The Helen Keller Hack and The Gratitude Effect

The amount of good things in your life depends entirely on your ability to notice them. Most of us aren’t living "bad" lives; we’ve just become noseblind to the beauty around us. We’ve trained our brains to scan for what’s missing, what’s broken, and what’s "denied," while ignoring the abundance right under our feet.

In this episode of the Living Lucky® Podcast, Jason and Jana Banana unpack the radical power of awareness. We share a moving, soul-stirring story from a day spent with adults in supportive care—a moment where a single song, Country Roads, shattered our perceptions of pity and replaced them with awe.

If you feel stuck in a "doom loop" of negativity, it’s time to update your spiritual curriculum. This isn't about forced cheer or "toxic positivity"—it’s about the mechanical reality that your brain will always prove you right. If you look for problems, you'll find them. If you look for miracles, you'll create them.

Inside this episode:

• The "Noseblind" Trap: Why we overlook local wonder while waiting for a "big trip" to feel alive.
• The Helen Keller Gut-Check: Why dwelling on what’s "denied" is a waste of your soul’s time.
• The "Country Roads" Moment: A moving story from a supportive care facility that replaced pity with awe.
• Neuroplasticity in Action: Why writing gratitude "locks in" a new identity and reshapes your brain.
• The ROI of Gratituding: How to stop using darkness to find light and start adding to the light on purpose.

Stop looking through a dirty lens. Hit play and spin your doom loop into an upward success cycle.

Key Nuggets

• Gratitude is a Verb: It’s a skill of awareness called "gratituding," not a personality trait.
• What You Appreciate, Appreciates: Attention is the currency of reality. What you focus on grows in value.
• Writing > Thinking: Journaling creates a physical record that moves thoughts from fleeting to foundational.
• Higher Senses in Loss: Adversity often sharpens our ability to notice connection and presence.
• Wonder is a Local Job: If you can't find peace at home, you won't find it in a five-star resort.

positive thinking, gratitude practice, Living Lucky, how to stop limiting beliefs, neuroscience o

Transcript

From Doom Loop To Upward Cycle

Jana Shelfer 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer 0:14

Good morning!

Speaker 1 0:15

I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer 0:18

You are too.

Speaker 1 0:19

Give us the quote, Jason.

Jason Shelfer 0:21

The amount of good things in your life depends on your ability to notice them.

Speaker 1 0:26

Did I say that?

Jason Shelfer 0:28

You said it in many different ways.

Speaker 1 0:30

When did I say that? Well, you talk about the last podcast.

Jason Shelfer 0:35

You talk about this all the time. This is this is your gratitude.

Speaker 1 0:38

We both do.

Jason Shelfer 0:39

Yes.

Jana Shelfer 0:39

We talk about awareness constantly. Isn't that what that is?

Jason Shelfer 0:43

Gratitude. Look for the good in life. What you look for, you'll find.

Jana Shelfer 0:47

Is what you're gonna find. Your brain will always prove you right. So what you look for is what your life, that's what you're gonna create. That's your reality.

Jason Shelfer 0:57

Yeah, I read something the other day that said, stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.

Jana Shelfer 1:03

Oh, and you know, as soon as you say that, then someone's gonna come out and go, that's toxic positivity.

Jason Shelfer 1:11

Right. Well, I would like, you know what?

Jana Shelfer 1:13

You're the type of person I was just talking about to stay away from.

Helen Keller And True Perspective

Jason Shelfer 1:16

Exactly. Like, I would I would rather be have a positive outlook on life and look for the good and be wrong than look for the bad and be right. Like because we're gonna find what we're looking for.

Jana Shelfer 1:29

You often talk about Helen Keller and the quote that she gives. Do you have that off the top of your head?

Jason Shelfer 1:35

So I can paraphrase it. She said, I so much has been given to me that I have no time to ponder over what has been denied. It's something it's right, it's in there. I might have messed it up, but it's close.

Jana Shelfer 1:46

It's pretty brilliant, though. Am I right?

Jason Shelfer 1:48

Yeah, well, she was deaf, she was blind, she was mute. And so you would think someone that has that can't see, that can't speak, that can't hear, would have so much to complain about.

A Joyful Day At The Facility

Jana Shelfer 2:00

It's the opposite, though. It is so many times the opposite in life. It it feels in my experience, in my experience. In fact, we spoke for, do you remember the group we spoke for?

Jason Shelfer 2:15

Is it Cargill?

Jana Shelfer 2:16

No, no, no, no. But we went out and we spent a day at the man.

Jason Shelfer 2:25

Was it the property management company?

Jana Shelfer 2:27

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's where they sang country roads taking up. Oh, okay, yes.

Jason Shelfer 2:33

That was the Association for Retarded Citizens.

Jana Shelfer 2:36

Yes. Okay, so we went and spent the day there.

Jason Shelfer 2:39

Yes.

Jana Shelfer 2:40

And I'm telling you, they were the most grateful humans on the planet.

Jason Shelfer 2:48

So happy. They're meeting meeting someone new. That was us. We were new to their environment.

Jana Shelfer 2:52

There was just an energy there where I thought, oh my gosh, what a delightful place to work. And what a delightful place to spend the day.

Jason Shelfer 3:02

Right.

Jana Shelfer 3:03

I just seriously was like, oh my gosh, I could come here every day, and this would just be blissful.

Jason Shelfer 3:13

Were you are you with me or probably because it wasn't our job. Maybe. We didn't have to do it every day. But there was an energy because they were so grateful, and they it was a it was something that they could be excited about.

Jana Shelfer 3:28

And this was this was an a home or a place where people, adult citizens who were not able to live on their own, be independent.

Jason Shelfer 3:40

Be independent, yes.

Jana Shelfer 3:41

And so during the day, they would go and spend time in this living facility. And you know, if you look at it in one perspective, right? You might you might think, oh my gosh.

Jason Shelfer 4:00

Oh, I feel so bad for that.

Jana Shelfer 4:02

You might however, I'm like, that they're very joyful people, joyful, very spiritual people, fun. I mean, connected. All of a sudden, that we were sitting there during music class, and I I mean it was very chaotic. And I I was sitting there at one point going, nobody has a beat.

Jason Shelfer 4:21

But everyone, so I would so you could look at it and say, No one has a beat, or everyone had their own beat.

Jana Shelfer 4:27

And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like the most chaotic thing ever, and I don't know what is happening right now. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, Marx comes in and country roads, starts singing top of his lungs. And it was good, and it was the most melodic.

Jason Shelfer 4:46

I think both of us started crying.

Higher Senses As Awareness

Jana Shelfer 4:48

I got goosebumps. It felt like it was coming from his soul, and it felt like it was connected to something higher. Yes. So I I there's so much here I want to say, and I don't know how to say it. And I don't want anyone to get offended or to get on the defense. What I am what I want to say is sometimes when things are taken away from us, God has a way of giving us higher senses. Does that make sense?

Jason Shelfer 5:27

Also, a way to notice what is what else is available.

Stop Being Noseblind To Beauty

Jana Shelfer 5:31

And that's what I'm talking about. When I say higher senses, I'm talking about awareness. So the amount of good things in your life depends on your ability to notice that.

Jason Shelfer 5:41

Yeah, so one of the things is what I notice around is a lot of times people have so much beauty and amazement in their life. And we talk about this in our relationship course, is that because it's always there and always around, we get noseblind to it. And then we stop just noticing all the gifts, all the beauty, all the wonder that's literally right under our feet, right in front of our faces, right in our immediate environment. And then we think, okay, well, I need to travel 10,000 miles or however far. Like we traveled to Africa to go on a vacation because we needed a break. We live, like in my GPS, our house is labeled as Club Med because it's beautiful here. It's so refreshing and joyful. Every time we come back from vacation, I feel like this breath of amazement and awe and wonder of this place that we live in.

Jana Shelfer 6:41

You and I, though, take the time to appreciate it. What you appreciate appreciates. And I feel that you and I have learned because you and I have been, and I'm not saying that you have to go through the darkness, but you and I have experienced darkness in our life.

Jason Shelfer 6:58

Well, and we've also put ourselves into personal development.

Choose Gratitude Before Darkness

Jana Shelfer 7:02

I also I feel that sometimes challenges and adversity is a gift. Well, it's so it is a gift in so many ways.

Jason Shelfer 7:12

We had the conversation the other night when we were sitting at the dinner table that gold has to go through the fire to get the impurities out. Like you have like there's this the and the darkness kind of is one of those things that says when you get into it, the darker it gets, the more bright the light gets that leads you there, right? So what if instead of having to go to that dark place, what if we just started leaning into what is it that I do want? What are the things that I do love? What are what is that, what are the things I am grateful for? Because a gratitude practice, those good things in life that I am looking for are available. And if I have a gratitude practice, now I get to start naming and listing those things. And I get to start creating this awareness around that where what you appreciate appreciates, where your attention goes, your life flows. Yes. So now I don't have to create the darkness to create the light, I just start adding to the light.

Jana Shelfer 8:20

Yes. Oh my gosh.

Jason Shelfer 8:22

So that's a that's a just a different beingness.

Jana Shelfer 8:26

About it, I mean, it's probably been 15 years ago. I read The Gratitude Effect by Dr. John D. Martini. Dr. John D. Martini, and it changed my life.

Jason Shelfer 8:40

I remember there was a shift because it was on the way back. We were driving back from Kansas to Florida.

Jana Shelfer 8:45

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 8:45

And you were, and I you were in the backseat. And we were listening to it on Audible.

Jana Shelfer 8:52

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer 8:52

And so we were both listening to it.

Jana Shelfer 8:57

Yes.

Jason Shelfer 8:57

Channel was looking good, not. But it it's a great book.

Jana Shelfer 9:01

And uh there's just, I mean, unfortunately. I remember fighting. Unfortunately, we don't discover gratitude or gratituding. That's what I like to call it. It's a verb for me. We don't discover it until we're going through a dark time and we realize, oh my gosh, I've been looking at life through a dirty pair of glasses.

Jason Shelfer 9:24

Yeah, dirty lens.

Jana Shelfer 9:27

However, once we do discover the power of the gratitude effect, then we realize, oh my gosh, this tool is just life-changing.

Jason Shelfer 9:40

But it's so expensive.

Why Writing Gratitude Works

Jana Shelfer 9:42

No, it's not. It's not. I mean, all it takes is a piece of paper and a pen. You don't even need paper and a pen. You can do it by just saying it out loud. It's just taking the time to notice it. It's like Helen Keller. Yeah. Helen Keller notices everything she has.

Jason Shelfer 10:05

Yeah. I will say, so it that's true. All it takes is the awareness. All it takes is noticing it. There is a new power that's unlocked when you write it down and you see it because your brain says, I see you noticing it. I see you appreciating it.

Jana Shelfer 10:26

All of a sudden your soul realizes, oh, this is important to you.

Jason Shelfer 10:30

And it's and it's actually it's kind of becoming a part of who you are in the world, with the world, on that piece of paper. And your brain set recognizing it and saying, it's it's kind of locking in and it's becoming part of your story because now it's a piece of work, it's a word on a piece of paper. So it's it there's power in grabbing a journal, writing the words in it of what you're grateful for every single day. Because that's that's the practice you put me in for a year, and it changed everything for me.

Jana Shelfer 11:04

You just inspired me. Uh, I need to go because I just have this brilliant billion-dollar idea. And thank you for joining us.

Jason Shelfer 11:15

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer 11:16

Bye-bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com