I have to apologise in advance; there is no way of writing about this without it all sounding a bit icky and sentimental. Even the name - ‘gratitude journal’, sounds revoltingly Californian and New agey. Indeed, it was an American friend of mine who first introduced me to the concept of the ‘gratitude journal’ when she presented me with a beautiful, embossed, A4 notebook, many years ago and told me what she intended me to use it for. As a writer (I've dropped the ‘aspiring’ prefix now, goddammit I'm a writer!) I love notebooks but I was a bit perturbed to find that this friend expected me to fill this one with three things a day that I felt grateful for, rather than the terribly earnest poetry I was in the habit of producing! I think I managed about 3 days of it. ‘I feel more like keeping an ‘ingratitude journal’ I told her once. She chuckled obligingly. It didn't come naturally to me, this gratitude lark, being a natural cynic and something of a miserablist. But years later I've had cause to revisit the concept. I wanted to see if it would help put things into perspective and make me, dare I say it, happier.
The good thing about the gratitude journal is that, while social media is reminding you of all the things you can’t afford, are unable to do and weren't invited to, the journal forces you to think about all the things you can do and do have in your life.
Years ago, I was watching a program about depression, with my family. This documentary followed three different people, looking into their past, their histories and their general attitude to life. One thing stuck out for me and I've always remembered it. One of the subjects was a woman who was just turning 30. On her birthday they filmed her taking delivery of a massive bunch of flowers - a gift from her friends, they then showed her collecting her post from the doormat;
“Only four cards”.
She said, disconsolately.
‘Ah, but she got that bunch of flowers.’
My brother observed.
And I thought - yes, she is focussing on the negative, she should have been delighted that someone was thoughtful enough to organise a delivery of a bouquet for her - many people wouldn't even get that, but instead she is choosing to dwell on the paucity of her cards. I'm not judging her; I identified with that attitude! The looking for the sting rather than the honey. Not that I'm I suggesting that depression is just a state of mind that you can ‘snap out of’ if you just try and see the bright side, I just think that it is probably a common feature for people, depressed or not, to focus on what they don’t have. Of course, as human beings, we are built to strive but if we get too bogged down by all the things that (we think) are lacking, we may lose the energy to even try.
Half empty or half full?
When I wrote the ‘Road to Happiness’ blog post:
One of the things I left out of the ‘how to be happy’ list was ‘count your blessings’. After a week of keeping the gratitude journal, it had actually worked! The things I put in the journal really do range from the transcendental to the tooth-numbingly mundane. I don't really feel that I can share them here because they are so embarrassing! And yet I've shared so much on here. O.K, so one of my reasons to be grateful was finding some frozen, cooked potatoes in the freezer that made preparing dinner easier, that evening! (I did warn you that some of them were mundane) Of course I put more deeper, meaningful things in the journal but they really are too personal. What I found was, that if I filled in the journal at the end of the day, if I was feeling stressed, listing the positives made me feel more relaxed and that can only be a good thing.
I guess I should check back in on this topic and tell you whether I'm still keeping the journal in a year’s time. (And if it's still working.)
Look at this picture of the river - even when it's raining it still looks lovely. (Something to be grateful for...)
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