I am not a big fan of self-help books, but I love reading about pop psychology, which is why I picked up 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute by Richard Wiseman at the thrift store a while back. In a nutshell, it’s a kind of amalgamator of results from studies on various aspects of social and individual behavior and psychology. Everything is distilled down to simple action items you can easily incorporate into different facets of your daily life. It’s kind of a superficial book in that sense, but on the plus side, anyone reading it might find at least a few tips that resonate with them – worth thrifting or picking up at the library if you’re in the mood for a bit of “self-improvement”.
For me, the tip that resonated the most involved keeping a gratitude journal. This is not breaking news for most of you, I’m sure, but I don’t particularly like journaling so it’s not something I was ever moved to try before. I think it struck a chord this time because I realized recently that my general contentment level was out of whack with my actual quality of life. One of the side-effects of my anxiety (and, possibly, an overall pessimistic bent) is a tendency to dwell on negative experiences – past, present and potential. However, viewed objectively, my life is pretty darn amazing. I decided that keeping a gratitude journal might be an easy way to remind myself of that fact.
Over the past month and a half, I developed a routine around my gratitude journal. Every day on my walk to the train station after work, I start to think about my list of 5 daily things for which I am grateful. It’s a quick 10-minute walk, and I don’t think too long and hard about any particular item; in fact, I like to choose as many mundane items as possible, as long as they are things that truly sparked joy for me that day – something I ate, or something I wore, or something nice someone said to me. It gets me to really focus on all the pleasant experiences of my day, which can sometimes change my perception of how that day went. If I can’t think of 5 mundane things, I broaden the net. Bigger picture items could be things like my kids being healthy, or having a supportive family, or upcoming fun trips. Heck, “only 2 more days till the weekend” has shown on up my list before!
Later, once the kids are in bed for the day, and I have a bit of time to myself, I write down my list. In conjunction with that, I also do a quick 10 minute “meditation” session using my tarot deck (a simple 3 card spread). I use that as a way to connect with my unconscious, and let my intuition speak. (I don’t believe in predestination and fortune telling.)
Over the first month or so, I began to notice a definite improvement in my overall level of contentment. I still experienced stress and anxiety (including one fairly unpleasant episode) but I felt more satisfied and at peace with my life and myself, and less inclined to negativity and general crabbiness. At the beginning of September, with the kids’ return to school and other life stuff, I began to slip in my routine – skipping days here and there, dropping the meditation part. And I feel like I’m backsliding in my progress. I am still in a better mind space than before, but I can see that if I’m not careful and don’t recommit to the whole process, I could easily slide back into the old mindset. So I’m going to try to avoid that. The transition to winter is always a hard one for me (short days + cold temps affect my mood like whoa) so anything that makes things a little easier is worth hanging on to.
If you’ve kept or are currently keeping a gratitude journal, I would love to hear from you. How do you stay on track? Do you find it making a real difference over a longer period of time? And what kind of differences are you noticing?
