How often do you use a gratitude diary?
Do you use a gratitude diary? Some people recommend using one weekly. I have used one daily but I’ve found that when I’ve had a particularly bad day or when things are going particularly well, I don’t use it.
Why leads us to skip our gratitude diary routine?
I pondered the latter, particularly. At first, I thought that when I already feel positive, I spontaneously avoid becoming more positive. After all, after positive comes irrational optimism and I like to keep my feet on the ground.
My one-off test
Then I disciplined myself to jot down some notes on a lazy Saturday morning and I decided that the opposite is true. It strikes me that we veer away using a gratitude diary when life is going well because it reminds us of our underlying anxieties.
It’s reasonable to avoid spoiling the party but anxieties are anxieties because there are serious matters in our lives that might not work out well. Acknowledging anxieties does not have to be mood-dampening. Cleaning dust out of a corner doesn’t make us think our house is permanently dirty (though we might marvel at how much collects).
Acknowledging anxieties keeps us in touch with rich tapestry of life and makes life fuller and more enjoyable. At least, that’s my current thesis. Time to get back to using a diary, I think.
What do you predict? ‘Events’ notwithstanding, will I be better off for cleaning out the subconscious anxieties that I would be quite content to ignore if I thought I could?
Thank you, Jo, for the thought provoking question 🙂
My personal answer is event based frequency and annual.
The WHY people use their gratitude diary seems like a good question for discoveries.
So I won’t answer that before such a discussion has taken off 😉
With greetings from windy Estonia
B
Good to see you back, Baldur. A mild summer here but quite pleasant.