Florida Bar News

This Thanksgiving, try thanks-receiving

Reflecting on what you’re grateful for can be very beneficial. This is probably not news to you. Tips like keeping a daily gratitude journal by jotting down a few things you’re grateful for, and thanking people for their kindness, have been widely popularized in recent years because these practices are simple, accessible, and supported by research.

This month’s column does not revisit these classic practices (links are provided below if you’re interested). Instead, it explores a different, neuroscience-informed way of working with and benefitting from gratitude. This approach flips the script by shifting from practicing giving thanks to recalling moments of receiving thanks, and it concludes with a few suggestions for upcoming gatherings with family and friends.

What Is Thanks-Receiving?

Thanks-receiving is the experience of someone expressing gratitude to you. As you may know, that experience can feel profoundly meaningful, fostering a sense of connection with another person and a sense of mattering in the world.

While it may come as no surprise that receiving gratitude can be highly beneficial, brain imaging studies indicate that these experiences engage somewhat different neural circuits than the more typical gratitude reflection. In a 2015 study, Glenn Fox and colleagues found that imagining oneself receiving lifesaving help activated brain regions involved in moral cognition, social processing, and reward. Other research on receiving gratitude shows that it can enhance people’s sense of social impact and being valued by others, which over time may shift how they see their own worth.

How to Practice

Below are two ways you can practice thanks-receiving, in addition to the in-the-moment experience of someone directly expressing gratitude to you.

The first is to recall a time when someone expressed gratitude to you and spend a few minutes reflecting on the experience. Consider what took place, how it felt in the moment, and how it felt afterward. The objective is not to analyze the memory but to feel it again. A few minutes of reflection can have a meaningful effect, and rather than generating a different memory each time, you can keep it simple (and deepen the experience) by revisiting the same memory. To try this — perhaps even now — recall a time when you felt genuinely touched by someone’s expression of appreciation. This might involve a friend, a family member, a colleague, a client, or even a beloved pet. While this method can be powerful, it can also be challenging for some, as it places us at the center of attention, even within our own mind. An approach that may circumvent this is to reflect on a time in childhood or early adulthood when you did something for a parent, close relative, or teacher, and they shared how happy it made them.

A second method is to experience thanks-receiving indirectly by witnessing someone else receiving gratitude. This might be an occasion when someone received an honor, a personal memory of another person being told how much they are appreciated, or by watching a video (like a lifetime achievement award ceremony) or reading a touching story. Research suggests that vividly imagining or witnessing someone else receive gratitude can also produce meaningful emotional, and possibly, physiological benefits.

Practicing Thanks-Receiving This Thanksgiving

In addition to the formal thanks-receiving practices discussed above, you can practice thanks-receiving when you gather with family, friends, colleagues, and even clients. One way is by allowing words of appreciation to fully land — without deflecting them, minimizing them, or quickly turning the focus back to others. If someone thanks you for hosting, cooking, cleaning, or helping them this year, savor the moment, remain present with them, and offer a response like, “That means a lot to me,” or “Thanks for letting me know.”

You might also invite people to share something they appreciate about one another, or leave out simple note cards for guests to write messages of appreciation to others and place the recipient’s name on the envelope. And remember, when you express gratitude to others in the more traditional form of thanks-giving, you create an opportunity for them to experience thanks-receiving.

We wish you a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season, and we are grateful to you — members of our profession — for the important work you do and the many ways you enrich the lives of others.

Should you anticipate moments in the coming weeks where a conversation may become a little challenging, you may find of interest last year’s column: Staying Calm and Connected: Mindful Strategies for Meaningful Holiday Conversations.

Scott Rogers, M.S., J.D., is a nationally recognized leader in the area of mindfulness in law and founded and directs the University of Miami School of Law’s Mindfulness in Law Program where he teaches mindful ethics, mindful leadership, mindfulness and negotiation, and mindfulness in law. He is the creator of Jurisight, one of the first CLE programs in the country to integrate mindfulness and neuroscience and conducts workshops and presentations on the role of mindfulness in legal education and across the legal profession. He is author of the recently released, The Mindful Law Student: A Mindfulness in Law Practice Guide, written for all audiences.