So what’s all this stuff about gratitude?
Having a gratitude journal is nothing new. Many people have been recommending it for years. But I think the sticking point for me has been the actual word “gratitude”.
As you may have heard before, words create pictures in our minds. And for me they create unspoken sentences. When I hear the word gratitude, I hear the unspoken sentence, “be grateful for what you already have and don’t ask for anything more”.
That probably isn’t what happens for everyone, but I knew it gets in the way for me.
I can be appreciative of, I can value, I can enjoy the things that I already have in my life, but once the word gratitude comes in, it sends my mind in a different direction.
We’ve all heard the phrase where the mind goes the energy flows. And I do believe this is true. And since I think writing in a journal is a positive thing, I do a few things to keep myself on track.
First, I have renamed it. It is now my ‘Journal of Appreciation’. And each time I write something, I take a moment to feel the change in the energy around me.
I can watch the energy in people’s auras change with their moods, and so, I know my own aura is changing with each thing that I write down.
So, if you have trouble writing a gratitude journal and being consistent about it, I hope this might be useful.