My Hack for Gratitude Journaling

Photo by Kevin Butz on Unsplash

"Keep a Gratitude Journal" is a standard recommendation for mental health, with a wide array of benefits. It's right up there with meditation, exercise, and eating well in the category of "stuff you probably should be doing." But for years, I absolutely refused to assign gratitude as therapy "homework".

There are a few reasons for this. For one, I've never been able to do it consistently myself, finding it too much of mental gymnastics and perhaps even a little bit like gaslighting. I also tend to bristle at assigning most of those self-care "shoulds." I want to be very careful that I'm not implying that you can gratitude (or exercise or meditate...) your way out of depression or anxiety. I wish it were that easy, but it's probably not gonna happen.

But the benefits of gratitude are really immense and I don't think that this is a practice worth abandoning outright. In fact, in the past year I have found a way to keep a gratitude journal that is highly satisfying and easy to do and doesn't make me do those strange mental gymnastics.

First of all, you don't have to thank anyone, even implicitly. If you're religious and it feels right to send a quick thanks to God, by all means. But if that doesn't feel right, instead, think of it as taking stock of the good things. It might help to title your list "cool things that happened today" or "weird things that are great about my life right now" instead of "gratitude."

Second, forget about all the things you think you're supposed to be grateful for. "I'm grateful for my health, my partner, the food I am eating" is awesome if you really feel that way, but I see so many folks fall into the trap of thinking that there are things that you *must* be grateful for (and perhaps even things you shouldn't be). Whatever comes to mind is fair game, and nothing bad is going to happen if you skip something crucial.

Third, let your gratitudes be as inane and silly and low-key as you like. "I saw a funny commercial" can be a lot more effective than "I'm grateful for the friends I have" if the commercial feels more salient right now. The key with this is that you're being honest about your feelings rather than trying to paste gratitude on top of other ones, and that makes it all the more powerful.

I hope some of this unlocks the practice for you- it can be really satisfying!