Today I’m grateful for being grateful. Does that sound crazy? Inspired by this article, almost exactly a year ago I started logging one thing I was grateful for that day or that made me happy that day, by noting it on a small piece of paper and adding it nightly before bed into my gratitude jar.
At the beginning of this year I moved to keeping the below gratitude journal, and noting one thing became noting everything I could think of from that day but always at least 3 things, sometimes filling multiple pages but usually at least fully filling that day’s page. And then last night I just had this moment of profound appreciation. I now have this book full of ~260 days (how far are we into the year??) of things I have been grateful for or that made me happy. What an incredible log to be able to look back on and see the wondrous parts of this year. I traveled with my iPad as my eReader in order to not travel with heavy books when I was on the road for 6 weeks this summer… but this physical, paper, journal was important enough to make the cut anyways and accompany me on the whole journey.
I don’t know when it happened, but now I find myself noticing gratitude throughout the day, being grateful for things that might never have registered before. What an incredible practice this has been. Have you ever considered a gratitude practice? I would love to hear the details of yours if you have, and if you haven’t, I hereby highly recommend it. Being grateful FOR being grateful… and then being grateful for being grateful for being grateful… what an unbelievable feeling.
<3
Esther
HI Esther,
I loved this post! Thank you
Brene’ Brown said that gratitude is the muscle we work in order to feel joy – I think that’s true 
Today I wrote in my journal that I was grateful for the people in my life who step on my toes and upset me, they help me grow in ways I never thought possible.
Hugs,
Robin
So true! Thanks for reminding me she said that. And working this joy muscle through this page – now I see joy *everywhere*. It’s so cool.
And I love what you wrote about in your journal, that’s so accurate.
Hugs back!
Gratitude is so so so powerful and the more you infuse some gratitude in your life, the better your life gets. I’ve been using an app to note all the little things I’m grateful for for a few months now and it always helps me when I’m feeling down or bad about myself.
It’s amazing how that builds isn’t it? Keep it up day after day, and one little note turns into a pile of positive information.