Sun, 13 Aug 2023 07:45:01 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. Prayer Journaling
2. How to videos on YouTube
3. Sunday morning church

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 05:54:41 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. Extreme Ownership
2. Cereal for dinner (or breakfast food in general for dinner)
3. Do not disturb on the iPhone.

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 04:47:03 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. A good night’s sleep
2. Time to think and be bored
3. Thunderstorms

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 06:14:59 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. Intermittent Fasting
2. Early morning mediation
3. A nice pen

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 06:01:46 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. Morning routines
2. High School Sports
3. Freshly mowed grass in the morning

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 08:12:11 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. Revelations on creative processes
2. Swimming in the pool when its 100+ degrees
3. Intionality

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 09:28:13 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. Game night with the family
2. Unexpected rain showers
3. Hey Dude shoes

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 07:04:26 -0500

Gratitude Journal
1. Morning meditation time
2. Daily scripture reading
3. Saturday morning bike rides with my wife

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 06:00:31 -0500

I decided to steal this idea from Aaron Aiken and post it here

Gratitude Journal
1. Conversations with family you haven’t seen in a year
2. Birthday celebrations
3. Iced Coffee

Let’s Talk About Keeping a Gratitude Journal

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 05:32:02 -0500

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

- Melody Beattie

I may have mentioned recently that I went to Mexico for vacation. This isn’t another post about the beaches of Mexico. I promise. It is a post that may have come from there, though.

Let me back up, though. A year ago this week I had a bicycle wreck. Had a concussion some other injuries. During that time, some great people at 1st Phorm saw about my wreck on social media. They put together a get well package with some supplements, vitamins, and a few other things.

One of the things they gave me was a gratitude journal. In this particular journal, there was a place to write today’s date. Then three blank lines for you to write whatever it is your thankful for that day. I had never heard of a gratitude journal before this. Of course journaling itself was a little new and somewhat foreign to me during this time (it’s crazy how far you can come in a year).

So I took this journal and I started putting it into practice. During this time I was pretty pissed off at life and circumstances. I had this bike wreck and was unable to workout at all. They thought I had possibly fractured my jaw so I had to get MRI’s done as well as CT Scans. So, not only could I not workout out but now I was paying for all kinds of medical bills. This was not fun for me.

Enter the gratitude journal. Now, I have zero reasoning for any of this. I am not a doctor or a scientist or any of that. I’m just a dude that started practicing something. I wrote down 3 things every day that I was thankful for. Sometimes they were people or my cats. It could have been something silly like the flavor of coffee I was drinking that day or a joke that made me laugh. The key was I tried to find something different every day. I would write it down in the journal and then close the book until the next morning.

Funny thing happened after writing this down. Things started to change for me. Not the bills. They were still coming in. I still couldn’t workout. No it wasn’t that. The change happened inside of me. The things that were bothering me before seemed to not matter as much. Situations I was dealing with at work which frustrated me to know end now seemed manageable.

Again, I have no scientific proof why. I have since read (or heard discussed on podcasts) that others have had similar reactions when they keep a gratitude journal. And most people do what I mentioned above. Write down three things that they are thankful for and move on. Sometimes it’s in a physical book (like mentioned above). Others use the Day One App or something similar.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Sadly enough I stopped this practice. Why you ask? That’s a very good question and one I don’t have the answer for. I can throw out excuses like I’m too busy or I just forgot or whatever. The fact is I stopped doing this practice. I don’t know when I stopped. I would love to tell you actually. But, since I’m being completely honest and transparent right now, I can’t. I have no idea where that book is at the moment to find the last entry. But I digress.

I was listening to a podcast a couple of weeks ago and someone said something very interesting. As part of their morning routine he sends out three text messages to people to tell them thank you. So instead of writing his gratitude down he put his into action as he typed out a message and sent it to someone in his contacts. I thought that was so awesome that I immediately picked up my phone and sent a “thank you for being in my life” type message to three different people.

In this post on the Sweet Setup, David Sparks mentions this:

I also spend a little time writing about why I am grateful for something every morning. I added this step a few years ago, and it quickly stuck. There is something very positive about starting the day making time to be thankful. It sets your mind right.

The source of your gratitude could be something grand, like your affection for a loved one, or something silly, like a new ice cream flavor. I like to pick something different every day, and that alone makes the exercise kind of fun.

I could go on and on about other people doing this and why. The problem with that is, it’s some random person on the internet that we hear or read about.

When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.

- Kristin Armstrong

This all came back to me this morning as I was writing my morning pages. I was complaining about this or that and I started thinking about gratitude in my life. I started thinking about reasons to be thankful. I remember the profound impact it had on my life last year when I started this practice after my bike wreck.

Here I am a year later and finding myself complaining about other aspects of my life again. What if I start looking at the good things in my life instead. What if, instead of complaining about my job, I actually show gratitude that I have one because lots of people don’t. I could go on and on. From having a place to sleep to having clean clothes to wear every day. Or having a place on the internet that I can write things like this. There is so much in my life to be thankful for and here I am concentrating on the small, insignificant problems instead.

So, starting today I’m going to keep a gratitude journal once again. Not sure if I’ll throw it in Day One or write it down or what. I’ll figure something out. But for today, here are the things that I’m thankful for:

Realizations that help center us
Morning routines
the micro.blog community

Gratitude on Greg Higgins

Let’s Talk About Keeping a Gratitude Journal