What is gratitude other than a feeling? What are feelings other than a chemical reaction between two nerve receptors firing in the brain?
While the scientific literature can spell out the functions and mechanisms of neurotransmitters in our brain, I still haven’t seen a source that fully describes my experiences with Gratitude.
Gratitude is not just a feeling, it’s an almost magnetic reaction to the world around us. When this attraction is strongest, gratitude colors our world and almost all interactions have a pulse or a pull to them. I’ve found myself feeling grateful about the communities around me and in the very same day discovering further affirmation of this fact.
One can say that it’s a cognizant bias. I’d agree. Yet, more than a bias, when it proliferates past the walls of my own life and integrates with another’s, does it remain a bias or become a leap into reality?
The gratitude effect in essence is a mental model that delivers breadth in three ways:
- Personal relationships
- Prosperity
- Health
I find the first two to be intuitive, but the last is more challenging. A good example that solidified the Health concept was given to me by a teacher. Gratitude delivers breadth in health because the feeling can be a catalyst for movement. Movement spiritually, but also physically. When we come believing and honoring our body for the vessel it is and purposefully focusing on relaxing it, we find space. This is the intersection between yoga, our mind, and our body.