Confession: I had never thought of keeping a gratitude journal before this assignment. I imagined parchment, elf crystals, perfumed writing chambers with 75% mulberry oil, and purple-haired millennials talking a lot about chakras.
I’ve spent a lot of energy trying not to feel gratitude. As it turns out, my shortcomings make me a poor human. However, I am well-qualified to evaluate the effects a gratitude journal – a list of thanks I kept throughout December in order to determine if positive psychologists and gurus are correct about its uplifting powers.
Science has proven that gratitude can make you happier and healthier. Research has demonstrated a correlation between gratitude and emotional well-being and a possible correlation between gratitude and improved sleep quality.
As with many other forms of mindful, personal development (meditation, controlled breathing and yoga in a 105-degree room), the idea of a gratitude journal is theoretically amazing. It’s a warmly resonant concept that can bring sunshine to your mundane concrete world of commutes, credit cards APRs and Facebook. Gratitude journals require only a pen, a pad, and a few quiet moments. They can be carried anywhere. They are meant to be mentally reviving, spiritually energizing, and without expectation or reciprocation – an example of instinctual human goodness.
The most grateful have higher self-esteem , and are more cheerful. They are more sympathetic and less likely to resort to vengeful retaliation. Martin E. Seligman, a renowned gratitude expert from the University of Pennsylvania, experimented with positive psychology interventions. Participants who hand-delivered gratitude notes to people who had made a difference in their lives were the most successful.
The best thing about being grateful is that you can start to reap these benefits even before you get out of bed. Gregory Jantz, Ph.D. is a personal development author and founder of The Center. Jantz states that simple things can have an aggregate effect. I have a roof above my head, and I have work. “As I grow more grateful, I am more optimistic, humble, and more teachable. I see things that I would not normally see. I feel more positive.
With these benefits in mind I started writing my first gratitude journal entry for the month.
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Gratitude log 1 : Okay, here it is. Thanks to my OCD and a nearby bus stop, mornings here are quite chill. We can actually eat breakfast instead of frantically prodding our children and throwing waffles at them. The youngest usually goes downstairs after the oldest, with his hair in a mess. He is often fumbling around, looking like he would ask for coffee if it wasn’t 5. He is 5 years old, so we can spend some time on the couch with him and his messy hair, trying to decide if it feels like a Honeycomb morning or Frosted Flakes. Although I won’t pretend that mornings with a 5-year old are magical-lit Hallmark scenes of redemptive sunshine, it is a nice way to start the day.
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Soon, I am settled into a December routine. Around 10 p.m. I make tea, then find a place on the couch to sit down and thank God for my day. I write slowly, starting slow and writing about things that don’t usually have feelings of their very own: my evocatively cluttered Christmas tree; a fairly successful year of self-employment; safety and comfort–all the usual suspects. Later, I will improve my ability to write to college friends, distant college buddies, old crew members that gather every Christmas party, and my mom. Although I cannot claim to have seen nirvana in person, it did make me feel lighter when I went upstairs to go to bed. Absolutely.
“Spending time reflecting on what you are thankful for–and actually meaning it–helps refocus what your attention is,” Courtney Johnson, Ph.D., says. “Even if it is just, “I’m grateful this winter wasn’t as cold last year’s” or “The sun shines even though it is freezing.” The good stuff will soon pop.
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Gratitude log 4 – This one is dedicated my oldest. He is in seventh grade, which is universally regarded as the worst year of schooling. He is a kind, intelligent, thoughtful, and sweet child. His brain fires at ridiculous repeating rates, taking in and examining information, which can make him irritable and frustrated. He is a part-time resident of the outside world, yes, but it also means that there are many worlds inside his head that I cannot wait to explore. He’ll one day walk out of the door and find himself somewhere exotic, tropical or remote, confident, and curious. Although it will be difficult to let him go, I am grateful that he is who he is. He has taught me so much over the past 13 years. I never thought he could. I am eager to see what he does next.
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This is the hard part. I got tired of being grateful mid-month. My journal began to slip into the sticky ground, and I was unable to focus on my mental health. My journal would become a distraction. The children would fall asleep, the dishes would be cleaned, and I would grab a book to read and reflect. Dammit. It’s time to be grateful.
This is the problem, I realized. It’s when I need the exercise most. I could have just as easily gone to bed, checked out for the day, or even watched the fourth quarter of the pointless Chicago Bears game. It wasn’t the journal that was important, although that was simple enough. The secret was the persistence and cumulative effects of the journal. I couldn’t bail because I was tired.
It was late and I was miserable so I set my entry low and sat down to be thankful for videogames. It was a balmy 6 degrees that night, with a wind chill of are-you-kidding-me-with-this. My wife had gone to wrap presents so I went upstairs to accept my son’s challenge to play a tough game of Super Mario Kart 8. My youngest was not able to eat enough pasta to merit a turn at controlling the game. So, I went upstairs to accept my son’s challenge in a fierce game of Super Mario Kart 8. My boys and I sat there for 20 minutes. We melted our brains into oatmeal while we were inside, snuggled together on a cozy couch. This was not a magical moment like watching your child play a recital or nail a winning three-pointer. It was, however, something in-between. A cut-scene in our daily lives. It was that I may have missed .
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Gratitude log 15. Today, I am grateful for the winter chill. It is difficult because cold is stupid. It’s with gritted and 48-ounces of hot chocolate. With a hot cup of hot chocolate in my hand, I offer the following: Cold, I am thankful that the snow sparkles under moonlight. I look out at the water-blue landscape from the dining room window with my family, tucked up upstairs under flannel blankets. The snow hangs onto the Tiki light on the back porch. I am thankful for the way Bing Crosby sounds the best at night, Silver Bells meaning Chicago to me, and how my son wrote HI DAD on the snowy back porch. I even like scarves. If all things were equal, I would take us all to the Caribbean tomorrow, but I am here sprinting from indoor to indoor, so I need to make the most of it. I should focus on the good in cold, how it blankets me and my friends. That was difficult, Lord.
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There was a minor problem. You’ve never been to the Midwest in December. Close your eyes and picture flat, gray and cold, with occasional ice storms. The Eastern time zone’s western edge is dark at 4:30 p.m. This means that you can work an entire day without seeing the sun if you do your best. You can’t go four months without seeing the sun, Jay Cutler, the former Bears quarterback, and the brown slush in your wheel wells. Winter is here.
The house was following suit and had become cold. For a week my wife and I were inexplicably distant, quick to annoy and smartly sarcastic. It was probably a lingering winter malady that she picked up at her children’s school or from her hospital job. The germs inside were exacerbated by the cold and closed windows. My laptop hummed with the Christmas to-do lists, reminding me of the deadline for yuletide joy. As you can see, it was a terrible time to start a gratitude journal. This was the lowest point at which miracles can be made.
As per my survival requirement and custom, I made coffee the night before. I don’t know why I looked at the label that night. What impulse pulled me upward from my routine. But that’s when it appeared, staring at me, taunting and smirking like the man who runs the Death Star. Decaf. The tiny word printed on the label. It is so small that I can’t understand why coffee companies put it on their labels.
Non-coffee is not an option in my house. I prefer not to have walls.
I went outside in 34-degree Midwestern snow to get coffee-coffee. Ungratefully, I threw the decaf into the backyard garbage can. Two days later, holiday joy returned to our home after the snappy, sleepy malaise that hovered above it like a gray beast.
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Gratitude log 24. While I found my heart expand a bit and gained a greater appreciation of my gifts, the journaling exercise did not have the same effect as caffeine. This is something I am thankful for.
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While the idea of keeping a gratitude journal is admirable, it can be difficult to commit. After a similar experiment last spring for Success, I promised myself that I would continue with meditation. However, concentrated mindfulness has not yet become a daily habit.
my journaling taught a lesson similar to my month-long flirtation with meditation. I am likely to have gotten rid of my gratitude journal by the time this article is finished. It could fade like a disappointing portion of my efforts to inject productive self-improvement in the spaces of my daily life that are normally reserved for Super Mario Kart. Ambition can make a grand entrance at the beginning of the new year, or even more so at it. But it’s quickly knocked off its feet by the mundane machinery of daily living in all its grand, dull meaning.
The seeds of gratitude are still there and will remain. My cluttered and cluttered brain contains the idea that gratitude heals. The idea to shut down and thank more often than once in a few months is planted. It takes time to see it grow. It takes time to grow. That and real coffee.
This article first appeared in the April 2017 issue SUCCESS magazine. It has since been updated. Photo by Mariia Korneeva/Shutterstock
The post What I Learned From Keeping a Gratitude Journal was first published on SUCCESS.