Negativity can be associated with a bad mood that everyone experiences at one point or another. The issue with negativity is that it can cause serious implications for your emotional well-being. If you are surrounded by negative thoughts, from yourself or others, on a routine basis, you may find yourself also feeling depressed and anxious. Your mental health can take a tole because of your emotional health and can affect your eating, sleep patterns, and much more. One way to get rid of the negative influences in your day is to cultivate gratitude. Creating a gratitude journal can aid in starting this practice.
Next, in our journaling series, we'll be introducing the concept of a gratitude journal and how it can change the way you perceive your day to day routines. Here at New Leaf Counseling, we've listed ways to make use of a gratitude journal to remove negative influences in your daily life.
The Set-Up of a Gratitude Journal
Gratitude journals generally resemble a mixture of a traditional journal and bullet journal. They are not meant for full-blown journal entries but instead focus on particular moments or events in your day that you can practice gratitude. You do not have to elaborate on them, simply find the good in each day. The journal page should have the date and possibly the time if you are writing down the events as they happen.
The key to this journal is to use a bullet style to mark down each event or exclamation of gratitude and to reflect on those at the end of the day.
When to Use a Gratitude Journal
Ideally, you should use the gratitude journal at the end of your day because it’s a helpful way to reflect on the good things that happened during your day. Often, when we’re tired after a long day, it’s hard to remember the good things that happened. This practice will strengthen those memory muscles and get you in the habit of noticing things you're grateful for throughout your day because you’ll want to write them down later.
There will be some days when you genuinely can not think of something you’re grateful for/ In that case, write down that you are thankful for the day ending so you can rest.
The point is that no matter how bad your day is, you are finding something to be grateful for in that day.
How the Gratitude Journal Helps You
A gratitude journal works a bit slower than other journaling methods. The journal is supposed to help you remove negative energy from your life, reduce stress, and reduce depression by finding the good in your world. You may start with just one or two entries. As you move on with routine journaling, you may find that you are seeing less bad and much more good in your day.
Cultivating gratitude will lead you to mindfulness and peace in your daily life and give you a new way to look at things.
A gratitude journal can be as simple as a few lines or just one line. You can put it in your regular calendar, planner, or only in your tablet. Just make sure that you find at least one thing to be grateful for in each day, no matter how bad the day was.
We'd love to hear ways you are cultivating gratitude! Follow us on Instagram at newleafcounseling, and comment on our gratitude journaling post!
Let's all choose gratitude today and happy journaling!