Tag Archives: gratitude journal

Gratitude Group

A Balanced Life, gratitude, ,

A few weeks back, I started up a Gratitude Group on Facebook and you are welcome to join and contribute to it. The more the merrier as the saying goes.

It is growing organically and it is interesting reading what others are grateful for in their lives.

Research shows that having a daily gratitude practice helps to strengthen our immune systems and reduce heart related issues. A quick Google search will give you lots of articles to read – some more scholarly than others. I liked this one – The Neuroscience of Gratitude as it was an easy read plus the opportunity to sign up for a few exercises to help navigate through grief.

Having a Gratitude Journal helps you to record on a daily basis the little things that you are grateful for. You may have joined the previous 30 Days of Gratitude challenge way back in 2019 and developed your own gratitude practice.

I often write about gratitude and you may wonder why. I’ll let you into a little secret…. having this daily practice not only has benefits for you, but it’s free and the rewards are great! If you are having difficulty in getting started, join the Gratitude Group – that’s free as well. I look forward to seeing you there!

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Why is Gratitude important?

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GratitudeGratitude is where you acknowledge the positive things that are in your life and that you appreciate on a regular basis. Why is gratitude important? By acknowledging the things we are grateful for, we are not focusing on anything that we may perceive as lacking in our lives.

Gratitude focuses the mind on the “now” and is a form of mindfulness, especially when we write down on or journal on a daily basis.

As we focus on the positive, endorphins are released and we feel better. A positive mindset is important to wellbeing and especially in today’s pandemic, helpful in maintaining wellness and a more balanced emotional state.

30 days of gratitudeHaving a daily practice that helps you to focus on things that you are grateful for will help you to form a new and more helpful mindset.

In the past I have run a couple of 30 Days of Gratitude, both here and on Facebook. It may be a little difficult to find the posts now as the last 30 day challenge was in 2020.  A little time consuming, but another way to jog the mind to think about what you are grateful for is to write a single sentence in you diary each day about what you were grateful that day. You can go out and buy an expensive journal with the prompts already printed or make your own.

 

Gratitude

A Balanced Life, gratitude,

At the time of writing this, I’m up to Day 21 of a 30 day challenge to show gratitude for a different thing each day.

I found the original idea on LinkedIn and started by entering the questions in my work diary at the top of each page. All well and good, but I don’t take the diary with me to the retreat, so I realized that I would miss a few days here and there.

The solution to this was to post these daily questions and answer them on my Facebook business page. It’s interesting reading what others are grateful for as well.

So yesterday’s day of gratitude (Day 20) question was “Who in your life are you grateful for?” I could think of many and my initial response was my immediate family. Then later in the evening a cousin contacted me to say her father, my mother’s twin, had passed away that morning, just a day short of what would have been their 91st birthday. Mum had always joked and said she was going to live to a 100 like her Granny, but she left this realm just over 17 years ago. Back to gratitude….. I am grateful to my Uncle (and Aunt) for the many holidays I had with them during the six years we spent in the UK. Memories of playing with my cousins and getting up to all sorts of mischief.

Today’s question is “What song are you most grateful for?”

These seem like simple questions, but there are so many responses that can be made, which is why I’m planning on repeating the 30 Day Challenge again, but with the questions in a different order and created a booklet to print out and write in.

What song am I grateful for? Porcelain by Moby. Don’t know why, but it soothes my soul.