I forgot to journal yesterday. Missed day 14! I will celebrate 14 straight days, I will celebrate continuing to journal without berating myself too much over being otherwise engrossed. Most importantly, I will celebrate that there is no break in the task I assigned myself to complete daily. Personally, I find THIS journaling more impactful than my daily written page in the super special FSJ notebook.
Additionally, I am still grateful. before I embarked on the task of FSJ, I had incorporated daily gratefulness exercises into my daily life. Years ago, as a matter of fact. I consider it one of the primary factors responsible for a vast improvement in my mental health and my increased ability to take the edge off my anxiety.
I share the gospel of Gratefulness exercises whenever an appropriate opening presents itself in conversation, as it just did now. If you begin taking a moment or two in your day to reflect on the positive, even the smallest bits of happiness open the door to more. Over a span of a few days or week, your brain begins to look for uplifting events to add to your list. You begin to seek happiness, and don’t even realize it at first. I was resistant at first, when I kept hearing how mentally beneficial the exercises were. I began, grudgingly and in me fashion, some eye rolling.
In just a few months, you’ll automatically think “I am so grateful today is a sunny day” or “I am so grateful that situation turned out ok, it could have gone so badly”. A few months after that, you start saying it out loud. Next? You’ll start sharing what you are grateful for with other people. And a few months after that, your audience will pick up on it and start sharing what makes them feel grateful as well.
It’s lovely.
Daily Gratefulness exercises are not a panacea. It does not cure all ills. Being grateful is not a substitute for needed mental health medication or therapy. What is has done for me, is lead me more towards the warmth of sunshine and away from the stormy clouds. And it’s free.
I am grateful for a Grateful state of mind.
Godspeed y’all.