Los Giraffes: The Grateful Bus has reached LA!
3,000 miles. 15 cities. 1,000 gratitude shares. No tickets :)
REFLECTIONS ON GRATITUDE
Gratitude. What is it really? An emotion? A mood? A personality trait? A spiritual discipline, a process of unlearning, a community-supported practice, the ability to reframe adversity, or an awareness and appreciation of the good things in life? Maybe it’s all of the above, and more!
Gratitude isn’t something new. Some evolutionary biologists suggest it even precedes Homo Sapiens. Almost all religions and schools of philosophy incorporate gratitude as a core tenet of a life well-lived. Only recently did academia apply the scientific method to gratitude to uncover certain neurological, emotional, and mental benefits that could be reliably generated with an ongoing practice.
That being said, there’s still a lot to learn about what it means to practice gratitude. Is there a difference between writing 3 things and 10 things you’re grateful for in terms of improving your mood? What if you’re given certain provocative questions over others? What if you do it 3 times a week instead of daily? What if you record your gratitude via audio, or video? What if you listen to a guided meditation alone vs. in a group? What if you write a gratitude letter to yourself, vs. someone you love, vs. someone you hate? What if you get to hear what other people are grateful for as part of your own process of becoming more aware of life’s gifts and blessings? What if certain gratitude practices are more effective for introverts, and others for extroverts? When is gratitude toxic positivity? Is comparative gratitude spiritual bypassing?
At Grateful Giraffes, we are building a global community of conscious individuals who not only want to broaden and deepen their gratitude practice, but who want to help contribute to the scientific progress of effective gratitude. The more we experiment as a community, the more we learn; the more we learn, the better the quality of the products and services we can develop and deliver at scale to make a positive impact on millions of lives and create a happier, healthier world.
THE GRATEFUL BUS
Driving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles via Miami was no easy feat. It took the Power of the Tower (a group of Giraffes is called a TOWER), supporting each other, taking turns driving, sleeping, and pushing through the night to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific in less than 4 weeks! Since our last update, we made our way through Texas & Arizona, stopping in Scottsdale to reconnect with our friend Kelvin Gastelum who we met with in Tulum and is super passionate about living a grateful life.
We then arrived in San Diego for a Friday night dinner before heading to Cafe Gratitude the next morning for brunch. Max and Adar went full Giraffe, and while walking back to the bus, bumped into Fran Mallace on the street, the head of Make - A - Wish Foundation in Arizona, and an avid Giraffe lover.
Not only did Fran and her husband Michael offer to host us at their place (where there are apparently 200 Giraffes of all shapes and sizes) on our way back to Austin through Phoenix, but we’ll bring the bus to the Make-A-Wish Arizona and invite everyone to write on it!
Sunday night, after a beautiful day in the Pacific Palisades, we joined an amazing group of people in Topanga for a BBQ and brought everyone down from the party to the road to share their gratitude.
THE GRATITUDE BOOST
A few months back, we invented The Gratitude Boost - a 25 minute group experience combining live meditation with gratitude sharing as a way to start the day with a boost of positive energy.
Initially the boosts were led & facilitated by several Grateful Giraffes team members, but over time we’ve invited guests with their own spin on Gratitude, including Marc Champagne, Ashlee Braxton, Erin Doppelt, Emily Kessler, and yesterday we were grateful to have had another amazing session today with Chester Elton, “The Guru of Gratitude” and “Apostle of Appreciation” who discussed ways in which gratitude in the work environment leads to a healthier and more productive company culture, before breaking out into small group sharing rooms focused on “What are you grateful for at work?”
Many of us have busy days and a ton to get done, but starting out the week with a brief reminder of all there is to be grateful for helps set the right tone. Next week, June 6th, we’ll be hosting our NFT Artist, Olivia Chevallier, who will lead a guided gratitude meditation. You can pre-register here and join our growing community!
Have a grateful rest of the week :)
-The Grateful Giraffes team!