Why Gratitude? Practice Live with the Gratitude Blooming Team
Why gratitude? One answer is self-care. The brain has a biological bias to focus on the negative and gratitude disrupts this bias. This negative instinct sits in our amygdala, which while only the size of an almond is nearly as old as the dinosaurs.
The other why gratitude, and the one that is truer to our hearts, is because we are human beings and yearn for a deeper connection to each other and the world around us.
Gratitude is the bridge where we can cross from our own self-care to the care for each other.
Yes, we have this “reptilian-brain” that is often quicker to respond to the unexpected than the prefrontal, executive decision-making part of our brain. Yes, gratitude releases dopamine and serotonin, which give us both motivation and emotional stability to disrupt our default settings of fight-flight-freeze.
Gratitude makes visible what you value. It’s proactive and prosocial.
We hope you take some real-world lessons from today’s live gratitude practice with the Gratitude Blooming team, Belinda Liu, Omar Brownson and Arlene Kim Suda.
Remember, the most important practice is the one that works for you.
