Neuroscience and a love story

A counterintuitive finding and an untested assumption

Lynne Snead is the co-creator of Gratitude Mojo and a survivor of Hurricane Ian. She lives on the west coast of Florida, right on Ian’s path with her partner Mary. This story is about Lynne and Mary, but first some backstory.

Andrew Huberman, PhD, is a neuroscientist and tenured associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Huberman is a podcaster who has focused a powerful episode on gratitude: “The Science of Gratitude & How to Build a Gratitude Practice” (1hr 25 min). It’s a great explanation of how gratitude stimulates neurotransmitters and how they affect our bodies. A ton of studies have proven the benefits of gratitude for everything from greater happiness to more resilience in times of troubles. However, in this podcast, Dr. Huberman offers a finding that shocked us: receiving heartfelt gratitude is more powerful than expressing gratitude.

This study made us wonder if we were off-track … were we focusing on the wrong thing as we developed Gratitude Mojo? Finally, we realized this wasn’t an either/or situation … an effective gratitude practice requires both expressing gratitude and receiving gratitude.

There’s a problem, though. You can choose to express gratitude as often as you want, but you can’t control how often people thank you … especially in a heartfelt, significant way that stimulates the brain chemicals that deliver all the benefits of gratitude. Most of us don’t change people’s lives in a noticeably significant way every day.

Fortunately, the podcast has the answer to that … stories. Our brains are wired for stories and treat them as if they are the real thing. So, if we receive one of those powerful you-changed-my-life expressions of gratitude, one that makes us truly feel like we made a difference, we can turn it into a tiny story which can then be repeated frequently, thus stimulating more brain chemicals over and over.

(For all of you using the Gratitude Mojo journal/workbook, it will prompt you to create a story for yourself and repeat it about three times per week.)

Now, back to the love story … and an untested assumption.

In the month since Hurricane Ian wrecked a wide-swath of Florida, Lynne has been focused on clean-up, doing repairs herself that normally would be done by contractors (who are completely backlogged), dealing with a leaky roof, insurance claims, and so on. 

Plus, she has a chronic health condition that limits her energy stores, so, one day, as she tells the story, she was grumpy and gripey. She apologized to Mary for being in such a funk and explained that it had nothing to do with Mary.

As a side-note, Lynne and Mary’s love story came unexpected and late in life. They are grateful for their lives and work at not taking it, or each other, for granted.

Anyway, after Lynne apologized, Mary said something that changed the day for Lynne. Even as she told me about the incident several days later, the depth of how it affected her was obvious. However, she told me the story and then started to go on to other things.

“Wait a minute!” I almost shouted. “That’s just like one of Huberman’s gratitude stories … but it’s not actually a thank you … it’s more like a WOW compliment. You should make it a gratitude story and remind yourself of it often!” We talked about it a little bit more and left it behind.

However, after our call, this story haunted me and I wanted to make sure Lynne appreciated the potential, neurochemically, of what Mary had said, so I made a visual that she could put somewhere where she would see it often. (See image below)

Of course, I don’t know of any studies that have tested the assumption that a WOW compliment works as well as receiving gratitude, but I do know that most of us have trouble receiving compliments, especially deep ones that touch our insecurities. I believe that deeply absorbing a compliment such as this one has to activate the same brain chemistry as receiving significant gratitude.

So, I would like to recommend to all of us that we let compliments fall softly on our hearts, and that we honor them and make them visible in some way.

Here’s what Mary said to Lynne … and if no one has said that to you recently, think of it as a story and claim it for yourself. Repeat it frequently.

PS … Special offer … if you have a Wow compliment or gratitude story that can be captured in a few words and might be general enough for others to relate to it, I’ll be happy to make an image like this for you. Just email me at jwycoff@gratitudemojo.com

We appreciate your “hearts” and hope you will share this post with friends and family if you like it.

And if you would like to see other Gratitude Mojo posts, click here:

In good times and challenging ones, practicing gratitude helps us recognize the good things in our lives and build resilience for the challenges that come our way. Gratitude journaling is one of the best ways to better understand yourself and deepen your practice of gratitude.

Gratitude Mojo, the workbook/journal is designed to guide you to a better life, in whatever way you define it. It comes as a printable pdf with paid subscriptions … and also includes a copy you can gift to a friend. We’ll write more about the transformative process of doing this work with a friend in future posts.