Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to the Ad Heart Podcast, the podcast that inspires heart first living. This is where you'll get practical tools to reduce stress, inspire creative action, and energize your personal growth momentum, along with ways to apply these tools. And now here's your host, Deborah Rosman.
Speaker 1 00:00:21 Hello everyone. I'm Deborah Rosman and a warm welcome to our listeners for our November Ad Heart podcast. And our topic is amplifying gratitude. And the purpose of Ad Heart podcasts are to inspire forward movement and heart powered intention. And amplifying gratitude is one of the key ways we can do that. It's so important not only anytime, but especially at these times. And I think you're going to enjoy hearing from my guest Jacqueline Way. Jacqueline is the founder of 365 Give. She's an international keynote speaker and philanthropist whose vision is to change the world, one give and one day at a time. And Jacqueline has a passion for developing initiatives that will create a positive global impact and connecting people to their personal happiness through small giving actions every day. Welcome, Jacqueline. You are doing such wonderful work helping people understand how the power of giving opens the heart to feeling gratitude in the giving. And I just wanna underline that because it's such an important concept that when we give, it feels good, it lives us and we feel grateful for that. And the gratitude of the heart connection in the giving and researchers around the world have been studying what people call the helpers high that comes from giving and the gratitude we feel doing that. And I'd love for you to talk about that. It's so wonderful to have you here.
Speaker 2 00:02:04 Well, thank you Deborah. It's such an honor for me to be here. You know, I am. I such a fan of the work that you do in the world, and not only the message, but really the power that you are giving each of us. I am a practicer myself, um, of the heart math, um, uh, ways, uh, and at home practice, uh, myself. Because what we know and what I have learned through my own personal practice is when we can connect our heart to how we go out in the world, it truly changes everything. It changes not only ourselves, but it changes everything around us. So it's a perfect connection to, you know, how I show up in the world and the work that we do through 365 gives. So thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 00:02:48 You know, gratitude, thank you for that. And gratitude or appreciation, they're two closely related energies.
Speaker 2 00:02:56 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 1 00:02:58 They're so important. And we all kind of know that as children, we're taught to say Thank you please and thank you. And it always feels good, but it starts to become rote. And even in the USA in November, we celebrate Thanksgiving holiday to feel gratitude for what we have. And people love the concept, but it can feel rote after a while if it's not sincere and genuine from the heart. And again, most of us feel gratitude when someone gives us something like a kindness or something meaningful. But to feel gratitude as we do something meaningful for others isn't something that we often highlight ology. And yet it's so important for amplifying the benefits that practicing gratitude brings. And I would just love you to tell your story of discovery, how gratitude moved you to do a year long experiment with your son to give something each day. And you did a commitment together so it was meaningful and it motivated you to create 3 50, 365 give. So tell us your story of waking up to the power of gratitude.
Speaker 2 00:04:13 Absolutely. And you know, I, I love one of the things that you've, you've said in here too, Deborah, that it's, you know, we feel grateful when someone gives us something and we feel grateful, especially when it's meaningful. But really when you truly understand the power of giving, that's where our heart center truly turns on and amplifies and it amplifies through our body and amplifies through our brain as well and, and truly encourages us to begin a daily given practice. And that's what started for me and my son. I feel very blessed in my own life. I am, uh, an adoptive mom of three beautiful little boys. And if you want a moment of gratitude, when you hold your child in your arms for the very first time as an adoptive parent, the overwhelming feeling of gratitude and love can almost make your heart explode. It's a remarkable experience.
Speaker 2 00:05:06 Um, and one of the things that I realized that I wanted to do as a parent was really help my child understand how he could become a kind, compassionate, loving human being. You know, and it's something that we don't always focus on as parents, but the blessing of going through the adoption process was we got asked lots of good questions through that process. And it really helped me become very clear with how I wanted to show up as a parent and my expectations for my child. And it wasn't going to school, it wasn't getting a university degree, it wasn't becoming a doctor. It was just how can I help bring out the best in any child that I was blessed with in my life? And that was kindness and compassion and love. So when I thought he was old enough, at the ripe old age of three, I decided I was gonna start a personal parenting project with him.
Speaker 2 00:05:56 And we were gonna do one small thing to give back to the world every day for 365 days. And obviously now the name of our charitable organization 365 Give. And I think the unique thing of what we did is that it had to be so simple a three year old could do it. And what I realized through our 365 give journey was that giving really is the common thread that runs through every single person on this planet. It's not different for anyone, whether you're three years old or you're 93 years old. The beautiful effects that giving and gratitude have on our physical being, our mental, our mental being and our wellbeing is absolutely remarkable. And then you tie it into the work that you all do in the world with heart math. And all of a sudden when you start practicing giving and gratitude in your life, you realize that you are actually stepping into who we truly are.
Speaker 2 00:06:57 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, both as human beings, but also as energetic beings. And this is what I learned from giving every day, was that it was actually the opportunity to not only become who I truly am, which to me is love, but it's actually to take that part of my myself and put it out through my hands. Right? It's this beautiful experience that both energetically and mindfully, when we give, we're putting the best of ourselves out into the world every day. And it be benefits the world around us and it benefits us. Most of all. It's our daily dose of happiness. I call it. It's this beautiful chemical reaction that happens in our heart and our brains. It just makes us feel absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1 00:07:40 You know, I love that there's, you reminded me of the saying, it's better to give than receive mm-hmm <affirmative>. And a lot of people go, Really? But we don't understand necessarily the heart math of that. The math that in giving you are receiving all these wonderful biochemical changes and heart rhythm changes in yourself, let alone helping someone else. So it is that amplification and like you discovered, doing a little something every day or like random acts of kindness is also part of that. You feel grateful for that. And you know, just take a moment to, let's look at the research on this because it's so important. And I'll tell you first why I feel even more motivated right now. The American Psychological Association last week released a Harris Poll survey that found that 25% of the adults in the United States said they're so stressed out, they can't even function.
Speaker 1 00:08:44 And it's all the fear of what might happen in the world in inflation in life. There's so much insecurity and instability and if that, our perception is that those are real challenges, but the heart shuts down and when the heart shuts down, we aren't giving to ourselves or anyone else. And then we do get paralyzed. We feel we can't function as we're caught in that. And yet just a little bit of giving or gratitude can reopen the heart and can start to change the communication from the heart to the body to the brain. So you're seeing more opportunity, more hope, more possibility. And that is one of the gifts of appreciation and gratitude. It's not just a sweet thing to do and you know, heart,
Speaker 2 00:09:32 It's just good for you. And that's, and that's the beautiful part. It's, it's what you were talking about earlier with the helpers high. You know, this daily dose of happiness as we call it, this is our dopamine, our oxytocin, our serotonin, and even our endorphins, right? It's always how I remember it, I'm not a neuroscientist, but when I always remember that I'm getting that daily dose of happiness, it changes the way an intention. I no longer randomly give anything. I actually set an intention every day that I am going to look out into the world and I am actually gonna find my way to give. Because when we change our perspective, when we set a clear intention that we are gonna give from our heart today, we're then setting our day up for success. We're setting our day up to, to ignite that daily dose of happiness within our brains, our hearts and our bodies. That's going to actually be our prescription for good health and wellbeing in our lives. And that's the big thing that you were talking about, right? Like we're in a pandemic of mental health crisis right now, which is stress and depression. And this is literally a prescription as researchers and scientists call it a prescription for better mental health and uh, health in general.
Speaker 1 00:10:47 Absolutely. I mean, it's your own inner pharmacy. You're activating. Let me list some of the research for our listeners, which I think they'll appreciate on appreciation and gratitude cuz there are many physiological, psychological and health benefits. And heart math institute's been leaders studying this for nearly three decades. And one study found that states have just genuine heartfelt appreciation led to what we call heart rate variability coherence, which signals the brain and improves cognitive function and health related outcomes because it causes a synchronized activation in multiple brain regions and lights up parts of the brain's reward pathways. So gratitude can boost endorphins that produce a natural euphoric rush, It boost oxytocin, as you mentioned, Jacqueline, the lover bonding hormone where you feel more warmhearted connections with others. It boosts serotonin, a neurotransmitter that makes you feel happy and calm. It activates the brain stem to produce dopamine. The brain's pleasure chemical, it boosts immune system functions which helps to lower stress and lower blood pressure. I mean, if you look at all that together, five minutes, incredible feeling gratitude is better than any drug
Speaker 2 00:12:15 That you could possibly ask for between gratitude and giving. And especially this time of year as we're going into the holiday season. And as you said, you know, Thanksgiving's right around the corner, you know what if we started that practice right at home and we all started at home with our friends and family where we're practicing the gratitude, we're understanding the power of giving and how that personally affects us, how it's gonna affect our friends and family around us. And then how that creates that ripple that we literally can go out and it takes, takes out into our communities and then the world at large. Because when we make that change and that difference, we create these practices that affect ourselves. You all talk about this all the time, this then energetically changes the field of the entire planet. And so we always say, you know, we can change the world in just one day. If 7 billion people came together in small acts of giving and gratitude every day, every day in just one day, we are all effectively changing the world around us and rippling that out to everyone. And that's what I love about the work you do and the work we do is that they're so intertwined that we could in just one day change everything
Speaker 1 00:13:29 That would be so powerful and magical. And I know our interconnectivity research at Heart Math Institute, we're trying to actually prove that out and publish it in scientific journals so that people can believe it because it's so easy to focus on the fear and the downsides of what we don't have. And the mind tends to rehash that over and over emphasizing that. And that creates a whole different cascade of biochemicals stress hormones, that that's all, you know, it's so, it's like sometimes it creates an inertia to get out of that cuz people can go, Oh, I'm so stressed, or I'm so depressed or I'm so anxious. They don't, When you're in that state, you don't believe that focusing on gratitude for five minutes could really lift you out of it. But it can. And that's how it can lift the world if we did, as you are suggesting, is have everybody consciously activate gratitude for even one little thing we do have.
Speaker 1 00:14:30 Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a pet, or by giving to others that can open the heart connection, it can open the field environment, it creates all these positive health benefits. And so just really, if you're one of the people listening to this who's been stressed or anxious or depressed, overcome the inertia and do something today for yourself by feeling activating some sincere gratitude or appreciation giving to someone or something. It could be a time in nature and you're giving to the earth, or it could be a time with a pet or with another person. Whatever is easy for you to step into. And that starts the heart opening and it starts to lift our vibration, our attitude, our thoughts, our feelings, our experience of life. And that's what I so want for everybody during this holiday time. You know, a lot of people talk about keeping a gratitude journal and I think it's a wonderful thing to do.
Speaker 1 00:15:37 A friend wrote to me saying, you know, I always end my day by writing down five things. I'm grateful for that day. And I do it not only cuz it amplifies my gratitude for those things, it seems to magnetize more positive things for me. It's like a magnet attitude of gratitude. And it never fails to lift me out of my petty concerns and remind me how blessed I am, even if I'm having a hard time. So how often do we do that? You know, we, the mind gets so busy and gets so preoccupied with what it doesn't have and what the problems are. And yet at the end of a day, spending a few minutes just appreciating ourselves for doing the best we could or appreciating what we did, rather than be rating ourselves being so self judgemental, which again activates stress hormones. So it's a shift to me, the shift in consciousness on the planet is a shift from all this downside projection, not to some Pollyanna false hope, but to truly activating the heart, brain synchronization and the biochemicals to become who we truly are to be able to connect with others. And I know you're trying to educate people on all this, so talk more about the personal benefits of gratitude, what you found.
Speaker 2 00:17:07 Absolutely. Well, you know, I think one of the things that people that hold them back are a couple things. And one is, is the time factor. I, I don't have time. I don't have time. And you know, one of the things that I suggest that people can do to really get that helpers high, um, and gratitude, um, uh, chemical reaction going on in our bodies that you so beautifully spoke about is, you know, we all carry where most people in the world these days carry a phone. What if it was as simple as sending a note of gratitude, a quick text to a friend, to someone in your life, to a coworker where you're taking the power of giving and the power of gratitude and you're using that yes to your benefit. Absolutely. And then you're benefiting everyone around you as well. You know, we all send, I would hate to think how many text messages a day, What if just one of those was in gratitude each day?
Speaker 2 00:17:58 You know, our brains also have this beautiful power that even in studies have shown this, both with, again, gratitude and giving that we can use the power of our imaginations when we just sit and we think about the things and get the imagery in our minds about what we're grateful for in our present life right here and now. And, and literally things that we have either done in the past to give or things that we wanna do in the future. This stimulates all of those beautiful chemicals that you're talking about as well. So if we feel that we can't be grateful for something in our day, we can even just sit and close our eyes and imagine someone we are grateful for in our life. Or we can imagine a moment where we were doing something to give back. Maybe you over covid, you know, you spent time in your community giving back or preparing food or helping people in need or buying groceries and delivering them to friends.
Speaker 2 00:18:53 These are all ways that we can use the power of our imagination, these neuro neurons that literally will stimulate the same chemicals in in our brain. But you know, we always say to people, they always say, Well, how do you give every day? You don't have to do something different every day. If you go for a walk every day out in nature, for me it's running. I'm a beach runner. I make sure I'm picking up garbage along the way because then I'm making that connection to what I am doing, creating the meaning and purpose and value that I'm adding to the planet. How I'm helping not only myself, but I'm helping the world with climate change. I'm helping the animals that swim in our oceans. I'm helping the animals that live on our planet so they're not eating the garbage. And all of a sudden that's amplifying. Not only am I helping right in my neighborhood, but I'm actually making that big difference at a global scale just by doing something as simple as picking up garbage every day.
Speaker 1 00:19:47 Beautiful. Well, let's close with a heart meditation that we can all do to amplify our gratitude and appreciation and set our intention to actually do something to be grateful for, to give to ourselves and others. So focus your attention in the area of the heart and just imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area. And breathe consciously on the in breath. Imagine breathing in love through your being and in the out breath, radiate the feeling or quality of gratitude. Just doing this for 30 seconds raises our vibration and helps to bring heart, mind, emotions, nervous system body, and to coherent alignment and stillness. Now let's radiate and expand our gratitude as we continue heart focused breathing to all people who are giving to others, All the people helping to reduce suffering are consciously making the world a better place. Let's radiate our appreciation, gratitude. As we radiate gratitude to others, we amplify gratitude within ourselves. So see more individuals and groups awakening to this heart power of gratitude and appreciation. Not just as a nice thing to do, but as a true energy of vibration that can lift themselves. Help lift humanity and lift the world.
Speaker 1 00:22:51 Now let's, at each of us ask your heart, where's one area that I could give more gratitude or appreciation? <affirmative>, where could I amplify gratitude? And let's set an intention to do that in just one area of our lives. Could be with a friend, a loved one, somebody in need, something you wanna do during the holiday season. Something that will really okay, help you feel that helper's high, that gratitude and help another.
Speaker 1 00:24:03 Now let's close this heart meditation by co-creating together a reservoir of appreciative hard energy. Imagine a reservoir of hard energy, of appreciation and gratitude that each of us can access draw upon as needed over the next month. If we feel down, tap into that. Or to help us amplify the gift of giving gratitude and appreciation to others or to ourselves for turning around a down sl. Every time you take a down sl or a self-criticism or a fear to your heart. And turn it around, not by denying it, but by appreciating something in your life, lifting it, and getting some new perspectives. You are giving a huge gift to yourself, to others in the world. Let's co-create that reservoir we can tap into whenever we need to. Thank you. And Jacqueline, I'm so grateful for you and I'm sure your story has inspired many of our listeners, and
Speaker 2 00:25:51 Thank you for having me. Oh, it was a pleasure to be with you all and thank you for the work you do together. You know, we can change it. All right,
Speaker 1 00:25:59 We can. And speaking of giving and gratitude, we are grateful for our listeners. And I wanna let all of you know that you can get free access to the heart math experience, an amazing online video course of tools and techniques that you'll find helpful. And to amplify gratitude, it's our gift to you. And if you don't currently have a practice, so want to try a new practice for putting your gratitude out to the world, I invite you to go to the heart math websites to get your free access and see what other free materials or what you might want. And be sure to watch chapter eight of the heart math experience on the science of social coherence. And you'll learn an important technique for activating your own warmhearted connections and endorphins and oxytocin, and contribute to creating a more heart connected world. And I wanna remind you that the third Tuesday of every month we publish a new episode shall be sure you subscribe to the at heart podcast so you don't miss our next guest and topic. Take care and thank you for contributing your heart.
Speaker 0 00:27:15 Thank you for listening to the A Heart Podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you can catch the latest episodes. If you're wanting even more heart inspired content, find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Look for heart math and also the Heart Math Institute. Both organizations are committed to helping activate the heart of humanity.
