Do you keep a gratitude journal?
If so, are you aware you are most likely leaving out the most important piece?
I speak to people all week long. The one thing they all have in common is they want to live their best lives; mind, body, heart, and spirit. Many of these people meditate to an app, do some form of movement or exercise, eat in a way that fuels their busy lives, make time for loved ones (including pets), get out into nature, and finally, they write daily in a gratitude journal.
The gratitude journal has been made popular by the Dalai Lama, Oprah, Arianna Huffington in her book Thrive, and the popular movie The Secret. You can find all sorts of gratitude journals in book stores and gift shops. They have become the new thing to do for those seeking a balanced, high-performance life.
Why do a Gratitude Journal?
The newest style of Psychology is called Positive Psychology for a reason. Instead of focusing on all the things that can go wrong, the modern way is finally focusing more on how to improve what can go well in order to consciously grow a life with more happiness and less stress, which of course is a universal desire for everyone. The Gratitude Journal is often used to assist people suffering from depression, in order to help re-wire the brain to have a balanced sense of what is working amongst all the barrage of negative, critical thoughts that dominate a depressed mind.
You do not need to suffer from anxiety or depression to start enhancing your life with the technology of Gratitude.
How does the Gratitude Journal work?
By focusing the mind on clear, simple questions, it is forced to focus on what it is asked. We take our conscious thoughts, and allow them to guide us to the appreciation that was always there. By focusing on them daily, we grow this sense of wellbeing to spread beyond the pages of our journal into our day to day lives.
Examples:
What is working for me in my life?
What am I grateful for today?
What went well?
We can activate our ability to focus, and see that many things are actually working in our favour. This eases stress and increases self-trust and confidence.
So, do you want to know the powerful missing piece?
YOU.
Yes.
I discovered most people do not put themselves on their own list.
They don’t celebrate their wins.
They don’t acknowledge facing a fear, or a making a difficult choice or speaking up for themselves.
There is tendency to focus on all the other things in their lives, which is amazing, but why leave yourself out?
It is more common to ruminate on everything you didn’t do, or could of done better. ‘Shoulds’ and have-to’s are so loud, that we need to train our ability to see our own wins for the day. We can do this by adding the practice of Self acknowledging to our wellbeing habits.
We feel so good when we are seen, noticed, celebrated and acknowledged!
So, why don’t we make this the new thing to do.
How to Apply this?
Begin with Daily Self-Acknowledgments, or even weekly if that’s all you can muster.
Start there, then circle out to all other areas of your life.
Examples:
I am so glad I went on that 10 min walk in between tasks.
Wow, I didn’t eat that second cookie.
I bit my lip when I wanted to snap at that snarky waitress today, Im glad I didn’t say something that isn’t really who I am.
I said I love you to my partner, when my ego wanted to do the silent, stand-off thing.
I meditated for 2 min, even though I didn’t do 10min I know I am on track and doing the things I know work for me.
Think of yourself as cultivating your own inner-cheerleader, ally, or fairy grand-mother. Whatever works. (I mean, who doesn’t want their own fairy grand-mother?!)
If you decide to bathe yourself in all sorts of compliments in celebratory appreciation for how you are rocking it out in your life, you will start to notice less inner criticism, and less need for outer approval.
When you begin to train yourself to see your own worth, the world will follow.
Add Self Acknowledgments to your Gratitude list today.
Let me know how it goes!