjed: 24:15

I came out with a lot of anger and resentment and fear and frustration at the world after having, you know, recently been laid off to like some budget cuts or something at their company that they were working at and COVID hit, went into this COVID cycle and then just went completely downhill. And that was me for years. Like, I mean, I would go into that dark place inside of me and the opposite of that is to open a window. And when I open the window, first I open the curtains and the light comes in and then I open the actual window and fresh air comes in. Because, if you can imagine this moldy, dusty, dark place, that's what exists inside of me and that's because I have a history with mental health issues and depression. That is a very easy place for me to go to. It's a default setting. My brain will go there very quickly, I will go there very quickly to that dark place, and I used to think that that was my safe place. But it's actually not, it's the opposite. And so I open a window, I open the curtains, open the window, get some fresh air, get some light, and it airs out the room and suddenly it's bright and it looks different, it feels different. It's like the difference between a rainy, gloomy day like today or a bright, sunny, partly cloudy, perfect weather kind of day.

Amjed: 25:51

And so that opening of the curtains and the opening of the window for me is making the human connection, making connection with another human being and someone, ideally someone that I trust and that I'm comfortable with and that I can be transparent and honest with. And that is a very important criteria, because that for me is the opening of the curtain. Is that transparency, like I'm opening the curtain and letting you see into me. There's a friend of mine who says I don't know if anyone has heard this, but intimacy like the word intimacy can also be pronounced into me, you see, into me, you see, and that's what I'm doing when I open the curtain is I'm allowing you to see what's really going on inside of me and saying here's where I'm at today, and a lot of ways that was the inspiration for the name of this podcast my Humanity is Showing because I found so much healing in that. So here I am in a very public forum, even though I don't have a large listening base right now, but in a very public, possibly very, very public forum, sharing some pretty intimate details about myself. And there's still some boundaries there. I learned that from Pernay Brown, that there should be boundaries, but I'm still opening the curtain and allowing others to see in.

Amjed: 27:26

And then by making an actual connection, like making a phone call, visiting with someone. You know, I was out running errands yesterday and someone messaged me and said, hey, are you available for a call? And I said yeah, and we were trying. And he was like when are you available? And I said how about now? And the whole time I was out running errands, we were talking and just had a wonderful conversation. It was extremely helpful for me, hoping it was helpful for him as well, but there was that connection. So for me and that connection is where the air came in the fresh air and filled the room with fresh air and light. So, yeah, I'll stop there.

Amjed: 28:08

That I was wondering what kind of like I said I had a completely different idea for this episode, that's. I feel like I say that at least half the time, if not more, and we will switch to the random message of the day. So let me, let me go into my little bucket. I, you know, I took out one the other day because it said something about good times are coming or something. I had opened a new fortune cookie and I was like, yeah, no, that's a fortune, I just want the philosophical ones. So let's say what this philosophical one says. It says I can't make this up, I swear. Here it is, you ready. Smile, it makes your day brighter, as well as the days of those around you. Wow, I could not have planned that one any better. That totally ties in with today's topic, the idea of smile like.

Amjed: 29:03

As soon as I read that, I'm like it's about gratitude.

Amjed: 29:07

So that was cool. And then, you know, it threw in there the word brighter and it just it perfectly helped synergize the two topics that I hit on today. One was gratitude and the other was about connection and how, and so to me it's in a lot of ways that that's where it starts. It starts with you know, it starts with I'm grateful for something and then I make a connection. So with that, thanks again, as always, for joining me, and I hope that you found something of benefit here. If you do, I hope you come back and possibly share it, share the link with people, subscribe. It's possible that there may be others out there that would benefit as well, and I know I am benefiting from this process, but just hoping that my message makes it to the person or persons that really need to hear it, because there may be some hope in my story that helps another person to get out of that dark place and get out of that room and open the curtains and open the window. So take care and be well, Thank you.