Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Grow A Grateful Mind: From Soil To Soul part 2
What if the fastest way to steady your health is also the simplest: practice gratitude and step outside. Joe opens up about a year of recovery, the lessons learned from a stubborn body and a stubborn garden, and the surprising ways small, consistent habits reshape sleep, mood, and immunity. This is a grounded, hopeful guide for anyone craving practical steps that don’t require new gear or a perfect schedule—just your attention and a patch of sky.
We explore how a nightly gratitude ritual can interrupt the worry loop that steals rest, and why emotion-rich memories become the brain’s preferred tracks at bedtime. From there, we head into the garden for instant feedback: wilted leaves that stand tall after water, cluttered beds that breathe after a simple prune, and the calm that arrives when you trade ceiling light for sunrise. Along the way, Joe connects interdependence—giving and receiving well—with a durable sense of agency, the antidote to helplessness and a friend to your immune system.
If you’ve felt stuck in your head, this conversation gives you an exit ramp: short outdoor rituals, practical journaling prompts, and a reminder that movement doesn’t need a gym to change your mind and body. Joe also shares candid updates on cancer recovery, lingering anemia, and what’s working right now to rebuild resilience. Come for the science-backed habits, stay for the lived wisdom and the gentle shove to try one small thing today.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs some light, and leave a review to help more listeners find us. Got a story about living healthier or a lesson from your own garden? Reach out—we’d love to hear it.
Intro for podcast
information about subscriptions
Here is the link for Sunday's 4 pm Pacific time Zoom meeting
Well, hello and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine. And uh, you know, today we're gonna merge the podcast. Usually we deal with sort of evergreen topics, meaning, you know, they're not um they're not temporal, you know. We're not dealing with current events, we're not dealing with it's Tuesday or Friday or January or March or anything like that, but we deal with topics that uh transcend all that. Um we're gonna crisscross over that a little bit because it's the end of the year, and uh I've actually taken a probably the longest time off I've taken from recording in since I started the show. Um taken about a week off. Anyways, getting back to it, got a lot of ideas and um have some opportunities to book some new guests, and so I'm kind of recharged, you know. If any of you know or don't know, um as the host, I'm Joe Grumbine, I'm the CEO of Willow Creek Springs, and you know, it I don't talk about or I haven't talked about my company very much and the things we do, but we're gonna talk about those things a little more because they apply to health and healthy living in a dramatic way, many ways. And we're gonna not so much talk about the company, but talk about the things we do and why. We'll talk about ingredients, we'll talk about sourcing, we'll talk about formulating, we'll talk about um how things work. Um, you know, health is such a such a big term, you know, and we talk about holistic deal treating the whole body, mind, spirit all as one. We talk about um finding the source of a problem and solving it rather than just covering up a symptom, all of those things. Um I'm also the CEO of Gardens of Hope. We have a little two and a half acre botanical garden where we offer therapeutic horticulture, education, and um personal retreats, all sorts of things. And I talk more and more about this nonprofit and the gardens and things like that in this podcast because I think it's important. And you know, whether you come out here to Parish, California and share um our garden or take some of the things we do here and do them wherever you are. Um that's sort of the idea. It's not so much that you need to come out here and and sit in our garden, although I love that. And I've offered many guests to come and visit, and um, you know, one day some of them will. No, actually, some of them have. I've had I've conducted interviews here in the gardens. Uh love to do that. Anyways, um I'm also a uh a guy who has overcome a very invasive cancer. So over the last year, we've been we're in our third year of the podcast, but over the last year primarily, I think I began the series in uh 24, but throughout 25, I've been sharing my journey of overcoming this cancer and um and other obstacles, as I called the series. But you know, it's about solving problems, it's about um realizing that anything can be resolved. And I'm still dealing with residual elements of this, and and we haven't even determined that I've completely gotten rid of the cancer yet, but it we're getting close for sure. Um, but my hearing's crapped out, and um I got all kinds of issues, anemia and all this stuff, which we're gonna be talking about. Also, I have a uh subscriber side to the show, and I'll be recording a subscription subscriber episode um updating my condition uh after this. So if you're interested in either supporting the show or learning some juicy tidbits, um that's the way to go. All right. Well, anyways, let's get into today's show. Um, this is episode or part two of an episode that I started a while ago um about gratitude, and really it's about um you know how gratitude affects health and also how being in nature affects gratitude. So a lot of my thoughts about health are that number one, anything's possible, and especially if you have faith in a creator. Um if you don't, anything's still possible, you just have a bigger obstacle. You basically have to do it yourself. Um and so it it there's there's there's so many ways to solve a problem. And knowing that anything is possible, that's amazing. But the second piece of this is that I'm confident, I don't just believe, I've experienced, I know that nature, the natural world, being outside, plants, the mountains, water, air, the sunlight, the earth, grounding, all the forces of nature can affect our health in a dramatic way. In all ways. And it's not just you know, emotionally, and it's not just um it's not just physically, it's it's it's every possible way being outside, being in nature, being with nature, being mindful of the natural world can affect you and your health in a positive way. And so when we're talking about gratitude, I really want to connect those two. Um there's increasing evidence and proof and validation, however you want to call it, that you know, we are what we think about. You know, the people that are miserable are constantly thinking about the problems and the misery. And the people that are happy are constantly thinking about the good stuff. It's really not that complicated. The people that are successful generally think about the things they want and how to get them. And the people that are not successful think about who knows, whatever. And and yeah, there's all kinds of variables and and and anomalies that happen through this. But if you're to look at the consistent patterns, and if you look at groups of people, and you'll probably find yourself in the midst of one of them, if you find yourself in a state of gratitude, meaning you acknowledge the things in your life that bring you joy and happiness, if you acknowledge the things that you are grateful for and spend time dwelling on that, those things tend to increase. Those things tend to um multiply, they tend to continue, they tend to um inspire offshoots, all of those things tend to happen. People that are ingrateful, they find themselves to be upset, angry, bitter, discontent, sad, depressed, and it's frankly too bad. You know, if you can't find a reason to be grateful, you know, I just went through some times in my life that wow, I do not want to go through again. But in the darkest time when I was had a giant tumor sticking out of my neck, and I had uh another one pushing in the back of my throat, and I couldn't barely walk around my yard without getting dizzy because of pressure on my carotid artery every morning, every afternoon, every day, even though I could barely sleep and I was in pain and suffering all the time. I found something to be grateful for. And I made sure I dwelt on it because I needed to overcome this. I needed to get through it, and I knew that was one of the ways that it was gonna happen. And maybe more importantly, it gave me a little bit of joy in a time of suffering. You know, you've got to find joy where you can. And so um let's jump into it a little bit. So I've gotten into a little bit about you, you know, you are what you think about. And so it's obvious that gratitude affects everything. If you're thinking about what you're grateful for, then you're you're bringing that into you. But there's also tangible things. Did you know that gratitude helps you sleep better? You know, if you think about it, what what brings about insomnia and difficult sleep generally? I mean, yeah, there's all kinds of reasons that that can happen, but you know, typically when you can't sleep, your mind is racing over something you're angsting about, over something that you're afraid of, over something you're worried that will happen or won't happen, over, you know, whatever your your problem is. And if you find your way to get yourself to sleep. And you'll write down the things that were impactful. Maybe if you're just doing a reverie journal, well, then you might you might think about more than just what you're grateful for. But for a gratitude journal, um, gratitude reverie, I think, is maybe the most important thing you can do. And uh stopping to go and think about what happened today that I'm grateful for, you know, and it and it it will put a smile on your face, and you'll go back and you'll just remember the good stuff, you know. I don't know how many people that I run into that seem to only remember the bad stuff in life. Like they'll tell me about this bad thing and that bad thing and this bad thing and that bad thing, and it's like, God dang it, do you not remember anything good? Really? Like, I remember this whole different picture, and I barely remember the things you're talking about. And we've spent the time together, we've spent this experience together over years, and yet your experience of this was terrible, and mine was great. Well, I'll take mine over yours any day, and so practice that gratitude journal. Uh, it gets easier over time, you know. You start to create neuropathways that connect you to the um those positive memories, and your memories in your brain are tied to emotions. So as you're thinking about it, remembering it, put that gratitude, put some put some feeling into it, and it will change the way you remember things in a positive way, and I think that's huge. So I really think that if you can take your mind at the end of every day and go back and think about everything good that happened in that day that you're grateful for, write it down if you can, but at least think about it. You're more likely to have some good sleep. And if you have good sleep, what does that do? We know that sleep is one of the most important pillars of health. So if you're sleeping better, you're healthy. So, geez, it's this is really a no-brainer. Um, get that gratitude to you, and you will find that uh your health gets better right off the bat. And let's look at being in nature and gratitude, and the episode one I talked about a bunch of things, and I'm kind of getting to where I left off. I think that one of the things that where I left off was understanding interdependence, and now gratitude has a lot to do with acknowledging and being mindful of things that you receive, but the interdependence of a relationship is a basis of a lot of gratitude as well. So when you give something to somebody and they receive it gratefully, wow, doesn't that feel good? You know, there's nothing worse than giving a gift to somebody and they're a petulant little child and they don't notice it, or they throw it on the floor, or they whatever, don't like it. It feels terrible, or it feels I don't know, um not good, whatever however you take it. And that's something that you know we get over, there's lessons there too. You give, you give without expectation, and you give knowing that it's going to help them some way or another, and you give realizing that it's bigger than all of us, and all of that. And so we can take it to a bigger level if we if we decide to, but reality is when a gift is received with gratitude, both sides win dramatically, and you know, I think that's why our connection with creator, our connection with God, excuse me, based on gratitude, is so important. Uh, if we realize the nature, the interdependence of that relationship, how important our side of the relationship is as well, not just the creator's side, but our side as well. And when we receive the gifts that we get gratefully, or if we don't, we have to think because that's the only way we can understand it. We don't understand a being that's so far advanced from us that we we don't have any clue how they really perceive things or but we know what we know, we know what we're told, uh, we know who we are, and we know that this being is in us. So there it seems to be that our experience would be somewhat reflective of of the consciousness of of this of this other being. So when we are grateful, I have to think that Creator, God, Jesus, however you recognize, is pleased. Just the same way when you hand a piece of candy to a little kid and they smile and they put that thing in their mouth and they just find joy, and they're just like, Yeah, or or whatever. You throw a ball to a you know a seven-year-old and they catch it and they throw it back to you, and you catch it, and there's this connection, there's this beautiful uh there's this joy that happens. Um an animal, we get those same connections on some level. Um well, in the garden we find a similar action, and when you spend time in nature, you start to recognize this interdependence on how ecosystems and plants and animals um all depend on each other, and you can be a part of this, you know, if you're tending a garden, if you're if you're um observing a garden, if you're planting a garden, if you're planting a garden, uh watering a garden, weeding a garden, all the things that you might do, you start to recognize that you've become an integral part of this ecosystem. And there is there are very noticeable actions, reactions that occur. So when you water a garden, let's say in the summertime and it's um parched, maybe some plants have already died, maybe there's plants that are wilted, maybe there's some tough plants that are hanging on, maybe there are plants in the full sun that are just protecting themselves and all wilted out, trying to just stay alive. Maybe there's plants in the shade, they're doing all right, and there's still a little teeny bit of dampness in the soil, and then you apply water to the ground, and within 20 minutes or so, everything starts to perk up, but you feel it. If you're mindful and you're in this garden, you recognize that first of all, everything cools off. So the ground itself cools, water moves heat. Um, that water begins to be transpired up into the plants. You notice within generally minutes, all of a sudden the the wilt begins to go away, unless there's still direct heat and sunlight, and sometimes the wilt just to protect the plant. But generally you'll notice everything comes up. Little animals will move around. Um, you know, sometimes if you're watering, you might spray off some um aphids or some bugs that are crawling on the on the leaves of a plant. You might wash off some dust, um opening up the pores and allowing for better photosynthesis. All those things happen, and there's an energetic transfer, there's negative ions um transferring. There's just so many things that happen with an action like that. Or if you prune off some branches and all of a sudden let in some light where there was too much darkness, or um take a branch that was crossing another and wearing it out, or or taking off a disease piece um off a tree or or off a bush, it's taking some weeds out, you know. If you think about that, well, there's a whole lesson on weeds, but when you have a bunch of weeds growing around a bush or a plant that you like, um, they're feeding from it, they're taking all the water, the nutrients, the air, the uh the sunlight, they're blocking everything. They're they're they're little vampires. So when you take that out and then give it some water, all of a sudden that plant's like, whoa, I'm free. I've got, I'm not being choked. I'm I'm I'm I can breathe again, I'm getting water, I'm getting air, I'm getting all these things. And and there's a connection. And I guarantee it, you know, people that grow pot plants, especially, um, I notice, you know, for years and years I've um I've grown and and counseled and um consulted with people about gardening those types of plants. And the thing about a cannabis plant is that they they're so responsive, they grow so fast that you know people literally will sit there and watch them, and they'll you know from day to day you can notice growth and and especially when a plant gets a little bigger, but when they're smaller, they're you know a new leaf came up. Oh, there's another leaf, another leaf, and you're you're you're watching every single leaf come up. And um it's exciting, you know. But then all of a sudden, maybe you give it a little too much care, a little too much water, it stalls out. Next thing you know, a day goes by, nothing's happening, and nothing, and all of a sudden I get the call. I don't know, there's something wrong, there's something wrong. And I'm like, without hearing a word, without knowing anything about it, I go, you know, don't watch it for a day or two, and then see what happens. And generally things get back on track. So being mindful in the garden, you can get immediate satisfaction, you can get immediate results, you can you can find gratitude easily, but it also I think gives you some perspective about time and um um letting things mature, giving things time to happen. But I I I definitely think that gratitude um brings out an understanding of interdependence, and we can transfer that into our whole life. Um, I think it's really important. Um another thing that gratitude does is it can enhance your immune system. You know, there are studies that suggest that people who are more grateful likely have stronger immune responses. And maybe it's because of reduced stress levels, better emotional regulation, all kinds of reasons why. But it kind of makes sense. Again, if you're focusing on your gratitude, you're probably thinking about your health. You're thinking about I'm grateful that I'm awake, I'm grateful that I'm alive, I'm grateful that I breathe, I'm grateful that my hands and feet work, I'm grateful that my heart beats, I'm grateful for, you know, my my immune system. Man, if it wasn't for my immune system, shoot, I'd be dead of a thousand diseases, you know. For those of you who maybe don't know me at all, which is probably most of you, you know, I didn't get vaccinated for anything. Um and I didn't get COVID, I didn't get the flu. I haven't gotten, you know, aside from this cancer, which has obviously been brutal, but it's not a contagious disease. I did this to myself. And um, but all the other people I watch over and over again, and and people, I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick, I got this bug, I got that bug. And now I know I keep myself somewhat isolated. I I live at the end of a dirt road. I spend a lot of my time outside. Um I don't go very often into crowded places, but I don't have a problem with it. I go to airports, I go to concerts, I go, I go wherever I want to go. I don't get limited by fear. I don't wear masks. Um, you know, it's ridiculous if you think about it. You know, it's like um it's like wearing a mask and trying to prevent uh toxic fumes, you know, without a respirator. It's it's you're not gonna do it. Yeah, I see these people walking around with masks, and I'm just like, uh, yeah, I get the idea, you know, it'll keep your sneeze away from me, but other than that, not much else. Anyways, back to gratitude. Sorry, I get off on a tangent a little bit. Now I do have allergies, and I am recovering from this anemia that's a uh byproduct of the chemo. But the truth is my immune system's responded better than most, and the doctors are so impressed with how I even handled the chemo. So I'm grateful for all of that and and whatever challenges I'm going through, I'm grateful that I'm here to go through them and I'm learning and I'm solving, and I'm I'm grateful I'm gonna be able to teach people how to solve that. Once I get this anemia lick, I'm gonna teach y'all how I did it. And I'm grateful for that. And I I I believe that your immune system is affected by everything. Uh, it's affected by your diet, it's affected by your genetics, it's affected by your environment, it's affected by your relationships, it's affected by stress, it's affected by your sleep, uh, your exercise, you know. I mean, hell, your lymphatic system is completely driven by motion. So if you're not exercising moving around, it's it's not doing anything. So uh it it all stands to reason that the interconnectedness of all of these things will cause your immune system to improve. And so uh without getting too deeper into that, I think at very least uh removing stress as a result of gratitude dramatically affects your immune system and its ability to respond. Um getting back into the garden, I think that um being physical, you know, when you're in the garden, it's it's kind of funny. You get out there and you find yourself moving more and it takes less effort. Whatever it is you're doing, walking, climbing, exerting yourself, uh digging, pulling something away, you you cutting something, whatever it is you you find yourself doing, it seems to be less effort, and it's easier to put an effort and activity in. And that physical activity is huge when it comes to uh your health, motion itself. You know, the human body was designed to be in motion, to stay in motion. And you know, when people find themselves sitting for too long, um, you get sore, you get stiff, you're you're hell, you can get um what do they call it, thrombosis from sitting in an airplane for too long. Um, there's so many problems that happen from people sitting for too long, laying down for too long. Bed sores happen when you lay down for too long. Um circulation problems, heart problems, every kind of problem. Um so being in motion is so easy when you're out in a garden. You know, you almost have to tell yourself to sit down and stay there if that's what you're trying to do. It's it doesn't necessarily just happen. Um when you start moving around, your mood improves. It just does. Like, try to be upset in the garden for very long. Just try it. Go out into a beautiful garden somewhere, it doesn't matter. You come out here to Gardens of Hope, go into your park, go and find a community garden, go into your own backyard garden, go to your grandma's house, your mom's house, your sister's, wherever you find the garden. Everybody knows the garden. Go into it right there at sunrise. Watch that sun come up. Go through the plants, you feel the breeze on your face, you smell a flower, see a piece of fruit or vegetable, watch a butterfly or some animal crawling around, listen to some water of some sort somewhere, and try to not be in an improved state of mind. I don't know if it's possible. And then when you set yourself on a task, right? So you go, okay, wow, this spot's getting overgrown. I need to work on it, or this area is barren, it needs to be planted, whatever it is. You're either putting something in, taking something out, trimming something, planting something, whatever it is. There is always a sense of accomplishment that comes out of working in the garden. And there's something about accomplishing something that sets in motion all these feelings that gratitude gives you. And it's like, wow, I did something great. Wow, this is wonderful. Look at that, look at that. Oh, it's it's amazing, it's beautiful. I I had something to do with that, and that's gratitude right there. It it unlocks it. And so um appreciation and gratitude, I think, are the same thing, and so when you accomplish a thing in a garden, which is so easily done, I think that that unlocks a huge amount of um the benefits that we get out of that, and you think about it in life. How many times do you find yourself really feeling like you accomplished something? Like if you're in a job and you do that same old thing every day and you have the meetings and you whatever work on the reports and you do the thing, or maybe you're in your construction and you hang some more sheetrock or pour another slab, or whatever it is you're doing, or you're a mechanic, you're cranking out, you know, a couple more cars, and you got all these nervous or anxious or upset clients, or you're a doctor, and you you know, you deal with so many patients, and but how often do you really feel like you accomplished something? You know, after a while, your routine becomes this expected routine. Um, you put up with things, you deal with it, you get through it, you make it to the end of the day. How often do you find like, wow, look what I did? I did that thing in a garden, it happens all the time. Whatever it is you start, you transform it into a new thing. You get to take your mind and you go, oh wow, look at what that would look like if I did this. And you can do it. And you know what? If you mess up, ah, do it again. Not the end of the world. So I think I'm gonna end the show here. This is the end of uh part two of gratitude and health. There's probably gonna be a couple more parts to it. I'll be a little more focused next time. But uh, you know, it's the end of the year, and I just want to share some things with the guests. I'm so grateful. I am so very grateful for all of you listeners who have chosen to find value in this show. And if you're listening at the very end of this, you know, good on you. And uh maybe you could be a guest on the show. We've had heck, I think we've had close to 200 guests over the last three years. We're gonna be entering our fourth year pretty soon. And um as shows go, this is one of the more prolific shows out there, and it's starting to get the traction and the attention that some of the larger shows do, but we don't do any marketing, you know. If you find this show is um interesting, beneficial in any way, please share it with somebody. Tell somebody about it. That's the only way this show grows, is organically and naturally. And um, I think even as they offer me the potential to put um advertisements and monetize this, I don't know that that's the route I want to go. It's it's it's not beneficial to the show itself. I mean, you know, as long as I get subscribers that carry the show itself, um, I think that's worth it. So, all right. Well, I want to thank you all for being a part of this. And um I look forward to the coming year. And please, if you're interested in being a guest on the show, get with me. And uh if you've got something to share about living healthy, an experience you've been through, something you've gone through that can help others, let's share it. All right, we'll talk to you soon, and we'll see you next time.
