With all the spirituality floating around the internet, you may have heard an influencer or two talk about the benefits of gratitude.
But you’re about to learn why GRATITUDE is a power tool for FOREPLAY, creating a greater sexual experience for you and your partner (or just you…because you’re worth it!).
First off, let me just remind you that gratitude is not just an emotion. It’s a physical response.
Joel Wong and Joshua Brown, researchers at Indiana University wanted evidence that gratitude physically changes the brain…but they didn’t do it on happy people (the way many studies are conducted).
Their subjects were students who were already seeking mental health support through counseling at a university.
They selected 300 students to participate in a 3-week study, where a group of them had to write a letter of gratitude to a person for three weeks.
Up to 12 weeks after the study ended, MRI’s continued to show greater neural sensitivity in the medial prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain area associated with learning and decision making, as well as reward-guided learning (think stress-removal as the reward here), bond-forming with others positive interactions with others, and the ability to understand what other people are thinking or feeling.
Hello, Gratitude, you ol’ sly dog, you. YOU are responsible for us feeling connected? Yes!
Therefore, gratitude helps us understand and connect in ways that open us up to physical interactions, as well as emotional and social ones…priming our bodies with dumps of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, the feel-good chemicals released when we express sincere gratitude (and when we have hot AF sex).
That prefrontal cortex says, “YES! This person is safe!” allowing our bodies to feel into them on deeper levels than if we don’t have any gratitude towards them.
And honestly, if you don’t have gratitude toward your lover, what you likely experience is a level of entitlement…a very dangerous emotion that says to you and to your lover that you deserve what they are giving you.
Ouch.
That feels a little out of alignment doesn’t it?
Because entitlement is, in fact, the opposite of gratitude, it takes some deliberate practice to wire your brain to feel the deep gratitude that they actually deserve…for whatever they do.
Here’s the thing…
Because we are all different, have different outlooks, and personalities…even different Blueprint Types™, we do and express ourselves differently. We can’t always expect our lovers to “give” or “do” for us in the ways that we want.
So, we have to learn to express gratitude for them, for their actions…even if it isn’t what we want them to be.
Because when we deliberately learn to feel gratitude for every little act of kindness, we open our souls up for MORE abundance, deeper and more fulfilling intimacy – connections that turn us on.
So, considering all the woo-hype that revolves around “gratitude”, you can now safely say that this, in fact, is science.
And it’s science that we have to work to create a very palpable level in all areas of our lives.
How to Cultivate a Gratitude Practice That IGNITES the bedroom (and your level of attraction for the abundance you crave):
- Create a weekly practice of writing gratitude letters to your lover, taking the time to express gratitude for even the small things and the things that are not what you would necessarily want. You can even make it a sacred practice where you sit down together (naked perhaps?) and write and read your letters to each other by candlelight. By the way…YOU can also be your partner. Pull out a mirror and make this work…it will change the way you see yourself.
- Create a daily moment, where you pass each other in the hall or wherever and you just look into each other’s eyes (or your own…in a mirror!) and say, “thank you for X”. These need to be random, spontaneous and consistent moments where they are not expected, so they feel less contrived.
- Stop and remember the things you are grateful for when you are feeling the most stressed. Write them down. FEEL them. And tap into YOU. You can even express why you’re grateful for the stress and the adrenaline and cortisol that floods your body when you’re stressed, in order to really grasp what’s going on inside.
When we lose any sense of entitlement and show gratitude for everything that is done for us/that we have/etc, we allow ourselves to feel connected and safe, opening our bodies up for some of the best sexual connection we’ve ever had.
Go ahead, give it a try!
Get grateful this holiday season and experience deeper connection, blooming love for your life and ever expanding and fulfilling intimacy.
It doesn’t take things to have an amazing life.
It takes being truly grateful for the abundance that is life itself.
Wishing you pleasures beyond your wildest dreams…
Jaiya, Ian and Team Pleasure
