In All Things, Give Thanks
On November 26th, we will all gather together with our friends and family and count our blessings. This is a lovely tradition, and something many of cherish and look forward to.
So why don’t we do it the other 364 days of the year?
Gratitude is one of the most powerful, positive emotions that exist. Yet harnessing this incredible power is something many of us often forgot about, neglect or dare I say, don’t appreciate. Using this power, and using it daily, can be a life-changing experience.
Think about the last experience you had where you were so engaged in something that time stood still. Whether it was reading a really incredible book, or working on a project you were excited about, or watching your child gleefully toss leaves in the air, being in the moment is a positive, joyful experience. I have noticed that most of our fears and anxieties come from dwelling on what past experiences we’ve had or worrying about what the future will hold. When we are present, worry, fear and stress diminish. Channeling feelings of gratitude are a great way to immerse oneself into the present moment, reducing stress and increasing positive emotions.
And best of all? Gratitude is free. It doesn’t have any calories. It doesn’t have any side effects. It doesn’t require a membership, a baby-sitter or having to remember a password with one lower-case letter and 3 numbers. It can be done anytime, anyplace, anywhere… it is the ultimate feel-good fix.
An easy way to get started creating this experience is with a gratitude journal. I like to think of this as collecting evidence. Seeing in black and white, over the days and eventually weeks, all the evidence of good things in your life is powerful. Journaling can be, and should be, simple, straight-forward and stress-free.
Here are some tips she shares for starting your own gratitude journal, created by Keena after she was inspired to start her own journal recently:
• No rules. Avoid setting up expectations like a number of items, or not being able to repeat the same thing. You should never like you have to repress a gratitude. (I agree! In my own gratitude journal, my husband, my dog, and my health insurance repeat almost daily.)
• Missing days: don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day. Go back if you want, or just start fresh with a new day. It’s meant to be something you enjoy doing.
• Leave blank spaces: you may want to go back and add something later that occurs to you.
• Reframing: Keena noted that the word “gratitude” can create an expectation of a certain importance or significance for some. Reframing the exercise to “things that made me happy” and you’ll find your list can include everything from seeing your toddler giggle, to the perfect squiggle of caramel on top of a coffee, to the great parking space you got.
You can journal any time of day. Morning journalers often reflect on the day past, or on what’s to come before them. Starting the day off in this mindset creates an expectation for positive experiences throughout the day. (And as we know – you get what you’re looking for!) Night time journalers might use the time to reflect on the day, walking through each event purposefully seeking out the moments, the memories or the people that created positive emotions.
Thanks to technology, you can even journal easily throughout the day. In fact, there’s even an iPhone application called the Happy Tapper that lets you journal, or create a vision board, right on your phone. That’s right… there’s an app for that.
The creator of the iphone app, Carla Kay White, was inspired to design the application as a way to share with other people the incredible shift that using a gratitude journal created for her. She says just a few months of journaling changed her life, including better sleep, weight loss, more meaningful personal relationships and more fulfilling experiences with her career. When I spoke with her, it had been over a year and a half since she started journaling and she said the effects of it are still going strong.
Carla says, about journaling, “It’s a snowball effect. Everything just seems to get bigger and better. This doesn’t mean I don’t have any issues or struggles in my life. Everyone does. I can handle them so much better and know not to let them get the best of me.”
Now that’s compelling evidence! (Read more of Carla’s story on her blog or the rest of my interview with her here.)
Almost everyone who keeps a gratitude journal talks about a shift that starts happening after a few weeks. You begin looking for things to be happy about. And the more you look, the more you find. You might also find that you begin to express appreciation for the personal interactions in your life that you’re grateful for. Small things, like your spouse unloading the dishwasher or a neighbor rolling the trashcan up to your home, become acts of service to be celebrated and acknowledged. And like any good dog trainer will tell you, what you reinforce you get more of!
One regular journaler noted that over time he began to recognize that the experiences he captured in his journal were not things that cost him any money. As someone who was constantly stressed about his financial situation, using a journal helped him recognize that what he valued most was the stuff in his life, it was the moments. This helped him create criteria for spending money: is this an investment in a moment or experience that will make my life (or my loved ones) life happier or easier?
A few months ago, I started small with my gratitude journal – I aimed for one day a week. I started a tradition called Thankful Thursday in my personal blog, and every Thursday I would list all the things that came to mind that had made me happy that day. Two weeks ago, I was in Starbucks meeting a client on a Thusrday afternoon. The barista making my drink said to me, “What are you so happy about today?” Without a moment’s hesitation, I said “It’s Thursday!” I assume that she figured I meant “and thus, tomorrow is Friday!” but in that moment, I realized how much I had come to delightfully anticipate Thursdays. In fact, I would often go through the day looking for things to add to my list.
After a few months of Thankful Thursdays, I’ve now graduated to daily journaling. Every night before I go to bed, I walk through the past day in my head and jot down everything that comes to mind that has made me happy that day. My lists range from a delicious glass of wine to the safety of a friend who was in a traumatic car wreck. Sometimes I write for 2 minutes, sometimes its 20 minutes later and I’m filling up the margins on the side. While I journal at night, the experience of being grateful lasts all day long. When I sit down to reflect on the wonderful things I’ve experienced that day, it’s often times almost overwhelming how much there is in my life to be thankful for.
Why do we save up our thanks for one day of the year when we could be experiencing this incredible emotion every single day? For some people, the idea of focusing on gratitude might seem like a bit of a Pollyanna experience. It’s easy to get caught in the vicious spin cycle of stress, worry, and fears and forcing oneself to “find the silver lining” might feel like a platitude that ignores the real problems that every single human faces in their daily life.
Carla said she was skeptical at first, and understands the doubts of other people who wonder how just putting words to paper can really bring about change. She encourages people to try it, every day, for a month and just see what happens. “A shift will happen. It most likely won’t be in the way that you imagine it to. But that’s ok. Trust that the universe is working for you and it will. Just keep telling it what you’re thankful for so it knows what to keep giving you. You’re having a conversation with the universe all day anyway, why not take control of it?”
While focusing on gratitude might not make your problems disappear with a magic wand, it can put equal weight on the other side of the see-saw of emotions that worry and stress often runs us over with. We humans are accustomed to finding fault in many things – customer service, traffic, managers, family members, our government, and most notably – ourselves. For most, it is a complete shift in perspective to begin actively seeking positive experiences in our day to day routines. Flexing the gratitude muscle over time strengthens it, until like any action repeated frequently enough, it becomes automatic. Imagine that? Feeling good, all the time, automatically?
That sounds like something to be thankful for.
