Hello! I am Sanna, a guest DT member from Sweden! I have written here on the blog once before, about memory keeping in a junk journal. This time I want to tell you a bit about my daily habit: Writing in my gratitude journal.
Honestly, a few years back I didn’t really saw the point of keeping a gratitude journal. Then I read an article about neuroscience and the human brain, a subject I find fascinating. The key point in the article, as I remember it, was that thinking about something you feel grateful for, teaches the brain to feel and express gratitude more often. Using those gratitude “roads” in ones brain more and more, strengthens them! (I don’t remember just which article I read. But I made a quick search on the internet on the words brain and gratitude - and there are a lot to read about this!)
So, suddenly I found my reason for keeping a gratitude journal! I wanted to see if this would help me to be both more happy and helpful towards others.
Since then I keep a daily gratitude journal, and I try to write a little something I am thankful for everyday. Some days it is about the big important things, as my daughters or my husband. Some days it is about the “little” things, as a sunny day or a kind word from a someone. And some days, the tired and lousy ones, it can be about the day being over and I get to go to bed!
At first it wasn’t always easy to think of something everyday. But these days, thanks to this daily habit, I almost always know just what to write down, the moment I sit down at my desk in the evenings.
I usually start out with decorating my page in my one day per page A5 journal, and in the same time I think about what I want to write about. Most days I keep it simple with a bit of washi and a sticker. But now and again I have more energy and creativity to go all in with stamps, ephemera and washi collages. And yes, there are days I don’t decorate at all!
When I first started using a gratitude journal I only wrote a few lines about something I was grateful for on the page. I still do that some days, but more often I also write about my day, the diary style.
So, has this habit helped me feeling more happy and grateful towards life and those around me? I can’t say for sure, but I think so! Gratitude has become a bigger part in my life, and even though I can’t know if this daily routine has trained my brain to feel and express more gratitude I know this is a habit I like and will continue with.
xoxo
Sanna @skrivstilar