Kayla's story - Depressed to Euphoric

Kayla: I started practicing gratitude on a consistent basis every morning about two months ago now. Before that two-month period, I was really unmotivated, I was negative, I was ungrateful. I think that we as a society don't realize how privileged we really are.

And it wasn't until I started practicing gratitude every day, that I really noticed how much it is that we can be grateful for. And this goes far beyond materialistic things.

One of the things I tried to do when I first started creating my daily list of gratitude was to make sure that I'm not just creating a list full of materialistic things. I wanted it to be much deeper than that.

Aarushi: Yeah, tell me about that. How did you make it deeper and move beyond materialistic things?

Kayla: I think for me, it just happened with everything else that I was trying to do. My journey is that I'm trying to become a life coach. Well, actually I am a life coach, I have my first client.

And so some of the things that I've been working on, to really instill that change in myself, to allow myself to help others is working out, reading every day, meditation, yoga.

Those are just a few of the things that are my daily habits, along with gratitude, that really have helped me.

Aarushi: And, how has that helped you? You said that two months before you used to feel demotivated. Why did you start practicing gratitude?

Kayla: Why I started practicing gratitude? So I did meet someone that urged me like, "Hey, you should really practice gratitude." And I was like, "Yeah, it makes sense."

I didn't go into my past with that person that much. They just knew I was looking to change and to help others, potentially, through life coaching. But growing up, I struggled with my mental health.

I had depression and whatnot. I was just tired of feeling stuck. And I knew it was time to do something. I've worked in the mental health field for the last five years, so I knew about gratitude.

It's just not something that I was willing to do on a daily consistent basis until I got stuck enough and tired enough of the same old thing that I decided it was time to give it a chance.

Aarushi: What would you say to other people about why they should be grateful, why they should bring this experience into their lives?

Kayla: Well, it changes your life so fast. It's really a combination of things for me that changed my life so fast. I really feel like my life changed in a matter of like two weeks.

I think being grateful has the ability to help everyone, they just have to believe in it. And they have to do it consistently. I can only speak to my experience is through gratitude and everything else.

But, in order to change, you have to change something. So I think starting with gratitude is a great first step.

Aarushi: It's really amazing to listen about how you say that your life changed in a matter of two weeks. So what happened during these two weeks?

Kayla: Honestly, I don't even know what happened during those first two weeks. People around me started to notice me changing. And not everyone was completely supportive of the whole life coaching thing, starting your own business thing.

But now that I'm two months in and I actually have a podcast set up, I'm working on getting a graduation speech set up. And I'm working on getting more clients.

I feel because it's been like a consistent thing for me, they're starting to believe in me too. So that's been a cool experience as well.

Aarushi: That's great! I'm really happy for you and I'm happy that you believed in yourself despite the times when people weren't and now, the tables are turned, so congratulations to you!