Gratitude Inception
Today’s blog is a bit of Inception… it’s a blog about a blog about a blog.
I really enjoy sharing neuroscience with others. I’ve enjoyed writing since I was a kid, and over the past several years have found great joy in the opportunities that I’ve had to publish my thoughts built from years of studying neuroscience, teaching, living life, and talking to people. One of the most fascinating phenomenon that occurs is that when I write and publish things, they are out there in the wild. Other people use them, reference them, and talk about me behind my back. While sometimes this fills me with near-paralyzing fears and insecurities, most of the time it actually inspires me to write more.
As a professor, the most rewarding thing ever was when a student would go home and teach their family and friends something that they learned from me. My teaching could have ripple effects and touch people that I may never meet. They would come back from a Thanksgiving break and tell me all the things they’d conveyed, and I knew that no final exam could ever capture the success in learning that they’d just achieved. Now that is an amazing feeling!!
When I write and publish things, I get the same amazing feeling! I write a bit of information to share with one audience to help them on their journey, and now that information in my words can be accessed by anyone… for all time. Through writing and publishing, that ripple effect of teaching extends around the world. (Caveats: Ok, sure, some articles I’ve written are now impossible to find, and most of what I write doesn’t have much reach, but stick with me.)
Recently I found this blog entitled Greed or Gratitude published on a behavioral science company’s website, which is entirely about a blog that I wrote for Huffington Post This Holiday Season, Avoid the Pitfalls of Scrooge and Your ‘Type A’ Behavior years ago. They gave me proper attribution and linked to my original piece and really just amplified the message that I was writing about: our normal human biology drives us toward greed, and we can use gratitude to reign it in and feel better during the holiday season.
So now I want to add to the inception moment and use this blog to express gratitude for a blog about a blog about gratitude. I’m so honored and grateful when I see my words out in the world, improving lives of people I may never meet.
If you’d like to read another blog or two (by me) about gratitude, I bring up this topic regularly; usually around the holidays, but gratitude is useful all year round.
In the Gratitude for Holiday Stress blog, I reviewed the key points from a talk show appearance I did, and list out several strategies for using gratitude as a protective measure for our brains.
In the Redeeming Scrooge with Neuroscience blog, I mostly reposted the contents of the original HuffPost article.
If you’d like to learn more about the neuroscience and practice of using gratitude as a mindfulness tool, please reach out for a coaching consultation.
Thank you.
