CE Insight: The Best Way To Practice Gratitude

Gratitude practices have been all the rage for many years.

I recall writing about studies on gratitude about a decade ago when scientist Antonio Damasio and his team revealed the most effective ways to practice gratitude.

Interestingly, their findings didn't become the predominant ways people practice gratitude and thus are missing out on the most potent way to practice.

Damasio's study here, which I wrote about in 2015, and a study published in PLOS One here reveal that RECEIVING gratitude is most effective.

Here are a few takeaways...

1. When you give GENUINE gratitude to others, you are helping to shift their pro-social behaviours in a beautiful way. Yours shifts a bit too, but most potently, theirs does.

The same potent benefit is experienced when you receive gratitude. It's significantly more powerful than giving it.

This is likely why when people genuinely volunteer to help people with things, it can feel so rewarding. Not only do we often get their thanks, but we connect with the idea of serving others which is powerful in itself.

2. Next, genuine feelings of gratitude matter when it comes to studies. If feelings are forced or not truly felt in the body, there isn't really a benefit.

You want to keep an eye out for veering into toxic positivity territory which can happen when we force ungenuine feelings.

3. That said, since waiting around to receive gratitude isn't ideal, you can practice generating those feelings of gratitude via an envisioning practice where you focus on genuine moments when you received gratitude in the past.

Before we get to the practice, I do want to say the idea here isn't to focus on receiving gratitude to replace our practice of giving gratitude to others.

The Practice: Sit comfortably and imagine a time when you received gratitude. Play the experience over in your mind and body. Notice sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts arise from the event. Truly make it an embodied experience and allow the feelings to grow.

Not only will this help shift the prominence of fear centers in the brain, and bring more ventral vagal tone online, but it will bring you back to your body. Something we've often become cut off from in our modern life.

This becomes a powerful practice when you make time for it regularly, enjoy!

3 Latest Podcast Episodes:

Ep. 43 | Staying Grounded & Resilient in Chaotic Times

Ep. 42 | Astral Genesis & Gates of The Annunaki with Jason Quitt

Ep. 41 | Conspiracy & Ways of Knowing with Dr Madhava Setty & David Helfrich

Contemplative Quote:

"We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, ITT, AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today." - Paddy Chayefsky

Switching it up here this week. I chose a quote from one of our articles on The Pulse this week. It spoke about corporations, their treatment of customers, and how it's reflective of a traumatized society. Check it out here. - Joe