“You should be grateful for what you’ve got!” It was a line I heard often as a child, usually when I was pouting or crying about not getting something that I really wanted. It took a lot of years to realize that it wasn’t just one of those lines you hear growing up as a child, but it was a nugget of wisdom that is the key to achieving balance (at least for me).
It wasn’t until sometime early in 2009 that I began to write in a gratitude journal. It was a concept that I read about often, I was listening to a lot of Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer and it seemed to be one of their many common messages. I finally decided to try it out, since I was finding it hard not to let the negative occurrences in my life affect my overall outlook. When I first started writing, I set a goal of finding 10 things to be grateful for and there were days that 10 was a struggle to get to. I also didn’t start writing in my journal every day… Usually I would be inspired to write in my journal because “something really good” had happened to me that day.
By mid summer I had established a daily routine of meditation and daily gratitude journal entries. It got a lot easier as time went on. I’m at the point now where I write a full page each day, and I think that I could even do more than a page if I set aside the time for it. I find it a particularly good exercise when I haven’t had the best day. When you take the time to focus on all of the things that are going well in your life, the bad stars to look “not so bad”.♥
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