Baltimore News Journal

Grateful Labs recently disrupted the wellness and art industries by installing a Gratitude Wall at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square from March 25th, 2022, to April 9^th and hosted a massive Street-Art Installation & Wellness Festival. 

Founded in January of 2022, the company’s goal is to elevate the overall practice of self-care, wellness, and enhance the well-being of humanity by pairing ancient practices of gratitude with art and technology. The Gratitude Wall is the first of its kind installation and the company expects to install others around the globe.

The Street-Art Installation & Wellness Festival was a community-based two-week event that offered art, music, yoga, meditation, sound healing, and more. The Grateful Labs installed Gratitude Wall had thousands of signatures from those that participated in the festival and programming. 

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have suffered from declining mental health while adjusting to new norms for how they live their lives. The pandemic curtailed our social events, and social interactions were cut to almost nothing.   As a result, people all over the world began feeling the mental health impact to being alone for significant periods of time. Friendships changed…divorce rates grew, and it became harder and harder to maintain our positivity.  Throughout the past two and a half years, it has been easy to forget to be grateful for things we have, and the practice of gratitude almost disappeared completely. 

Max Marine, the Co-Founder and CEO of Grateful Labs, understood intrinsically how important the ancient practice of gratitude is, and decided to launch a company to help others get back to a better place.  He created the Gratitude Wall with his team as a first step to bringing back the daily practice of gratitude and to make being thankful cool again. 

According to Proctor Gallager Institute website, Joel Wong and Joshua Brown conducted a study on gratitude back in 2017. They found that “Gratitude disconnects us from toxic, negative emotions and the ruminating that often accompanies them. Writing a letter “shifts our attention” so that our focus is on positive emotions. The positive effects of gratitude writing compound like interest. You might not notice the benefit of a daily or weekly practice, but after several weeks and months, you will. A gratitude practice trains the brain to be more in tune with experiencing gratitude — a positive plus a positive, equal more positives.” 

Ironically, Max Marine may have never seen this study, but he has always understood how important it is to be grateful.  The Gratitude Wall’s main character is the Grateful Giraffe, due to its ancient symbolism of spirituality, positivity, and more. Since the festival ended, Marine and his team have turned their first Gratitude Wall into NFT which will launch this June 21^st on World Giraffe Day.  Those that participate will also be part of the company’s Virtual House of Gratitude. 

For more information on Grateful Labs or their Grateful Giraffe NFT, please visit https://www.gratefulgiraffes.com/ or on Instagram at:  https://www.instagram.com/gratefulgiraffes/.