Lessons From Gratitude Journaling
Art by Koseki
If Captain Obvious had a catchphrase, it would probably be “the world is a crazy, messed up place.” Grievances with work and/or school, a sudden financial crisis, sour relationships, losing friends or loved ones to a roulette of tragedies— all of these things end up deteriorating us in the long run, even if we don’t realize it. Sometimes, they lead to unhealthy habits, while other times, they open they close our hearts and open our minds to crippling mental ailments. We’re all affected by it in our own unique ways, and even I’ll admit that I’ve had my own struggles to deal with.
Ever since High School, I continuously battled with strong feelings of worthlessness. Natural teenage angst mixed with bully issues and a constant, irrational fear of letting my parents down induced a very toxic dose of anger. In response, I eventually figured that the best thing to do was direct it all inwards and accept that I was just a stupid failure who’d never accomplish anything. To edgy teen Sean’s surprise, this was NOT the best thing to do and led to a cascade of identity and mindset issues, but seeing as I still couldn’t find a proper escape, I just kept dealing with it like I always had.
When the pandemic came along, bad became even worse. It got to the point that I couldn’t even push myself to write anymore—it just didn’t seem like there was any point to indulging impossible dreams. No matter who tried to cheer me up or what life advice or adjustments I was prescribed, I just didn’t have it in me to try—I was willing to just give up and let any positivity be eclipsed and swallowed by a swirling feeling of despair.
The good news is that all of this applied to a Sean that ceased to exist months ago. Now, I’m exercising regularly, eating a lot more healthily, and back in the writing saddle, as you can clearly see. That said, all those little things weren’t so much causes so much as they were effects, the outcomes of finding a real way to bring myself back to emotional equilibrium.
What really brought me back, at the end of the day, was gratitude.
Not in the sense of your mom, dad, or grandma telling you that “you need to be more grateful for ______!” which is frankly parallel to telling someone the solution to your depression would be to “just be happy.” No, I was saved by the process of trying to find gratitude for myself, inadvertently re-evaluating my life from the ground up.
It started one chilly March morning when I had a little break. I was surfing Youtube looking for something to help with my usual doldrums when I found a video by Kurzgesagt called An Antidote to Dissatisfaction.
I strongly reccomend you watch this video yourself, but, to summarize, Kurzgesagt goes in depth on the topic of how modern life can cause strong feelings of dissatisfaction and how actively recognizing things we’re grateful for can combat this feeling and associated negative emotions. Most importantly, it introduced a way that we can train ourselves to recognize gratitude: gratitude journaling, an act as simple as sitting down and listing a few things you’re grateful for each week.
A few days later, after thinking about it a lot, I decided to give what the video suggested a shot. I’d start by listing 5 things that I was grateful for that day—usually friends, family, weather, silly little things that gave me comfort, etc.—and then write about anything else on my mind in a “Stray Thoughts” category as a bonus to help recollect and re-center. I’d try to write to this journal on a daily basis and imposed a rules on myself that I couldn’t exceed exceed more than one page and I couldn’t add or edit entries after the day they were supposed to be written for.
At first, it was refreshing just to have a place to dump my thoughts and get back into practice. Gradually over time, however, life all of a sudden felt… lighter. Without the need for others’ insistence, I felt motivated to live healthier and take care of myself, I felt the desire and inspiration to write again for more than just journaling, I reconnected with friends with whom there were long silences, and the best part: I found myself smiling and being happy—by default. Gratitude journaling has been a real life-changer, and you can bet your books that I still do it to this very day.
Like the video says, finding and practicing gratitude is not a cure-all for bad days and it is certainly not a substitute for true help like a therapist or other professional. That being said, I can speak from my experiences that gratitude journaling was integral to jumpstarting my own road to self-improvement.
If there is anything that I’d ask you to take away from my story, it would be that the road to happy living and personal success comes from adjusting your mindset and cementing healthy routines. For me, the benefits of gratitude only blossomed because I committed myself to a routine that incorporated it into my everyday life. If I simply watched the video, went “Wow! Gratitude!” and then didn’t take it further than that, it would just be another video on the internet and everything I had just learned would be immediately wasted.
If you’re in a similar spot to where I was, I hope that this post and Kurzgesagt’s video were helpful to you. Whether you decide to go the route of a traditional gratitude journal or try something more customized, I’d still encourage you to try and find something that won’t just help you cope with the bad things in life, but help you squeeze more out of the good things, too.
Furthermore, if you’re a new or downtrodden writer (be it for passion or profession), let my story also emphasize the importance of writing habitually. Not only will it give you more opportunities to improve, but simply the act will make it easier to get yourself to write and keep writing. Feel free to give yourself flexibility, but be careful: after your inevitable first missed day, it’ll suddenly become easier for you to miss more and more. Journal or not, commit to creation.
Keep up with habits like these, however, and you may start being able to catch sunshine and keep it bright through stormy times.