The Calmness of Gratitude Anchors

Want steadier mornings and calmer nights without overhauling your life? We share a practical method for emotional stability built on three gratitude anchors and a few small, reliable rituals that re train your brain away from worry and toward steady ground. Think of it like dropping anchor: predictable steps that hold you when life gets choppy.

We start with a hand on heart moment before getting out of bed, naming three simple good things the warmth of a duvet, the promise of coffee, the quiet of an early kitchen. From there, we protect a slow breakfast ritual that signals safety to the nervous system and sets a calm tone for the day. Along the way, we unpack why the brain loves routine, how anxious thought loops become habits, and how to replace them with sensory cues you can count on.

We also dive into small luxuries that deliver outsized emotional returns. Research on fresh flowers shows they boost happiness; even watching floral arranging can spark a lift. No flowers? Try visual calm through color, makeup, or clothes that feel good on the skin tiny acts of self-care that soothe the eye and steady mood. In the evening, we use a three good things practice to train attention toward positives, with options for journaling, private notes, or even a message to yourself that greets you in the morning. We talk honestly about privacy, diaries, and how to balance tough moments on the page with what was learned or healed.

By the end, you’ll have a simple, repeatable set of anchors: morning gratitude, a protected ritual, sensory comforts throughout the day, and a brief night reflection. Try one, stack a few, and notice how your baseline shifts. If this helped, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a calmer morning, and leave a quick review what’s your favorite daily anchor?

Chapters

• 0:00 Defining Emotional Stability
• 1:04 Three Morning Gratitude Anchors
• 2:16 Breakfast Rituals As Stability
• 2:55 Anchors And The Power Of Routine
• 4:06 Spotting Simple Good Moments
• 6:36 Warmth, Contrast, And Calm
• 9:16 Small Luxuries And Flowers Research
• 12:31 Makeup, Color, And Visual Soothing
• 15:10 Clothes As Emotional Cues
• 16:38 Night Gratitude And Habit Loops
• 18:10 Journals, Emails, And Privacy
• 21:10 Diaries, Memory, And Meaning
• 24:05 Balancing Emotions On The Page
• 25:07 Closing Notes And Listener Offer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Three things you can do to set a gratitude anchor and to create emotional stability for yourself, which is what I think we all long for, even though we might not quite fully comprehend what it actually is to be emotionally stable. Well, it's without all those ups and lows, without the fear about doing certain things, anxiety, etc. So that's what we're going to be chatting about today in this week's episode of Get It Real With The English Sisters. Thank you so much for all your support and for listening and watching on YouTube too. We really appreciate you. Yeah, so I mean, I think one of the best things to do when you want to become emotionally stable is to practice thinking about what is good in your life right now. Yeah, but it's something concrete and simple. Something simple, yeah. Yeah, like the cup of coffee that you're enjoying. Exactly. Or the lovely soft chair that you're sitting on. Yeah. That there are these simple steps that what that you can do, like even in the morning when you before you actually open your eyes, you can put your hand on your heart and think of three things that are going to be good or that are already good in your life. Exactly. And it doesn't have to be complicated. No, it can be like I'm looking forward to getting up and having my coffee. That's what I think a lot of mornings. But that is one of my number one thoughts. I'm gonna have breakfast, and I love having breakfast. So breakfast for me is important. So I prioritize the time I'll need to have breakfast, and I look forward to everything about breakfast. I always get up earlier. Earlier, yeah, on purpose. So I have the time I can just go down in my dressing gown. I don't have to rush to get dressed, or I sort of might partially do my makeup and then finish it off after breakfast. So there's a there's a routine that I know is going to create emotional stability. And calm, I think. And calm, yes. It's going to sets you up for the day, doesn't it? It sets you up calmly instead of rushing around, at least for me. And I'll do this even if I have a 6 a.m. uh appointment somewhere. I'll get up earlier to be able to do that. Because I know that for me it's one of my anchors, as to say. Yes. We can define these things like an anchor that's going to give you stability. Imagine the boat when it, you know, not the boat, but the the ship, what does it do? It throws the anchor, doesn't it? To to to stay in port. To stay in port and to keep it stable. It doesn't want to be moving around and drifting off. It wants to be anchored. And so, in the same way, you can create your own simple anchors that you know are going to be good for you because the mind and the brain loves routine. It does. And unfortunately, if you get into the routine of anxiety and fret, it'll go back to that. And so your first thoughts will be like anxious ones or fretful ones. Yes, or depressing ones, pessimistic kind of thoughts that oh no, what a yucky day it's gonna be today, and oh I hate today, I hate my life, blah blah blah, don't know what to wear. Whereas if you set your just three things you hold on to them like for as anchors, then you can say, okay, right now, I get up. There's there's something going to be good that's going to happen within the next you know hour. And for me, that's my breakfast. And it could be a smile or a cuddle from a pet, it could be it could be just just just so such simple things, you know, just preparing the mocha coffee for me, for example. That's my anchor as well. Because I open the coffee pot, it's some slow motions that I repeatedly do, or you turn your coffee machine on, or you make your tea. I don't know, you know, there are so many ways you can think about for me this morning. I thought of my three things, and I thought my coffee, my my family is healthy at the moment, all of it, and my extended family too. So everybody is healthy and okay, that they're they're okay, everyone is okay, there are no dramas going on right now. No, and and that that's quite unusual. There's always a drama because there's always a drama, so I have to be very grateful for that. And and then I thought, oh, this lovely duvet I've got on me, it's so warm and soft, and I'm grateful for that. And I know I'm gonna have to leave it soon, but I'm grateful to be able to have it, and those were my three anchors. I remember when we first got duvets compared to blankets, yeah. Blankets and sheets, nowhere near as good enough for me. So soft, they were such that it was like sleeping in a cloud.

SPEAKER_01: 5:32

I know.

SPEAKER_00: 5:33

And and they weren't very common in the UK, were they?

SPEAKER_01: 5:36

No, they were they weren't common at all.

SPEAKER_00: 5:44

So that's a stop, I think, or a phone. Right. So yes, no, they weren't common at all. They were they were just simply a new thing that we weren't used to, weren't they? No, we weren't, we never had them before. We never had this softness around us, this feeling like you were enclowed in some kind of a cloud. It was just amazing. It was a blanket and sheets, and and the blankets just like one thing, yeah. It just covered your whole body. You'd be surprised at how it could actually keep you warm enough. It's so soft. It was just amazing. I remember when I think Mum bought us our first duvets when we were young.

SPEAKER_01: 6:40

Yeah, we must have been about 14 or something.

SPEAKER_00: 6:42

Oh, what a luxury! It felt so lovely, and you know, not to have all of those, even though I know that some people do enjoy the heaviness of a blanket because it can make you feel safe and protected, and all that tucking in that that a lot of parents and caretakers would do with children, which actually tuck in the blankets tightly, but you can still tuck in the dovet. Of course you can. You can, yeah. You can tuck it around you. My husband always tucks it around. Does he?

SPEAKER_01: 7:15

Does he tuck it around? And I tried to get through to him, but then leave it a little opening so I can cuddle you. I can just imagine.

SPEAKER_00: 7:30

Tucks it under his feet. Incredible. So there are these kind of gratitude anchors are important, I think, aren't they? Yeah, they're just simple things. But I mean, you can go into just going into a coffee bar, for instance, and it's lovely and warm, and you think, ah, it's so warm in here, it's so lovely. I'm thankful for that. Yeah, yeah. A lot of our thankful. I'm beginning to see the time I went to for warmth, for warmth. Warmth and coffee. Yeah, because the other day I went to I went somewhere and it was freezing in there. And they they said the heating had broken. I don't know if it really broken or they were trying to save, but whatever. They could have been trying to save, yeah. Whatever it was freezing, and I thought, oh, it's so cold in here. But when you go into like now, when I the other yesterday I went into a really lovely warm place that's beautiful, and I thought, oh, it's so lovely and warm in here. I'm so happy. Happy, yes, it can be warm, yeah. So it doesn't have to be big things, does it? It can just be throughout your day. I mean, obviously, to in order to appreciate warmth, you have to experience cold, it's like life, isn't it? Yes, yes. But when you have cold, if you're cold, but then you know that that at some point you're gonna be warm, it's more comforting, isn't it? And it it stabilises you. If you're cold and you think, oh, soon I'm gonna be in a lovely warm place where I'm gonna put a warm coat on or a fluffy blanket round me, yeah, yeah, it's gonna make you feel better. So it's gonna stabilize your emotions and take that like the fear and the runaway thoughts away because you're focusing your mind on something fixed. Very simple, very easy, very nothing, nothing too complicated. So if family is a complicated thing for you, for you, and it's a source of anxiety, focus on something else, something that's very, very easy for you to stabilize yourself. Like what we were saying: the duvet, the dressing gown, the coffee, the next thing, that things that you have in your life that make your life better, and you might not even be aware of. But there are those small pleasantries, the small luxuries. They are yeah, but they're very important to have these little luxuries in our life and these little anchors that we we tie ourselves to. Yeah. So I was actually reading a research about small luxuries, and it was that one about having fresh flowers in the home. So if you're not allergic, obviously, and you and you have and you you treat there was a research that said that people that had cut fresh flowers in their home with as regards to people that didn't were experienced more moments of happiness as they looked at those flowers. So there is something to say about that. Even providing for yourself or saying today I'm gonna buy myself a small bouquet of uh tulips or a large bouquet, whatever you want, and I'm gonna place them in my home. Actually, the research went as far as saying that even those that watched like videos on Instagram of all the people decorating their home with freshly cut flowers had a boost increase. They had that dopamine here. Incredible. I can believe that because I bought um some fake orchids the other day, and I put them in my kitchen amongst the real ones that haven't flowered, and this these fake ones have flowered. And every time I look over, I say, Oh, that look, they look so beautiful, and I think, wow, that looks really nice. And it gives me a moment of I suppose gratitude and an anchor of gratitude to look over and just say the flowers, and I almost my brain almost believes they're real because they look so real. They look real, and you've I've tricked my brain into thinking they're real. Yeah, and you've created a calm environment with things that are beautiful for your eye. And they've been yet. They calm your eye, yes. I think it's self-care in the end, isn't it? It's even if you go, because if you if you think about it, if you're going to go and buy flowers, first of all, you have to think I'm gonna buy myself a bunch of flowers, then you have to buy them, then you have to take care of home, then you put them in water in a pretty vase, then you decide where you're gonna put them in your house. So it's all these little steps of self-care, meaning take meaning that you're taking care of yourself and your emotions. And that is a wonderful thing to do, and that is certainly advisable, and it does create that kind of emotional stability. So if you're feeling a bit down, it's not a bad idea to buy yourself some freshly cut flowers, man or woman, whoever you want. Yeah, if you're not allergic, obviously. But also, I was thinking another ritual for me, for example, is to put my makeup on in the morning. I really enjoy it, even though sometimes it's a bit laborious because there's all these creams and foundations and things. But in the end, it's a moment of reflection and of self-care and of beauty and of taking care of myself to look nice and presentable for the day, which in turn makes you feel good about yourself. And I think the people that that that you come across as well, they appreciate that kind of self-care that you've taken in in like putting yourself together. Well, it definitely sends a message to their eye, yeah. Something uh pleasant, yes, so it's not something that it's something, oh, the colours, it's like a bit like the flowers, isn't it? You maybe chosen a lip colour or something, an eyeshadow. There is something that's obviously pleasant to the human eye. We like we like looking at uh at nice, pleasant things.

SPEAKER_01: 13:27

We do.

SPEAKER_00: 13:27

So uh whereas opposed to we have a repulsion towards looking towards things that are grotesque and we naturally want to go away from them. So it's normal to like to look at colours and things that have been set up nicely. So everyone is pleased by that, even children. If you go to a baby and you put I used to notice it with my children when I put my lipstick on, everything, hello, they would all seem to be really happy with it. Maybe it's it was a reflection of our you know, the mother's smiling, whatever. I mean, it doesn't really make any difference when it's your own children, but maybe it does. I don't know. Do you remember with babies? It's bright and colourful, yeah. And um, and so yes, definitely, definitely worth looking into, I think. You know, creating yourself some emotional clothes as well. If you put a pretty blouse on or something bright on, yeah. It's gonna make you feel good, isn't it? Absolutely. It's just gonna just change the way you feel about your day if you're wearing something nice or you that you like. It doesn't have to be, you know, fashionable or anything, it just has to be something that you have those anchors to. So I like maybe something nice and soft or you know, whatever. Taking care of yourself, basically, taking care of yourself and remembering at least three things every morning, I think. Some people do this at night as well, which is a good nighttime practice. I think it's a good practice anytime. Yeah, but you can just think about the three good things that happen to you before actually deciding. You might be watching a film or whatever. When you finish everything, you say, Right, now I'm going to sleep. There's three three good things today. Okay, um, my little dog, my little cat, whatever, I played with them or had a little bit of fun, my partner hug, a smile. What that does is that the next day, in that you're going to actually be consciously looking for good things to think about when you go to bed. So that increases the kind of behavior that if you're if you want to get a cuddle from your partner, you will probably go towards your partner and show more affection. You'll do something that that's going to make you have a memory for the evening. So it's a really good practice to get into. Sometimes I forget about it myself, but talking about it today will reinforce it again. It's obvious you can you're gonna forget. I forget, yeah. Sometimes I forget to think about these things. There's also another one which it said you could send yourself an email. So just send yourself to your own email address. Three things you're happy about in the evening, and the next morning it'll be the first email you'll read. It's quite surprising, actually. It's nice as well, but I think that does connect you to work a bit much. Well, yeah, you could do it to a personal email. But yeah. Just send yourself a text. Well, you could send yourself a text, yeah. I didn't feel as if it was connected to work when I read it because I used my other email and it was fine when I when I got it. I was smiled. It was a bit like work. Writing it was a bit like work, yeah. Obviously, you don't have to do that. Some people like journaling, you can write it in a journal, which is really pretty and uh that's good. I think that's nice. That's like a bit retro, isn't it? Almost, you know, it's a physical, isn't it? It's a physical thing. It's like it connects your brain, doesn't it, to your hands. Which is what you're doing. I mean, we used to write a diary for so many years. We wrote a diary. I know. That was our mum. She used to say it's really important for you to write a diary every night. Well, it was journaling. It was journeying. But I would say, but what do I write in it? She said, just write whatever you did today, whatever. So at the beginning, it used to be very factual. I went to school, then I had my tea, I had breakfast, and then eventually I think I started to get the hang of it. Oh, I had my best friend came and we had fun, and so it's really cute to read it now. Or I I had a French lesson. I hate my French teacher, and it was all kind of these things, and you start expressing your emotions. You do, don't you? I think that's obviously one of the reasons why. I always felt that I could never write my true emotions in it, though, in case anyone read it. Poor you, yeah. I never really had that as a dramatic true emotion. You think I was gonna read it? I feel like as if who was gonna read it?

SPEAKER_01: 18:06

I was listening to a podcast of uh I know what you mean that of a spy who says that he was on the on the podcast and he was saying how anyone can intercept your emails or your uh you know your your phone at any time.

SPEAKER_00: 18:21

And I always think, yeah, I never want to write something down that I would be like I wouldn't want someone else to read later on in that like if you said, Oh, child reading is so difficult. And then you would think that in the future your daughter might read that. Oh no, look, mum would it's like in the context, isn't it? It's like a specific moment, but it's it's obviously it's a really good thing to do if you you know if you feel like you want to, because you're just putting everything out there. But I think for me personally, I probably want to burn it afterwards, like a cathartic thing, like take down all the things that you want to let go of, say, and then put them in a little fire or something. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't want people to just take it out of context. I know what you mean. So just read it and think, uh I mean nothing ever happened, but I mean, nothing, but if you have a fight with someone, then do you want that fight to be written down when the next day you resolve it? I suppose next day you'd have to write right, then you feel as if I would have to be more like like accurate, and then the next day, right? Actually, we made up, we did this. The thing is, if you do write you had a fight, then you would have to write the explanations why. And then in writing the explanations why sometimes it helps you see both sides clearer as well. Yeah, but then I think the next day I would have to say, why, just in case anyone read it. I mean, we've got all mum's diaries, and we do not read them yet. No, I we have read some of them that are referring to us. I haven't. When when we were little, surely haven't we? We never opened them. We've never read them. What were they? Letters we read? No, no, we read letters, but her diaries, we've still got them, we've never read them. She used to be quite factual, though. I don't think she wrote anything. I don't think she wrote anything, but it would be interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 20:19

We could maybe get them out. I mean, it's like 15 years she passed away or more now, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 20:26

I mean, she never said we couldn't read. She didn't, no. She didn't say don't read my diary.

SPEAKER_01: 20:30

She's gonna eat your burden and be opening up.

SPEAKER_00: 20:34

I don't know. No wonder you don't want you didn't want to write anything in your diary. That's what you're I mean. What what are we gonna do with these diaries? How many are there? There's millions, there's loads of them. Isn't there loads of those red books? She used to write one every year. She's got them back from when we were born. Goodness me, gosh. Well, yeah, I've never opened them. I've never read them out of respect.

SPEAKER_01: 20:59

I think I might. I mean, I think enough time has passed. Enough time has passed. I was watching a series. That's probably what made me think about it. I've been watching this series called Um Black Cake or something about this this Caribbean lady that went and she moved to England and everything as an immigrant. And then she had all these secrets in her past.

SPEAKER_00: 21:24

And then she touched she left like she left like recordings for her children to listen to her grown-up children, but and revealing all her past and everything. But I don't know. It's it's uh I don't think Mum would have written anything that she didn't want us to read, really not, and she would have told us not to read them. She would have done very clear. She was very clear, she would have done something in her older age, she would have thrown them away herself or something. Yeah. I mean, it's it's all her history. She'd probably be really proud if we read them. She would I mean she said not to. She didn't. No, she never said don't read them. No, she never did. No, so she would have she would have said, you know, don't read them. This is getting so emotional. Talking about emotional stability. We have to go onto this road of having to honestly.

SPEAKER_01: 22:15

This is what life is like. You're opening one thing for podcasts.

SPEAKER_00: 22:18

But if you have, if you have like if you have things, you can write things down and you can think, is it is it okay if it stays like that? Yeah, yeah. If it stays like that and you're happy with it, well, good. I mean, fine. But if you think one day someone might read it and they might get the wrong end of the stick, then maybe you know, do something. You know, yeah. Most of the time that's but of course it's written proof, isn't it? It's written proof.

SPEAKER_01: 22:45

If you're on the court of law, I don't know what we're going on about honestly in a court. This is something funny we'll be thinking about. It's a gratitude thing, it's a fun thing.

SPEAKER_00: 22:59

It's a fun thing because thankfully, you know, we we believe our mum had nothing to worry about. She was a perfectly wonderful person and she would have no problems in any court of law. No, she wouldn't. But it's just to say that obviously it's a written word, isn't it? It's gonna stay there. It stays, it stays. So if there's a thought that you'd rather just have that thought, you can think it and then let it pass. Yeah. Because, you know, it's one of those thoughts that you don't want to be hanging around. Yeah, or you can write it down and then burn it. Well, it's like what I used to write. I hate my French teacher, you know. I mean, poor guy. Yeah. You know, I or not my French teacher, he was probably okay. It was probably more my maths teacher because I felt I wasn't being understood by that person because I couldn't understand maths and I was not being understood. So I would say I hate that. I hate that when you're a kid, you're always hating everything. Yeah, but you were just like hate and nine or something. Probably, yeah, 10, 11. You can't take that, but I mean, adult diaries is what I'm talking about. Adult diaries are more tricky. I do have some of my more adult diaries when I've gone through them, like when I was 33, 34 years old, and I've I had a terrible fight with with George, and then this. But did you fix it the next day? Um well, then I would always write I fixed it. You're always like, I love him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would always write it afterwards, but yeah. Well, that's what these are emotions. Everybody deals with their what I want to say is everybody deals with their emotions in different ways. We've decided to do it like this, and it's healthy for us. But you you may decide that you love writing it down and you like to revisit it in a year, and you'll know what happened and how it was, so it doesn't have to be so literal or factual. No, so it can be like a release healing. A release and a healing of all your emotions, and then perhaps you can write all the all the negative things, but then all the positive things about that person as well, so it's more balanced. So, because it's never it's never just one way, is it? It's always it's always two way, anyway. Let us know what you think of this week's episode of Get Real with the English sisters. We're available on Apple Podcasts, we are all podcasts. YouTube too, and we are therapists, and we're here to help you. And if you'd like a discount, go to our website and you can have an extra 20% off any therapy session if you're a listener of the podcast. See you next week. Lots of lament spans from the English sisters. Bye.