Take 5 to Thrive (and get the Gratitude badge)!
We have partnered with some researchers who are pioneering a new gratitude intervention. This takes you offsite to a research site called Qualitrics. The intervention just takes a few minutes. When done, please come back to this thread and post that you completed the survey and anything that you found interesting about the intervention.
We will then award you the gratitude badge (officially titled Survey Starin 7 Cups speak) in the coming days!
Take the survey here!
This opportunity is available to all users (members/listeners). You must be at least 18 to take part.
Thank you all for your help! The more ways we can increase generosity and gratitude on 7 Cups the more people we can help.
Done! It was kinda fun to take the time to reflect on what I’m grateful for~ 🥰
@Heather225
I completed the survey. I found it very intriguing to reflect on how I felt after answering the questions. I am intrigued by the idea of feeling indebted to something or someone because we have gratitude for it. I do not feel indebted at all. But I absolutely wish there was a way to “repay” or do something transactional that makes the intangible feeling of gratitude feel paid for. I know I express my gratitude regularly as I feel it’s important for a healthy heart. I feel if I take from nature , I should give back to nature. Because actions express more than words- and as I wrote in the survey, I can’t tell my dog how much he means to me, but I can show him. Same with nature , by giving back to nature after I take from it or picking up litter… I enjoyed the survey. 🥰
@TheSunIsUpTheSkyIsBlue
Hi Blue! 😊 ❤️ Thank you so very much for your response to this forum post! I've read it three times over and it's just so amazing, so beautiful, so astute. Clearly you have a strong thinking brain as well as a "feeling brain".
I feel strongly compelled to reply even if my response is less than astute. I too am a thinker as well as "feeler" so, I'll just let this flow....stream of consciousness.....
I'm glad that you don't feel "indebted". For me, that word signifies something more of a burden, a chore, someone giving you yet another "job" to do in your life. Some sort of dark cloud hanging over ones head and being in servitude to another to repay a debt. Friendships shouldn't be like that, shouldn't have the transactional nature to it. If one gives, they should truly give freely to you with out the expectations of anything in return. This is the nature of the true spirit of giving to another with no strings attached.
I have heard it said that there are two types of people in this world, that there are givers and that there are takers. I don't see the world in black and white/extremes. I feel that there is a third type. There are people that are true givers at heart, but that simply deserve a moment now and again to ask, to take from another. We are humans. We need one another.
I think it's amazing that you express your gratitude and often and if someone was giving to you freely in the first place, that should be enough. ❤️ It seems to me that you are a true "giver" at heart, that you seek balance in your "ships" what ever type of relation"ship" that may be. I imagine you are an amazing friend, someone that doesn't seek ill gotten' gain from others (user) and an amazing pet owner and I'm guessing that even if your fur baby can't tell you, they are most grateful for you also. (As an aside, they have their ways of communicating this which, I'm confident you may already know of). 🐶
You said that "actions speak more than words" so perhaps your "love language" is service to others? You are enough, your gratitude is enough! ❤️
You know how it goes. If one is compelled, there are many opportunities in life to "pay it forward", do things for others in the name of kindness even if they are complete strangers and have no idea (being anonymous) of how or what it is that we are doing to work/help on their behalf. Seems like to me it's good people in life that somehow find ways to provide the random acts of kindness for others and so somehow, maybe, it just all evens out at the end of the day?
Thank you again for your incredibly thoughtful forum post! You brought so much joy to my heart today! ❤️
*high fives* 😊 and *hugs* ❤️
@SparkyGizmo
hello Sparky! 🥰 I’m grateful for your thoughtful response. I realize not everyone wants to entertain/surround themselves with deep thinkers and feelers, but boy do I love it and I’m so happy you do too 💜 thank you so much for your kind words about my thoughts and my writing.
I agree “ships” shouldn’t have indebtedness— it really does feel like a dark cloud. As if you’d have to get on your knees and plead gratitude every chance you get because you could never “tally” up to count and keep track of gratitude in a quantitative way. How you mention it in this context reminds me (this is my philosophy/anthropology brain) about gift giving, and how gift giving was many cultures’ original forms of paying back any indebtedness whether it be tangible (buying a sheep) or intangible (letting me use your leftover materials). This was some of the original way we paid each other back- not bartering as many tend to believe. And what is so interesting about the gift giving is there was sanctity in the inexactitude of it all. Meaning, if you received things and didn’t understand the worth of how much to repay, it was your duty to figure it out and pay it back within whichever society.
And even moreover, you are correct — acts of service and gift giving are two of my absolute favorite ways to show love. I am extremely sentimental and love making elaborate and personalized art pieces, doing little things that I know help someone. That intangible part of gratitude is interesting to me as it crosses over with very tangible things (like the actions or gifts which bestow).
Seeking balance in relationships - spot on again. And again makes me think of the gift giving as my love language and the original way of paying someone back. It’s unquantifiable to say how much money it takes to pay someone back for building you a barn or whatever random example, but the community idea, that there is discourse and communication about how to go about it, reminds us that connection and love are the root of what keeps us all alive , together and in one piece.
In modern day, gosh that’s another reply. Hehe. But thank you for your sweet words and giving me something to think about ! 💜💐💐💐
@TheSunIsUpTheSkyIsBlue
and to reply to myself to further clarify - I love the inexactitude of showing gratitude because it strengthens bonds of love and connection, it allows us to work in grey areas where things don’t need to be black and white. I always prefer a paradox over a yes/no. There is so much more room for connection there. 💜
@TheSunIsUpTheSkyIsBlue
❤️❤️❤️
@Heather225
Survey completed! Such a nice exercise, to think both about the support you get but also remember that everything, even kindness needs to be repaid with kindness and not just be taken for granted.
@Heather225 i have completed this survey!
@Heather225
i completed the survey!
done!
Filled it out a few days ago.
@Heather225 Just finished my survey!🤗
@Heather225
Completed. I am grateful for the degredation of societal boundaries and the role AI will share in establishing new and exhilarating societal boundaries. Please let me know how your research goes.