As I write this post, it feels almost like a love letter to one of my dearest friends. A friend who has literally saved me and held me through the worst of times.
When I was at my lowest point (The Dark Night of the Soul), I’d been unemployed for over a year. I was in grave debt and about to lose my home. I was failing at the freelance business I was trying to build and still reeling from the failed romantic relationships I hadn’t properly grieved or healed from. In other words, all I could see in my life was lack – a lack of money, a lack of security, a lack of people I could turn to, and a lack of happiness.
At that time, if someone had said to me, “Be grateful!”, I’d surely have sneered my disbelief that something so simple could be any sort of prescription for the pain I was feeling. But after watching the documentary The Secret and after picking up books like Michael B. Beckwith’s Life Visioning and Esther and Jerry Hicks’ The Law of Attraction, it became pretty clear to me that I needed to give gratitude a try.
And so, I did.
I remember that first day I sat down to try my hand at gratitude journaling. My fingers were motionless on the keys as I sat with my laptop in front of me. With so many negative feelings clouding my vision, I couldn’t see a single thing to be grateful for. But after minutes of sitting there, I decided that my heart was open enough to start very, very small. I wrote about coffee.
On that cold, fall morning, I wrote about how much I loved the hot cup of my favorite coffee sitting beside me on the desk. Yeah, I wrote an ode to that cup of coffee. I wrote about how holding that warm cup in my hands felt like a tiny hug of understanding and reassurance from the Universe. I wrote about how it felt for the warmth of the mug to seep into the bones of my fingers. And I wrote about how the taste on my tongue was a familiar comfort that made waking early just a little bit less painful. I wrote pages.
As the words began to flow, I realized I was really in love with the fuzzy, white blanket on my lap and how it made me feel so cozy and toasty. I wrote about that. From there, I realized I was wearing my favorite sweater, and I was in love with its beautiful color and softness. I wrote about that, too.
That’s how it began. The next morning, I did the same thing, but I saw a bit more to be thankful for as my vision slowly cleared and expanded from my tunnel vision. And the next morning, I saw a bit more.
Over the course of those first six months, a miracle unfolded. Despite my dire straits, I could see gifts all around me. The caress of the sun’s warm rays on my skin as I walked through my neighborhood became so precious it brought tears to my eyes. The fresh-fallen snow in the trees became a thing of such exquisite beauty that my heart over-flowed with loving wonder. At last, my eyes were opening to all the wealth and abundance all around me and I was in awe of these gifts that had been hiding in plain sight.
A grateful heart turns even ordinary days
into sacred moments.
Bit by bit, my low-vibe way of thinking was replaced by a love for life and the beauty all around me. I attribute the turn in my life, the point where good things began to trickle into my reality, to my new high-vibe way of looking at life. I got a job. And not just any job but an amazing one!
Other things came my way, too. Teachers and messengers came into my life to encourage me on the path, because it soon became clear that while gratitude was the ladder that allowed me to climb out of that mire of pain and lack, a great deal of healing was still to be done.
I’m a long way from that first gratitude journal entry. It’s been almost 6 years since I began the first step on this magical journey, and I still begin every day with my gratitude journal. It keeps me in a mindset of abundance, and the vibration of feeling abundant brings more abundance into my life.
Acknowledging the good you already have is your life is
the foundation for all abundance.
-Eckhart Tolle
I do still have challenging and stressful times, as we all do. That stress can easily lead to resentment, frustration, and negative thinking, which leads straight back to the Dark Night I clawed my way out of. On days when these negative thoughts seep into my psyche, I find I don’t feel like journaling on gratitude, and I admit there was a 3-week period this past year when I gave into that. But it turns out that the days I don’t feel like being grateful are the very days I need gratitude the most.
I no longer have a tolerance for feeling bad for long, especially when I know I have the tool to switch that off and to turn on joy and appreciation instead. I have my dearest friend, Gratitude.
These days, people occasionally ask me what things I did to climb out of the darkness I once lived in. I always tell them that it began with gratitude. And then, like a groupie gushing over her favorite band, I tell them they HAVE to try beginning each day with gratitude journaling because they’ll never be the same if they do.
And, sometimes, these same people ask me how I can possibly write about the same thing every day. I will admit, after 6 years, it can get redundant and tedious to do the same type of journaling every day, so I do switch it up. Here are some of the ways I do that:
- I use journal prompts (try searching for some online if you can’t think of any), which can help break through barriers to appreciation.
- I write about just one thing and go into depth about all the things I love about it (Ode to Coffee!).
- I make bullet lists of everything I can think of that I appreciate and normally take for granted (funny how grateful I’ve become for flushing toilets and hot water, LOL).
- I take a walk at sunrise and marvel at the preciousness of life all around me.
You get the idea. The goal is to feel deep appreciation for the gifts, big and small, in your life. Keep it fresh and do it daily if you can. I promise it will have you turning your eyes from all that you lack to all that you have. And happiness will follow.
Happy people focus on what they have.
Unhappy people focus on what they lack.
Before I close the post today, I want to urge you (and this is a reminder to myself, as well) to remember your tools. Life will be hard sometimes and it can be easy to fall into old habits of negative thinking if we’re not diligent and paying attention. Growth and healing take constant maintenance, but that’s a good thing. In future posts, I’ll share about other tools I’ve found and used to heal and build this amazing life I’ve created for myself, but gratitude remains the foundation for all.
For those looking for some sweet and inspirational tunes to journal by, I’ve compiled my favorites on Spotify. Enjoy! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6HCFMgquwHljCryCp5elj2?si=bdbbf5b6660647ae
