Category: Journaling

Hey-

Here is an article about some simple and practical steps to starting a Gratitude Journal.

Light and Love

Sister Bridget

Creating A Gratitude Journal
By Doreene Clement

4.19.02 Today I am grateful for ___________________ .

As I write the above line, I wonder, "What is my answer?" My first thought is, "I am grateful for today." Then I realize there are so many people, places and things for which I am grateful. Everyday the list grows.

Everyday there are things that happen to us, and for us, that make us grateful. Sometimes, we even find, that after the passage of time, we become grateful. Take time today, tomorrow, and the next day to think about for what or whom you are grateful. Then write it down in your journal. Or maybe send a letter or a card, with dates and experiences to that person.

You can start keeping a journal or diary where you date and write in daily, weekly, or monthly about what you are grateful for, why and the circumstances that created the gratitude. This becomes a story and record of your feelings and warm experiences of what you have given, and also what you have received.

You can also create individual gratitude journals for your spouse, your children, parents, a friend, etc., that you journal in for a period of time. You can write about them sharing what you are grateful for about them. Get a new journal to use for this purpose only. Pick a colored pen or several colors. You can express your feelings with certain colors, green for a growth memory, blue for peaceful times, you decide what each color means and note that in the front of the journal. Date each entry and describe events, memories, or thoughts that you have about that person. Describe what they have given you, what you have observed, what you wish for them. Tell them about how grateful you are for them in your life, and why. This becomes a treasured keepsake and a priceless gift.

Telling someone you are grateful for them in your life, for what they have done, for who they are is a very powerful expression of caring and love. Telling a stranger who has given you something, directions, good service, a smile, that you are grateful for what they have done and given you is another form of connection. Spread the idea of gratitude. You may see something on TV or read about someone. Send them an email or letter of appreciation for who they are, what they stand for, or for what they have done.

Today I am grateful for ___________________ fill-in this blank with what your are grateful for.

For Example – My self, my children, family, work, future, my recovery, etc.

As I was thinking about what I am grateful for, I of course thought of my many wonderful, dear friends. So, I decided to email and ask what they were grateful for. I asked them if I could also share their responses with you, and here they are…

"Today I am grateful that I get to spend time with my children."

"Today I am thankful for a generous heart that loves to spill over to others…and is constantly replenished by my beautiful family."

"Today I am Grateful for the joy of friends. Today I am grateful for the light in the eyes of my friends. Today I am grateful for the roses in my garden. I am so very grateful I met you."

"Today I am grateful that I can continually forgive myself. I can forgive myself for judging myself harshly when things don’t turn out just the way I was attached to them turning out. I can forgive myself when I am disappointed that I didn’t speak up and say exactly how I felt about a situation. I can forgive myself because when I did speak up, it didn’t come out of my mouth the way my mind thought it would. All in all, I am very grateful that I am me. I wouldn’t want to be anyone else in the whole world….and that’s gratitude!"

"Today I am grateful for a wife, 4 children and a daughter-in-law who are all working hard to find out what it is their Savior would have them do in life and then do it."

"Today I am grateful for another experience of realizing that I am, indeed, safe and provided for."

"I am grateful for days, like today, when my gratitude gallops gleefully ahead of me and I have to skip to keep up with it, instead of haul it behind me like a wagon load of manure, hoping it will carry its own weight – by tomorrow."

"I am very grateful for the healing work that I do. I work long, hard hours, but I really enjoy helping people feel better. How many people can say that they love their work or feel that they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing?"

"Today, I am grateful for a Loving God who nutures me. I am grateful for my 89 year old Mother who has cared for me and is still vibrant, helpful, and alive. I am grateful for my Granddaughter Hayley who holds my hand, trusts me, and I know loves me somewhere in her very special heart. I am grateful for good health which sustains me. I am grateful for my friends and acquaintances who care about me and bring so much joy into my life. And, finally, I am grateful for libraries, and the internet, and transportation which constantly open new vistas in my horizon and let me appreciate this vast world and its infinite knowledge and power available to all those who are curious enough and ambitious enough to embrace them."

"Today I am grateful for gentle friends, and a loving Heavenly Father."

"I am grateful for the Divine Connections in my life – My family and friends. We laugh and cry together. With them I feel I belong and am loved. They are my greatest teachers. We validate each other. When depleted I seek them out. They renew my spirit I am blessed. I am also grateful for the roadblocks and failures in my life. They turned out to be valuable lessons that led me to new opportunities and connections I wouldn’t have had otherwise. They presented new Lifepaths."

"Today I am grateful for all the wonderful people in my life who challenge me to think differently."

"The scent of freshly cut grass coming through my open windows."

"Today I am grateful for opening my eyes to see my husband on my side and my pug at my feet. I am grateful to look out my bedroom windows to see another day full of possibility as the sun slowly warms up my sweet backyard alive with quail, doves, hummingbirds, rabbits and all kinds of natures noises. I am grateful to feel my breath as it wanders through my body waking me up. I am grateful that I have one more day to enjoy, and be amazed, and be involved with life. And I am very grateful that I can go through another day full of awe and gratitude."

"Today, I am grateful for my life, health, and for my mother still being alive."

"I’m grateful for the support of many, many wonderful women in the community."

"I am grateful for being able to carry the message that Light and Love is always present and everlasting. I get to do this on a moment to moment daily basis. I am grateful for all the loving people that I am blessed with in my life. I am grateful that the universe provides completely and abundantly. I am grateful to be alive and living full out."

Copyright Doreene Clement All Rights Reserved

www.the5yearjournal.com

One aspect of the Journal I keep is about gratitude. Making sure every day I acknowledge the good things in my life and give thanks for them. It’s really important to me. Some days I am in a funk, and it takes me a few minutes to get started, but once I get rolling, I just start to feel better! Anyway, I found this article about someone else who is keeping a gratitude journal, and some of the issues she struggles with as well. Keep on writing!

Light and Love,

Sister Bridget

~~~~~~

Keeping a Gratitude Journal By Elisabeth Kuhn

Some people make New Year’s resolutions. I make Thanksgiving resolutions. Every year, I resolve to resume my practice of keeping a gratitude journal. And every year, about three weeks later, I lose the journal. Not that this stops me. I just write my entries in some other journal, or a notebook. You may consider this weird, but for me, the act of writing things down seems to be the important part. It’s almost as if the writing action alone does something to the synapses in my brain that helps me process and store the information. Like everybody else, though, I get those warm fuzzies more at the end of November than at any other time of the year. As it turns out, I’m hardly alone with my seasonal preoccupation with gratitude. At Thanksgiving, people all over the country sit around tables filled with turkey, brussels sprouts, candied yams with marshmallow topping, cranberries, and pumpkin pie, and take turns sharing with their loved ones the things they feel grateful for. A wonderful tradition indeed – but what about the rest of the year? Lately, with our growing understanding of the Law of Attraction and especially The Secret, we’ve become so much more aware of the importance of gratitude and appreciation, not just on Thanksgiving, but every day. We know that expressing appreciation lifts our spirits and raises our vibrations. And with that, it seems to change everything around us – we start to draw to us things that we want, people that are friendlier, meetings and plans that go more smoothly. In short, things work. Still, sometimes it can be quite a challenge to feel grateful. Deadlines have a way of getting in the way as does frustration with red tape. Annoying colleagues and bosses do too, as do incompetent or aggressive drivers, infused with road rage. Ultimately, there are simply too many things on everybody’s plate. It has gotten so bad that some people’s idea of a really great time is a good night’s sleep. I dare you to try an experiment. On a day when you’ve gotten up on the wrong side of your bed, and things have gone from bad to worse, take a few minutes to reflect. What is there in your life, right now, for which you are grateful – or could be, if you made an effort, a really hard effort if necessary? Yes, it’s hard to find things to be grateful for when things are scary and not going well. But the happier you can make yourself feel, outward circumstances notwithstanding, the more likely you will be to get a new job, especially a new job is one that will work well for you. Sometimes I think of it as some kind of grateful pill that makes everything better. Of course, that’s when I remember to take it. Here’s where the challenge comes in, though: how to make sure I remember? We don’t seem to have too much trouble with taking prescription drugs or other kinds of medication every day. How do we manage to remember that? Before I started taking the pill for the first time, I was very worried that I’d forget. And you know what? Over those 10 years I took it, I forgot it maybe twice. What helped me then was the same thing that will work here as well: creating a routine. Probably the easiest way to do that is by keeping a daily gratitude journal, with emphasis on daily. Just keep it on your bedside table and write into it every night. That’s how I remembered the pill. That, and a little flower sticker on my bathroom mirror. The important part is this: every time you see it and write in it, it will realign your thinking. And once you do that, your vibes improve, and the Law of Attraction will, once again, begin to attract the things that are in line with what you really want.

HI There!

I hope 2008 is going really well for each and every one of you so far! So, the send process I mentioned earlier was Journaling. Journaling is simply writing but also so much more. What you journal about is up to you. There are as many different ways to keep a journal. Just a few examples are:

Daily Diary – Writing a daily journal is one way to balance your emotional ups and downs. It is also an excellent way to communicate with your inner self.

Gratitude Journal – Express your joy and happiness by keeping a gratitude journal. Make a note of everything, no matter how small or how big, that gives you joy or brings you happiness. It is always beneficial to focus on the positives, but it is especially healing during the bumpy times to be able to turn to a book filled with positivity and gratitude in your own handwriting.

Dream Diary – Scenarios and symbology experienced during slumber have special meanings. Record your dreams first thing in the morning while they are still fresh in your mind. Self analysis will come later when you have the time to explore the scribblings in your dream diary.

Travel Log – Jotting down your vacation highlights as you experience new places and different cultures will keep these special adventures alive forever.

Memories Journal – Writing down stories about your childhood makes for a good keepsake to pass down to your children, grandchildren, and to be cherished by generations to come. While you’re at it, write down the stories told to you by your parents and grandparents. So many stories, so little time. Write them down before they are lost forever.

Garden Journal – Keeping track of plants, weather, birds spotted, butterflies, new things spotted every day. This allows folks to compare the life of their garden from year to year.

Scrapbooking – Yup, even this is considered a form of journaling!

The journaling that I do is a combination of the first two mentioned above. I write daily, but I don’t really consider it a diary. I do have a section where each day I do write about what I am grateful for. Reflecting on gratitude really sets me in a great frame of mind before I do any casting or candle work. Journaling helps clear my head and organize my thoughts and feelings. As the weeks pass by, its become more and more part of my regular routine,  and easier , too!

So, where can you find a journal that speaks to you? Gotta shop around! This is the fun part! You can go as simple as a spiral notebook if you like, but taking some time and picking out something that is special just to you, in color, texture, size, etc will really help you look forward to picking up your journal and putting pen to paper.

Places I looked when I was starting was Ebay, Amazon.com, Levangers. Check out this site – Journals Unlimited. Lots of great selections there.

So, below is a really good article about the basics of journaling for a spiritual purpose. Hope it helps some of you along this wonderful path.

Light and Love

Sister Bridget

 

Journaling: A Tool For Your Spirit
By Susie Michelle Cortright

The fountain of personal wisdom may be as close as your nearest pen

That’s because the single most essential instrument for nurturing your spirit is a personal journal.

The word "journal" may mean 100 different things to 100 different people. For a psychologist, it denotes a tool for a patient’s self-analysis. For the writer, it may be a notebook of ideas and ramblings. For most of us, the word denotes a day-to-day diary, a log of action and reaction.

For me, a journal is a notebook of ideas and solutions that I have discovered using my conscious and subconscious mind.

Journaling is a remarkable device for easing worry and obsession, for identifying hopes and fears and for allowing your creative self to expand, increasing your level of energy and confidence. It harnesses the power to tap into successively deeper layers of your subconscious mind while it zaps the nervous, passive energy that ties your stomach in knots and leads to more guilt and worry.

Journals are tools to help you discover the wisdom you already possess. Sometimes, this wisdom will surprise you. Other times, it will challenge you. Always, it will come directly from you, empowering you to trust yourself and to take action by giving you the deep-seated knowledge that you know more than you think you do.

You will have found the answers within yourself, and you will return there for further instruction.

In addition to revealing your personal insight and wisdom, the journaling process can help dispel feelings of loneliness and confusion by helping you discover a unity within yourself. As your conscious and subconscious mind work together to solve problems in black-and-white, the ideas are validated and more easily applied, even if you never share these ideas with a soul.

THE ART OF JOURNALING
The act of writing has tremendous potential to tap the subconscious and to arrange conscious thoughts in a clear pattern as words flow from your mind down your arm, into your hand and across the page.

Banish your internal editor. This is that voice that booms from the darkest recesses of your brain: "You shouldn’t be writing that."

Here are a few tricks to banish this voice.

* Write quickly, allowing the words to freefall from your subconscious.

* Keep writing. Don’t erase or cross-out any words. If you’re heading in a direction you would rather avoid, start a new paragraph. These accidental forays may be telltale signs for issues you need to address. And erasing just takes more time that you could be using to focus on you.

* Date each entry in your journal. Note the time, place, and any details regarding your mood and emotions that will be necessary for context when you read back on your work.

After you have finished a journal entry, take a walk or get up for a glass of water before you reread your entry, and remember to reread this entry with compassion. Then, write an Insight Line–a sentence or two about what you think the piece is trying to tell you.

Sometimes this Insight is as plain as day. Other times, it will take a little reading between the lines. If the subject is a delicate one, there is nothing wrong with putting off re-reading it for a few hours, days, even weeks. Some entries you may not read again at all. The Insight comes from the act of writing itself, the Insight Line simply helps you discover it.

KEEP THE WORDS FLOWING
There are as many journaling techniques as there are people who practice the craft. The important thing is to explore the underlying layers of your mind–using whatever conduit works for you.

Get creative with the techniques you use. We all have a subconscious mind that communicates to us in a different way. If you are stuck and have nothing to write, try recording snippets of conversations, facts, feelings, fantasies, descriptions, impressions, quotes, images, and ideas. Draw pictures. Make a collage from a magazine. Use the technique that best suits the way in which you express yourself. You know your own mind and how it best communicates with the world. I promise you’ll have an even better sense of the way in which your mind works after the completion of a few journal entries.

Clustering is one method that works well when the ideas don’t flow on their own. Put the central idea in the center of the page and circle it. Then, without pause, make associations, placing them in new bubbles and tying them to the main idea. The result is a complex matrix of ideas, many of which you didn’t even know you had. If you wish, compose these thoughts later into a cohesive essay that says exactly what you want to say. Or simply move on.

Whatever your technique, start mining your subconscious today.

——
Susie Michelle Cortright is the founder and publisher of Momscape, an online magazine devoted to nurturing the nurturers. Read inspiring articles and essays, and register to win free pampering packages. http://www.momscape.com