Ever felt your heart swell with pride watching your child sing at his school’s annual day function? Or felt positive emotions flood your heart when a dog you feed regularly jumped in glee seeing you? One may think these incidents are about happiness but truth is, they are equally about gratitude. The beauty of gratitude is that it makes one feel complete in their present moment of existence. Being loved, having family, being applauded for a job well done – every time a tiny part about our life feels complete, our hearts and minds feel content in unison. Indeed, having gratitude or being thankful for something or someone in one’s life can be a deeply rewarding quality to have. One of the greatest author of self-help books, Melody Beattie writes, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” Her statement holds a lot of truth in it.
I truly understood how gratitude worked when I got Covid a few years back. My days were full of worry – of how I contracted the virus, of how sick I would get, of what we would do if other members of the family got it. The empty days and long nights just stretched on and on with worry. At a time when I had a break from work and could have truly rested and relaxed, I chose to stay anxious all the time. It is then that I started to write a gratitude journal – I began with the day I got diagnosed and wrote about each day after that. What started as a list of things that went wrong soon became a list of things that were getting fixed steadily. From the names of the medicines I was having, I moved to the gratitude I felt in my heart when I spotted a bowl of fruits kept on the staircase by my father in the evening every day. From writing about the weirdest loss of taste and smell to jotting down how delicious the plate of rice and dal felt on the day I regained just 10% of my taste buds back. Today, those ten pages that I penned from while I was sick to how I got better from Covid have a place of pride in my writer’s folder. Unbeknownst to me, the fears and thoughts of doom were converted to tiny clouds of hope by the process of simply writing.
For a practice so powerful, it comes as a surprise how gratitude features lightly in most of our schedules. We find it easier to share what makes us angry or sad. Truth is it makes our burdens lighter when we do so. However, sharing what makes us happy also has its advantages. To that effect, Soulveda highlights here a number of ways writing a gratitude journal can help transform our lives for the better.
It helps store positive memories, attracts happiness, helps process emotions, improves mental health, and addresses anxiety.
A gratitude journal prompts you to document positive experiences and things you’re thankful for. By regularly recording these moments, you create a repository of uplifting memories that you can revisit whenever you need a mood boost.
Focusing on gratitude shifts your perspective towards the positive aspects of life. This change in mindset can attract more positivity and happiness.
A gratitude journal encourages introspection and reflection. Writing about your feelings and experiences enables you to process emotions, whether they’re positive or challenging, leading to greater emotional awareness and well-being.
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