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Do These 3 Things Instead of Keeping a Gratitude Journal
I’ve always heard that if I would just keep a gratitude journal, my life would be freaking awesome. You’ve heard that, too. I know you have.
The sky would open. I would start to see the beauty in my child’s smile and the awe of my dry feet. I would embrace the struggle of traffic jams, the softness of falling snow, the magic of my husband crunching on chips while I’m trying to watch Survivor.
Over the years, I have purchased a zillion notebooks with grand intentions of starting one of these life-changing journals. Well, we all know where good intentions lead us: on a road to hell. At the very least, it leads to a pile of half-used notebooks and money thrown in a gutter.
What you have probably figured out by now is that gratitude journals do not work for me.
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of gratitude is, simply, the state of being grateful. Robert Emmons, the world’s foremost leader on the study of gratitude goes further and says that “it is an affirmation of goodness” and that by practicing gratitude “we affirm that there are good things in the world…”
Cultivating a sense of gratitude has been associated with increased life satisfaction, improved mood, pro-social behavior and sympathy to the distress of others (Clinical Psychology…
