Why I write a gratitude list — twice a day.

So, when I was thinking about my second blog post (which, by the way, apparently happens about one minute after publishing your first blog post 😊), I figured I would tell you about daily planners, as Emily Ley launched the 2020 calendar year daily planners this week. But, knowing I had a week to write the post, I decided to just enjoy my day off. Labor Day itself turned out to be a pleasant day. We took the kids to a local park and walked around the lake, lazed around the house, and had a cookout at my mom’s.

That was before Labor Day took an unexpected turn.

Around 8:45 PM Monday night, we heard a loud bang that shook the house. At first, we thought our garage door had fallen off its track. When we checked in the garage, we found that something outside our house had run into and buckled the garage door. Outside, we found our neighbor bleeding from his arm and his car embedded in the outside wall of our house and garage with the damage extending to the now-destroyed wooden railing on our front steps. We were stunned. Mind you, this neighbor has never been the most considerate, so to have our house so severely damaged by this person felt like a punch to the gut.

So, here is where my very new blog gets personal a lot sooner than I had planned.

A few years ago, a situation like this would have left me depressed for a good while. But, after a week of dealing with insurance companies, consulting with lawyer friends, and generally getting over the shock, I am feeling much better. This is way sooner than I would have rallied just a few years ago, and it prompted me to reflect on why I am doing so much better than I have after past challenges. Well, in the last few years I have incorporated some positive habits that have helped me to shift my thinking, and one of those positive habits is gratitude journaling.

After I had my second child, a sweet little girl, a few things happened. My husband went through several job changes, I started experiencing various pain-related health conditions, and our lives became generally more stressful. But, nothing matched the stress that came when my daughter was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) at 5 years old. At the time, we had never heard of this disease. We made the mistake of Googling it only to find a parade of horribles in terms of possible outcomes for kids with the condition. While the disease is not terminal, its management can be daunting. A few medications help some children while others can only control the disease with a very restrictive diet. Given that there is an allergic component, children who do not respond to medication or diet may end up unable to eat and instead live with a permanent feeding tube. Monitoring the condition requires performing frequent endoscopies (for us, about 3-4 per year). The worst part is that the disease is relatively new, so doctors do not really know how to manage it. They focus on food since that is something that can be controlled (unlike environmental allergens).

I should mention that food is very important to our family life. After my husband was diagnosed with Celiac Disease almost 2 decades ago, I committed to cooking meals that were as good or better than their gluten-laden counterparts. My kids were raised to be adventurous eaters, as a result. And, of the two, my daughter is the culinary explorer. Given what was at stake, this diagnosis sent me into a period of mourning over the next several years as we tried various treatments with temporary or no results.

I had read about the power of gratitude over the years. If you pick up any self-help book, you will find that one way to achieve success or just be happy is to focus on gratitude. So, I figured I would try writing a little bit at night before I went to bed; at least 5 things I am grateful for that day. I started in the fall of 2016, and for awhile I think it helped. It also helped that my daughter was responding to one of the treatments at that time. But, as soon as the next endoscopy showed that the treatment was not working, I gave up. Basically, I did not really understand gratitude. There is a more than 3-month gap in my first gratitude journal with no entries. Looking back, I’m a little embarrassed as it reminds me of those melodramatic blank chapters in the Twilight series when Edward leaves Bella (um, did I just admit to reading Twilight? 🤔).

That was when a friend gave me some advice about gratitude journaling that made the habit stick.

He encouraged me to stick to the basics and start with the things that make it possible for me to live: the air I breathe, the water I drink, the shelter that protects me. This seems like I’m stating the obvious, but to me it was a bit of a revelation. Gratitude is not about just being grateful for things that are going well. Of course, you should be grateful for the good things in your life, but it is just as important to maintain a sense of gratitude during times when it seems little or nothing is going well. That was the lesson I needed to learn, and took me a while to understand that I most need to write out my gratitude list when things are not going well. Fast forward a couple of years, and I am now on my third gratitude journal.

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Then I took it one step further.

Disclaimer: This blog will not focus much on my religious beliefs, but I will put out there that I am a church-going Presbyterian. Every year, during those 40 days preceding Easter, I try to do something that makes a spiritual impact on the rest of the year. This year, I chose to practice daily gratitude for my problems. At first, I immediately regretted it and resented that I had chosen this as my Lenten practice. What was I thinking? Wasn’t it enough that I managed to find a few basic things to be grateful for on my bad days? Why did I commit to being grateful for my problems?

Well, I kept at it, and I am glad that I did.

During those few weeks, I started listening to motivational audio books or podcasts in the car, and I found that being grateful for problems was not a crazy notion, nor some original idea I could claim as my own. Lots of self-help authors encourage being grateful for everything, problems included. I made it a point to look for the silver lining on my clouds and realized that without the clouds there are no silver linings. Soon, I began to incorporate a gratitude list in my morning journaling (more on morning journaling in a later post). That really took me to a new level. Focusing on the positive twice a day went a long way in combating the negative thinking that creeps in when you go through daily trials or bigger challenges.

So, what kind of journals do I use for my daily gratitude lists?

I have two types of journals that I use for my morning and evening gratitude lists, and they could not be more different:

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For my morning gratitudes, I use a Stalogy 365 A5 notebook . I learned about it while researching Japanese planners. (Yes, this is what I do in my free time). Japanese planners are known for their beautifully thin and lightweight paper. They hold up to heavy inks and even watercolor. The Stalogy line has a very similar paper to the more expensive brands at a fraction of the price. It has a tiny, light grey grid that you can use for journaling, as I do, or artwork, drafting, and, as many do, planning. The top of the page has, in miniscule writing, days of the week, months, and numbers so you can date your page, but most people find it too small. I found a beautiful pink floral cover on Etsy, but you can find similar ones on Amazon. The tiny writing works for me. I use it for morning journaling and write my gratitude list, goals for the day, and to do list all on one page. I also use Frixion pens so I can erase mistakes rather than waste valuable paper real estate on crossed out words.

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For evening gratitude lists, I use a Recollections Creative Year personal binder planner from Michael’s. The Recollections Binder has more uses than just keeping gratitude lists. I also use it as a faith planner and store my sermon notes, devotional notes, calendar of church events, and faith goal planning sheets. (If you are interested in a post on how to set up a faith journal with these inexpensive products, leave a note in the comments.) I added the Creative Year Calendar Inserts and use the weekly spread to write five or so things I’m grateful for each night. I then decorate it with some Happy Planner Faith stickers. Keeping things on the small side ensures that my gratitude statements are simple, and that means I never have an excuse to skip a day or night. This is so important as daily gratitude is often what keeps me going when things get tough.

Do you keep a gratitude list and where do you write it all down?