This gratitude blog apparently is energizing, giving vitality, and generating enthusiasm for all of us as we continue to share and exchange stories of our own gratitudes. I love these frequent experiences with you!

On May 3, 2021, I received several different texts, comments, messengers, and phone calls from you expressing your own gratitude stories, particular to your life. Please know that I sincerely appreciate your positivity and your time to follow along this pathway to gratitude. That evening, I reflected on what triggered your desires to share your own stories. What might have been your motivations? Why are these postings meaningful to you? While I can not explain what prompts you to read my thoughts, or stimulates you to reflect upon your own personal experiences, I would like to share my initial conclusions to see if you agree.

I believe that human beings need other human beings to feel a sense of well-being. Just like we need air to breathe, and water to live, we also need people in our lives. Some of us need more people (extroverts) and some of us need fewer people (introverts), but we all need people. Why?

Let me try to explain my impressions of needing people with regard to being in a state of gratitude. When I share a story with you, you probably feel an emotion. When you share a story with me, I feel an emotion. When we share stories of gratitude, we feel happy, or joyous, or sorrow, or fear, or something… Sharing stories together is an act of exchange between people, but that exchange is different than an exchange or barter for goods, groceries, favors, and so forth.

What my conclusion is … is that sharing gratitude does not impose an obligation on the receiver. Sharing gratitude is freely given, usually from the heart or soul of the giver, without any expectation of anything in return.

It seems to me that the sharing of gratitude is similar to sharing little bursts of positive energies… maybe like when we blow soap bubbles with young children and the bubbles burst when we poke them with our fingers, or they burst naturally. Sharing gratitude is like little bursting bubbles… there is a moment of joy temporarily created. When we all feel motivated to share our stories of gratitude, we experience a little burst of positive energy, a joy bubble, a happy moment, without condition or expectation. In fact, it is often, at least to me, the element of surprise when those priceless moments emerge that is the absolute expression of gratitude! Does that make sense? I might go further to say that sharing gratitude is a bit addicting!

Let me continue a bit. I am sharing these blogs often to try to “pay it forward” a bit in my life as I have been blessed with health again after a scary illness. If I can make someone happy just a little bit, I am happy. But, my actions are to give to you without any expectation of anything in return from you. When you write to me to say, “Mary I am enjoying reading your blogs, and I need to catch up soon”, and then you go on to share your gratitude back with me about a wonderful story, or sad lost of life of a friend, or a hope or personal dream…. those actions on your part are priceless to me! At the moment I am reading your emails, or texts, or messages, I am deeply touched that you took your time to share back… your “states of gratitude” are deeply personal and meaningful and sometimes bring tears to my eyes. Also, at those moments, you are sharing the good in your life and focusing on the positives in life, not the negatives. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if more people could be positive each day rather than negative?

So, my impressions are that people in “states of gratitude” come together to experience these little bubble bursts of energies, of joys, of pure positivities, and those moments generated stimulate their hearts and brains to want to do it some more!

We tell our stories not to barter, not to “get something”, not to “brag” or compete, but rather to hold each other up each day, to comfort, to share empathy, to show we care, to tell each other we are here if needed, to celebrate, to temporarily pause during one moment of one day to recognize the good in our life!

Gratitude is good. Gratitude is healthy. Gratitude is healing. Gratitude is mindful. Gratitude energizes. I thank God for Gratitude. What do you think?

#gratitudeultra