More on Science, Spirituality and Gratitude

In Saturday’s DM, we meditated on gratitude by way of an excellent article by Thom Hartmann. Better known for his prophetic writing than his writing about his inner life, I for one appreciate his courage and candor in sharing his spiritual practice with us. Clearly, his prophetic and mystical work come together very organically.

In his article, “The Radical Power of Gratitude to Rewire Your Brain and Life,” he demonstrates how contemporary science supports his spiritual practice of gratitude. Says he, I always suspected that this daily practice of gratitude helped keep me sane in these insane times, but now I’ve discovered there’s actual science behind the mental health impacts of it.*

When we focus on appreciation, our brain “dials down the production of cortisol, our body’s primary stress hormone.” In addition, research at Indiana University has found that practicing gratitude can actually “change the structure of your brain, especially in areas linked to empathy and emotional processing.” This to me is especially interesting because empathy has become a bad word for anti-democratic activist billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel who tell us we should drop the concept altogether.

Maybe they should take walks into nature like Louise and Thom Hartmann do to learn some amazement and appreciation—the Via Positiva. And thereby, empathy and its cousin, compassion, which as Meister Eckhart makes explicit includes justice. Thus, the Via Transformativa.

Maybe learning how to relate better to one another—empathy and compassion as starters born of the Via Positiva of gratitude—might be an important thing to teach in a reborn educational system. Does gratitude even make it into our educational curricula? If not, why not?

Let it begin at home. As Hartmann puts it, these changes ripple out into nearly every aspect of life. People who practice gratitude regularly report sleeping better, probably because they’re replacing anxious thoughts with appreciative ones before bedtime.

Those practicing gratitude also report stronger relationships—no doubt because brain regions involved with social bonding and empathy are nurtured by gratitude. They also spill over into the Via Creativa–including improvements in problem solving and thinking creatively—“a thankful mind is also a more flexible one.”

So how do we develop gratitude more fully? One way Hartmann recommends and science supports is to keep a gratitude journal. This will help “reinforce positive neural pathways”, training your brain to focus on the good in your life.

Another way I propose is to read the creation mystics, as I indicated in my Saturday DM. Thus Julian of Norwich reminds us that “the first good thing is the goodness of nature” and “the goodness in nature is God” whom she calls “unending goodness” and an “endless goodness” And “to behold God in all things is to live in complete joy.”

And what the scientist and mystic Nicolas Cusa in the fifteenth century taught, that all religions will one day unite around wisdom which is “a supreme and powerful beauty.”

Pausing through the day to notice and appreciate positive moments can help reshape one’s neural circuitry. The effects of gratitude practice “appear to be cumulative and long-lasting.”  Positive changes in brain function persist months after one begins the practice. A more optimistic outlook on life develops even in the midst of the trials and tribulations of the day.  Cultivating our sense of gratitude “might be one of the most powerful tools we have” for training our brains to notice what’s right.

In my recent book on the antichrist movements of our time, the Conclusion chapter is entitled: “Be a Camel and Escape the Allurement of the Antichrist.” In it I urge people to resist the seductive power of the antichrist archetype by becoming like a camel, that is to fill up at watering holes of the Via Positiva in order to make it across the desert of the Via Negativa in our time. “To battle necrophilia, we must at dark times that seem like end times like ours become like camels who fill up at oases of biophilia and joy.”

In the video for today’s DM, I will share an article from the American Brain Foundation on gratitude entitled, “Does Gratitude Rewire Your Brain?”**

*Thom Hartmann, The Hartmann Report, “The Radical Power of Gratitude to Rewire Your Brain and Life,” November 27, 2025.

**American Brain Foundation, “Does Gratitude Rewire Your Brain,” November 26, 2025

To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.

Banner image: Gratitude for the glorious sky. Photo by Peggy Anke: on Pexels.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you practice gratitude—the Via Positiva—regularly? How are you acting like a camel and filling up at oases of joy and biophilia? How are you assisting others to do the same?

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond, pp. 101f.

Christian Mystics, p. 159.

Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ, p. 90.

Meditations with Meister Eckhart.

Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 151-165.

The Tao of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 41f.

Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 57-188.

Original Blessing.

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

A Spirituality Named Compassion.