Wellness After 40
A podcast that empowers women in their 40s and beyond to embrace aging with vitality and purpose.
Wellness After 40
The Truth About Gratitude in Midlife: Why Positivity Isn't Always the Answer with Laura Bratton
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What if gratitude isn't about staying positive?
We've been sold a version of gratitude that looks a lot like suppression with better branding — smile through it, focus on the positive, don't dwell. In this episode, I sit down with Laura Bratton, founder of Ubi Global and author of Harnessing Courage, to talk about what gratitude actually is when you strip away the toxic positivity.
This conversation will change how you think about the "just be grateful" advice you've probably given yourself a hundred times. We get into why honesty — not optimism — is what actually builds resilience, how gratitude and hard emotions can coexist instead of canceling each other out, and what it looks like to navigate a season that doesn't match what you planned for your life.
If you've ever felt like you were "failing" at gratitude because you were also struggling, this episode is going to feel like permission.
In this episode:
— The real difference between gratitude and toxic positivity
— Why honesty is the foundation of resilience, not the opposite of it
— How to hold gratitude and difficult emotions at the same time
— Practical ways to build a gratitude practice that's honest, not performative
— Navigating life when it doesn't look like what you expected
This one's for anyone in a season of change, uncertainty, or midlife recalibration — which, let's be honest, is most of us right now.
Connect with Laura:
Website: https://www.laurabratton.com/
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Today, we are diving into a conversation that I think so many women can relate to. We often hear that we should be grateful, stay positive, and focus only on the good. But what happens when life feels hard, uncertain, or simply different than what we expected? Today, we are talking about what real gratitude looks like and why it starts with honesty. Also, how it can help us navigate life's changes with greater resilience. This is a truly powerful conversation with a very special guest. Let's get started. Welcome to Wellness After 40: Health, Goals, and Manifestation for Women, the podcast that empowers women in their 40s and beyond to embrace aging with vitality and purpose. I'm your host, Katie, an older millennial navigating wellness, personal growth, and the art of intentional living. Each week we'll dive into the latest in exercise, nutrition, mental health, goal setting, as well as actionable steps for manifesting the life you want. We'll also explore the science behind women's health at midlife and beyond, along with conversations with experts to keep you thriving in your body, mind, and spirit. Whether you're focusing on achieving health goals, mastering your mental clarity, or transforming your life, this podcast will give you the tools to feel your best at every stage of life. Let's dive into the journey of not just surviving, but thriving after 40. Well, welcome to the podcast Wellness After 40. I am your host, Katie, and today I brought an incredibly inspirational guest. Welcoming to the podcast today is Laura Bratton. At the age of nine, Laura was diagnosed with an eye disease and faced the difficult reality that she would become blind. Over the next 10 years, she experienced the traumatic transition of adjusting to life without sight. Laura is the author of the book Harnessing Courage and founded UB Global, an organization that provides speaking and coaching to empower people to overcome challenges and obstacles with grit and grace. Welcome to the podcast, Laura. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. I mean, your story is just so incredible. I I, you know, I find that just your story alone really stopped me in my tracks. And so I'm so incredibly grateful for you to come on the podcast today. Uh, and I know it like gave the um listeners a little bit about your background, but can you tell us a little more about your story and how it shaped the work you do today?
SPEAKER_02100% of the work I do is only because of my life experience. I definitely would not be doing this work had it not been for the just the way life happened and unfolded. So, as you shared in my bio, at the age of nine, I was diagnosed with an extremely rare eye disease. Yet the difficult part was there was no timeline, there was no guidance of you will lose your sight at this point, or in so many years, you will lose your sight. So it was a complete unknown. You've got this rare retinal disease, but you might be 40 when you go blind, you might be 60. We don't know. So losing all of my sight in those high school years was a shock to everyone. No one expected that I would lose all my vision so quickly, and it didn't happen overnight. There wasn't like one day where I went to bed and woke up. It didn't have any sight. It was gradual over those four years, but that's very quick to lose all your sight and be totally blind by the time you graduate from high school. Starting high school, being able to see large prints and use a magnifier and be fine. So it was a very, very difficult situation to navigate high school, navigate teen or teenage hormones, navigate just the normalcy of life added to it. Oh, adjust to being blind, and we had no clue this was coming now.
SPEAKER_03Wow, I can't even imagine. I mean, that sounds really, really difficult.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the I can't adequately put into words the grief process because I'm grieving several things at one time. Yes, clearly, I'm grieving the vision loss, but I'm also just grieving grieving normal teenager life. So I for context, I grew up in the deep south, and this is the late 90s in the deep south. So everyone looks the same. Are you it's you are you wearing the Abercrombie fish clothes? Like, are you in Gap? Are you in J Crue? It's all are you fitting in? Are you status quo? All of a sudden, I wasn't. I was, oh my god, there's that one girl walking down the hall. You know, I was the other, I was the like disabled one in the school. So I was also grieving that at the same time, I was grieving the physical blindness. So that's why I say I was grieving multiple things at one time.
SPEAKER_03Wow. And you know, from your story and then moving forward, it really sounds like while this was a surprise and something incredibly difficult in so many layers, it sounds like in a way you really challenged that and made it more of your superpower. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you just started to turn and change and become so resilient from the situation?
SPEAKER_02Yes. And I want to make it very, very clear that was not overnight. So a lot of people, I'm so glad you even used that word, like superpower. It did not become a superpower overnight. Again, I didn't wake up in high school and be like, I'm gonna have grit and gratitude. World, like here I come. This is my profession. It was an extremely slow process of years of severe anxiety, severe depression, not knowing, do I have purpose? Do I have meaning? Am I enough in this world? Because everyone else around me has sight, and this world just functions on the sight world, and I don't have sight. So years of all those questions, the way that that superpower was activated and became my profession and my superpower, and the way I got through the anxiety and through the depression was by the support around me. So that's what started activating that superpower spirit within me. It was others around me saying, We believe in you, you're still you. Yes, your vision's not as good. Yes, you have to do things in a different way, yet you're still you, you still have meaning, you still have purpose, you're still worthy. So it was the support of others that allowed that superpower to take place.
SPEAKER_03And I I know from talking to you that one of the things that you you mentioned, grit and gratitude. And one of the things that I really, really find so impactful about how you really deliver the gratitude piece to like to to people that are are listening to you speak is that you think of gratitude in a very different way. It's not like this positivity, or we often use this kind of term, like toxic positivity, like, oh, just look on the bright side and just pretend like this isn't happening. You really make gratitude something so much deeper. Can you explain a little bit more about like the distinction of like being grateful, but not necessarily always having to struggle with being positive all the time?
SPEAKER_02So I first I tried that positivity. I'm just gonna be positive. Look on, like you said, look on the bright side, right? Uh that actually made me more depressed and more anxious. And I'm like, what's going on? I'm being positive. I'm telling everyone I'm doing great. I'm looking on the bright side. What's the lesson in this? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm feeling worse. What's going on? So I was completely confused why the positivity was not working, how I was using it. Then I remember back to a conversation that I have to share that happened to me with a mentor that changed my whole perspective on just gratitude and positivity, and why I was able to shift my mindset. So I had a mentor say to me one day, Laura, I want you to start focusing on a mindset of gratitude. And I thought, at this point, I'm, you know, I'm still in the anxiety, still in depression, still trying this whole positivity thing, and it's not working. Like, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I'm already trying that. It's not working. Like, it's already making me more anxious, more depressed. No, I don't want to try that. It was only out of my stubbornness that I said, okay, I I'll try what she said. I'm gonna prove to her this is not good advice, and that she's not a good mentor. Like, I was convinced you don't need to be a mentor anymore because that's not good advice. The one day became a week, the week became a month, and what I realized was she was teaching me that distinction that I now live every single day. She was not teaching me at the end of the day, say, Laura self, I am so grateful to be blind. She was teaching me to say at the end of the day, I am so grateful that I have a guide dog that helps me navigate the world. So it's not being grateful for the trauma, for the adversity, for the difficulty. It's not using gratitude to cover up our pain and to not acknowledge or validate our pain. Rather, it's to say, in the midst of all of life, what am I thankful for that helped me get through the day, that helped me survive the day, that helped me get through that difficult conversation, situation, circumstance. So again, it's not minimizing our pain. It's not being grateful for the trauma, for the difficulty, for the adversity. It's simply saying, what am I grateful for that helped get me through?
SPEAKER_03I I have not ever heard of being grateful in that manner. And I find that so actually so very helpful and so incredibly moving because it's not discounting the difficulties that you are already going through, but it is taking the pieces that are helpful that are working and focusing on that. So it's not really about tuning out that you're having you know any other type of difficulty, but it's just focusing on maybe what maybe some of the pieces that you can control, the things that are working out. I I love that mental shift. Like I think that is so incredibly impactful for really anyone in any state of their life.
SPEAKER_02And what you said is exactly true. We can hold both things at the same time. We can acknowledge this situation I'm going through right now is really, really hard and so much feels out of control. And what I can't control is this. I want to highlight it's not looking for I won the lottery today.
SPEAKER_01Like I'm I got the car I've always dreamed of.
SPEAKER_02It's not focusing, it's not graduated on those huge like moments that might happen, if ever once in a lifetime, is those small moments. And a very practical example that I experience every single day. Yes, it's frustrating and overwhelming and just aggravating. I can't use technology like everyone else. Yet I am so grateful for Siri and Alexa that I talk to all day long that makes technology accessible to me. So again, it's not looking for those huge moments of gratitude, it's those tiny little moments that we're grateful for within our day.
SPEAKER_03I love this idea of like taking micro gratitude breaks. Like just think about like the small little thing. Like, I like that the sun hit my face today versus like it's gonna rain later this afternoon. Like these little micro gratitude bites, I think are very, very much easy to digest. So I really like that. And I know you also talked a lot about grit. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you frame grit then? Because I've always think of when I think of grit, I think of just like literally, like I in my mind's eye, I see like myself just like holding on so tightly. How would you define grit? A quick pause before we continue. If you're looking for a little more support on your wellness journey, I've created a subscriber community for wellness after 40 listeners. For $5 a month, you'll get bonus episodes, guided practices, and conversations designed specifically for women navigating midlife health, hormones, stress, and healthy aging. It's a simpler way to go a little deeper and support the show at the same time. You can join through the link in the show notes. Now, back to today's conversation.
SPEAKER_02So I love Dr. Angela Duckworth's work on grit. And what I've learned through her work and through my life experience is grit is not the sweep it under the rug, what you said, like I'm just gonna hold tighter and hopefully it'll work out. Like, hopefully, I'll have the strength to hold on. It's not just grin and bear get through it. Again, I tried that and it didn't work. My anxiety got worse, my depression got worse. I didn't want to keep living, I didn't want to keep going. So I just out of pure survival, out of hopelessness, I had to figure out okay, then what is this grit thing? And what I've learned is it's choosing to have the courage and choosing to have the tenacity in the midst of all of life. So again, it's a choosing for me to say, okay, in this particular moment, I'm really, really anxious. I acknowledge that anxiety, I validate it. If I need to go in the bathroom and sob my eyes out for five minutes, I will. And then I'll choose to keep going, have the tenacity. So again, it's just like gratitude, it's that balance of validating the hard situation we're in and then choosing to have the courage to keep going.
SPEAKER_03I feel like I've also read that book, Grit by Angela Duckworth. I think that's a it's a wonderful book. And I think that grit for me, a lot of times, is this muscle that you have to tone and trade? And there are gonna be times where you overstress that grit muscle, and there's times that you have to continuously build it. So that's how I have always kind of thought about grit, but I'm curious what you think about that. Like, how do you is it the micro bits of grit that you kind of just gain that traction? Or how how do you how do you actually do that in a day-to-day?
SPEAKER_02So you gave the analogy I was going to use. That is I'm perfectly. We are on the same page. Yeah, no, seriously, because that's the example I use. We don't go to the gym seven days a week and do the same arm exercise and then keep doing it 14 days in a row and then 21 and keep doing it and say, Wow, you know, look at me, look at my biceps. Like we would get injured, the muscle would be fatigued, right? Like that wouldn't be effective. What is effective is to say, okay, I'm gonna do arm exercises maybe two days a week, and then I'm, you know, obviously gonna rest in between. I'm gonna hydrate, I'm gonna eat well. We do actions in between, right? We take breaks, and over time our arm strength increases and we build that muscle. It's the exact same for grit. And that's why the gratitude balances out because if you do the all grit, it wears you out. And it's honestly for me, it wasn't sustainable. Like to have that tenacity 24-7, I couldn't sustain it. It wasn't possible for the long haul. Like, if I'm gonna stick around here, this is not working. What I had to do is balance out that grit with the gratitude. So, again, you perfectly said it when you said those micro moments of grit. So it's not all day long. I feel like I have courage, I have sanacity all day long. It's okay, I I experienced it for five minutes today. I'm proud of myself that I really was hesitant to send that one email. I sent it anyway. Maybe the rest of the day I freaked out about the email I sent, but I did send it. So again, yes, it's those micro moments of crit that get us through just the roller coaster of life experiences.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the little wins. That's really better than a big win all day long. Because the yeah, the little wins sustain us. And so many of our listeners are women in their 40s are a little bit older. And you know, at this stage of life, things just kind of start changing. There's a lot out of our control that are that's changing, and then a lot that's like internally changing. Um, you have just so much difficulty, but also joy and and love. But it the nuances are really things just really kind of start to shift and change. How do you really think that like this gratitude grit combination can help with this transition?
SPEAKER_02It can help to be a daily mindset that is that you depend on. So it's not do this for three weeks and then you never pick it up again. So it's not a short-term strategy, it's a long-term mindset. So again, it goes back to those little wins, is not about like how much gratitude can you have in three weeks or for the month of November. It's about okay, how can I apply gratitude in every single day in a sustainable way? And that's what I work with people on is okay, I'm not telling you to do one more put one more thing on your to-do list, right? Like, be like, are you serious? You're gonna give me one more thing to do. Like, you're not, that's why I'm coming to you. Do you know? I already know I'm overwhelmed, and just like you with your saying, there's so much going on with people for women our age, we don't need one more thing to do. That's right. Like, if we have what tell me if we have one more thing to do, and I might cry.
SPEAKER_03Well, could you tell us a little bit more about your work and like maybe give us some more practical tools? I love this idea of just taking small little micro steps of gratitude, just noticing the things that are different difficult for us within the day, and just like saying, like, I could check that off my list. Do you have any other types of practical ways that someone can practice the strategy? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Start with the gratitude by appreciating yourself rather than focusing. On everyone else and the to-do list. Start the gratitude by acknowledging you're enough. I love myself, I'm enough. And again, it's not one more thing. It's not three hours of meditation or 30 minutes of meditation before you go to bed. You know, it's not another thing to add to your exhausting schedule. It's a way when you're driving and sitting in a red light rather than, or when I even when that podcast or whatever is on playing in the car, just take that moment. Again, it's 30 seconds. It's not a long time just to acknowledge I appreciate myself. I appreciate that I wanted to just absolutely explode on that person, but I'm really proud of myself. I just communicated well and kept going. Or if you did explode on to acknowledge, hey, I did explode, I'll do better next time. I love myself. So a very practical way. I always ask people to start by writing the word enough, somewhere where they're gonna see it often. So a lot of people like put it on their bathroom mirror, a lot of people put a sticky somewhere in their car or on their laptop. Just something that they do every day so that they're constantly seeing that word enough. So it triggers their brain. I'm thankful I am enough. Just to take that exhale and acknowledge. That would absolutely be my first place to tell people to start is just acknowledging you in this place of life right where you are, you're enough.
SPEAKER_03And a lot of self-help messaging can really feel very surface level. So I I love this like very practical way that you have kind of helped people start to just even begin to feel like that they are enough. So I really appreciate that. But you know, kind of going back to the the self-help model, like I feel like it's very tiresome because we as women in our 40s, we have lived a lot of life and we have done a lot of things. I mean, the word enough, I think is is really very all-encompassing of a woman in her 40s. Like we've had enough, we've done enough, we've seen enough, we are enough. So I really love the word enough. But from, you know, just kind of the most rhetoric that you're hearing when it comes to self-help. What do you think is really the missing piece?
SPEAKER_02I'm saying this from my experience and from the from others that I've worked with. Validating our true feelings. In my experience, self-help has said, okay, you're in this deep depression. What are the lessons? What are the teaching? And here's this six-week model, and you'll be ever happy talking by my words. You'll be happy forever and more. So that's the goal of my work. And that's what I feel like is missing. Acknowledging our pain. So, especially for all of your listeners in the place where they are, where we are, where we each are as women now in this stage of life, validating our pain. Hormones are changing, a lot's happening. Just to validate this is hard. This is a lot. Like you said, I have done a lot in my life, right? Like, this has been exhausting. And just to say that and have someone else just say, Yeah, you're right. It has been exhausting. Not to say, keep going. Cause then that doesn't feel like, did you hear me? Like I said, I'm exhausted, and you're telling me to keep going. Does that make sense? Yes, you know what I'm meaning.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Like, I love your whole recipe. It's grit plus gratitude plus honesty. Like just being honest with what is going on in your life and putting, you know, kind of going back to your your original advice was how you started to get through this was the the community of support around you. And I think that that's a really important nuance that, you know, we kind of forget sometimes in our 40s. Like the people around you, like you got to be able to be honest with them and hopefully they'll be honest with you. But I love this limb of honesty. And I really do agree. I think that is what's missing in a lot of this self-help mumbo jumbo that we have kind of been shoveling along throughout our throughout our lives. And so I love the honesty limb of being honest with ourselves and being honest with others.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I want to add a piece of that you just made me think of if I can. Yeah. When that honesty for us to know and trust, and again, I say this from my own personal experience. So I lived it. I'm not saying it like go try it. And I learned this in school in hopes it works out. Like I'm living this every single day. Ask, asking for help and asking for support for what we need is not a weakness. I find so often throughout my life, but especially now, it's like you're in your 40s, just have it all together.
SPEAKER_01Don't ask for help. What do you why are you asking for help? That'll come across as a weakness. They'll think you're needy.
SPEAKER_02And so it feels like asking for support from others is too much.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's an that's such an interesting concept. And I and I wonder what is the the limitation in asking for help. Because you're right. Like when you said it, I was like, oh no, I can't do that. I can't, I can't ask someone to add a task to their list.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm not smiling because you're right. I was smiling because, like, oh my gosh, that's totally our reaction, right? That's always that's exact words when I say that to someone, they're like, uh no, not me.
SPEAKER_03So maybe it's micro question, micro advice of help, like a little micro ask. Like, I don't understand that. Can you repeat what you said or just practicing, like kind of going back to like, well, we have to get our gratitude muscle going and we need to work on our grit, and you know, a little bit of knowing that the the vulnerability of asking for help, I think is something that is an important thing to hopefully that we can start to work on as women in our 40s. I think there's an interesting uh topic, or it was an interesting statistic I read, and it's about the reduction of estrogen when we get into this stage of life and how that really pushes a button in a lot of our bodies. Like I've heard it called very lovingly, like the eff it button. And it's because we literally do not have the hormone to care. Like estrogen is this hormone that causes us to be very nurturing and very communicating, communicative as well as and commune with other people. Like we want to be in groups, we want to be light, we want to be nice, and actually the reduction of this hormone estrogen makes it be like, nah nah, nah, I don't care. And so I feel like we had that on our side, we can use that as our superpower to like really lean into grit and then you know, pulling it back a layer and being like, it's okay to ask for help, and it's okay to be thankful for just the small things. You don't have to pretend like the things are not happening that are difficult.
SPEAKER_02Wow, I'm so glad you said that because again, the word that kept coming to my mind as you're describing that is permission. It's like you just gave women permission. There's a reason, there's a hormonal reason why we hit that place, and that's okay. That's not a default within us. That's that's who we are. That's that's us. So to be like that and to ask for help to do both at the same time is okay. Does that make sense? Like it's permission to do both. Yes. So we don't just I feel like again, my own personal experience being type A is like I gotta do it on my own. I gotta figure out, I gotta check it off list. Well, why can't you do both? Why can't you have your F button and ask for help when you need it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't know at what point in our lives we were told we can't ask for help. I don't know what happened or what changed, but I think that's a really interesting question that hopefully whoever is listening to this can ask themselves. It's like, who who told you you couldn't ask for help? And then that means that you aren't capable or smart or have the ability to do something. So I think I think that's an interesting question to propose.
SPEAKER_02In my limited experience, I think it's just our hyper focus on independence. Just I'll figure out a way. The whole like pull yourself up by your bootstraps, like I'll just figure it out myself.
SPEAKER_03And I think that's the distinction that people really get confused when it comes to grit. Because I think if we kind of go back to grit, like we think of grit as just like you just have to like literally bite down and deal. But that's not what you describe grit as at all, right?
SPEAKER_02Is is having the courage to validate this is hard and I will keep going, not just sulk and then this is hard and be victim, but to say this is hard and I will keep going.
SPEAKER_03I feel like I could just talk to you all day long. I feel so like your your essence and in your way that you think about things is just really refreshing. Uh yes, I feel the same.
SPEAKER_02We could we could talk for hours because you make me think if you say something, it makes me think of 12 other things.
SPEAKER_03I know, and I think that these conversations should come up more in circles of women, you know. We're I think that a lot of times that vulnerability piece has kind of taken away because there is this weird competition that we also kind of have in our very interesting, we are very, I mean, going back to the word enough, like I have had enough, and that's enough. Um, but yeah, the the competition piece kind of eats into the vulnerability. But if you go back to your diff definition of grit and just taking these small bits of of gratitude and just the reframing, like we don't have to live this way anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yes, there is options, there is agency. And that's that's the good news.
SPEAKER_03And I think it just feels better. I mean, I think it just feels better just to be like, you know what? I don't have the answer. I I'm and I've been trying to teach my daughter who is 14. I've been trying to teach her not to use the phrase, I'm sorry, when she doesn't understand, or if she were to ask for something. Um I try to tell her to say thank you for re you know, repeating that. Thank you for moving out of my way, rather than saying, Oh, I'm sorry, can you can you please, you know, move this way? Or oh, I'm so sorry, but can I ask you another question? I'm like, why are you sorry? You use sorry if you hurt someone or like hurt their feelings or make a mistake, then you can accept responsibility. But I've been trying really hard and she rolls her eyes at me because she has like no idea. But I'm like, you have no idea what women in our 40s have lived through. Have lived through. And when the term I'm sorry, it's like it's that's not necessary. Like, just reframe. Thank you. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for helping me out, thank you for not doing XYZ. Like, let's say thank you. And that goes back to your RSP of gratitude. Oh, I'm so glad you said that.
SPEAKER_02Your 14-year-old daughter needs that, and we all need that. We do, everyone listening, because you're so right. It's like I say that all the time, and I don't even realize I'm sorry. Like, I'm I'm saying I'm sorry. Just I was working with someone last week and I emailed them with questions, and I did. I'm sure I probably said, Oh, I'm sorry, I have one more question. You know, it's like, why am I sorry? I have another question. I just paid him to answer my questions. But we say that and don't even realize we're apologizing for something we don't need to apologize for.
SPEAKER_03Well, can you tell us a little bit more about your coaching? And of course, a little bit more about your book for anyone that's listening that would like to work with you.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, so the best place to find all the resources is larabratten.com, and that has all the information about the book, coaching, speaking, it's all there.
SPEAKER_03Awesome, wonderful. I'm definitely going to link that all in the show, the show notes for everyone that's uh on the go and listening, but would like to be able to work with you. I mean, I what a what an absolute privilege it would be to work with you. Well, thank you for this opportunity and this platform.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_03Well, to wrap up our conversation today, I always like to kind of end with a little fun question. So if you would oblige me, I know we could, I like I said, I could talk to you all day, but if you had to choose one of the three, what would you choose between coffee, sunshine, or alone time? Which one are you choosing?
SPEAKER_02Oh, hands down, sunshine. I laugh with my friends and family. I'm like, y'all, I think I'm a flower. If the sun's out and I get sun in my life, I am happy, I am good, I am healthy, sun all day long. There's a reason I went to college at Arizona State.
SPEAKER_03Well, Laura, thank you again so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm so incredibly grateful for all of your wisdom. And I cannot wait to talk to you further further. So thank you again. Thank you for this platform.
SPEAKER_02Because, like I said, we desperately, desperately need it in this place in life.
SPEAKER_03And that's a wrap on this episode. Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. And a very special thank you to Lara for sharing such an honest and refreshing perspective on gratitude. Today we explored why gratitude isn't about forcing positivity or pretending everything is okay, but instead about facing life's challenges with honesty, resilience, and self-awareness. I hope this episode gave you permission to let go of the pressure to always look on the bright side and instead embrace a more grounded approach to gratitude. One that can coexist with heart emotions, unexpected life transitions, and the realities of midlife. If you'd like to learn more about Lara and her coaching work, you'll find links to her website and resources in the show notes. And if you enjoyed today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you take a moment to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode. Your support helps Wellness After 40 reach more women looking for evidence based wellness, tools, and meaningful conversations. Until next time, please take care, because this is Wellness After 40.