How to get the most out of writing daily
Being grateful for what you have makes you stop and smell the roses and will fill you with a warm glow. We sometimes forget to do this and focus on what’s going wrong, what you have to do that day, that week that month…that year. Or worse focusing on the past and what went wrong or analyzing what you ‘think’ about a situation. All of these situations are stories that you are telling yourself and not necessarily true or real and can put you in to a state of depression or anxiety. In a fast paced world neither of these states are good for us! So why not focus on the warm glow….and you know what, more glow will come.
I suppose if you look at religion then being grateful it is a little like saying Grace around the dinner table. Not that this is something I personally do but it has made me think of those movies when they sit around the family table holding hands with their heads bowed, eyes closed giving thanks.
I started to write in a gratitude journal every morning about a year ago, I simply think of three things I am grateful for that day and this can be as simple as the birds singing outside, the gorgeous sunshine, your husband, wife, dog, family… the abundance of food in your fridge or your cosy bed. You don’t have to do it exactly like me, for example you might decide to say with one thing.
To start with, you have to do what works for you and ‘feels’ right for you. Is being grateful something you do in the morning or just before you go to bed. Maybe you don’t even write it down, maybe you say it to your partner or dog or just say it out loud to yourself. I like to write it as sometimes I like to flick back through the book and read about all the things I have been grateful for. Take a deep breathe in to the belly of your stomach and ask yourself what is best and the answer will pop in to your head. When you practice gratitude everyday you will find that the brain becomes trained and you immediately feel gratitude more in your day and will feel good about yourself and your life and will start to attract more ‘goodness’ in to it.
The second thing I do is called ‘morning pages’. Some call this journaling. The ‘morning pages’ is from a book called The Artists Way and now that I have been doing it for so long I miss it if I don’t do it. Basically after I have thought about what I am grateful for I sit and write three pages of whatever is in my head. This could be a load of absolute nonsense! When I say three pages, it is an A5 page not a large A4 pad, and you probably couldn’t read it if you tried as the writing is so bad! The point of doing this for me personally is that it get’s all of the sludge out of my head. Stupid things that I am thinking about which could be work tasks, or calls, or family or what I need to cook for dinner. Could be anything but I just empty my head and by doing that my head is free to be creative in my day and any fogginess lifts. No longer am I looping a load of stuff around in my head that isn’t important or is bothering me. Its out, it’s gone, I can be free to get on with the things that will make a difference in my day.
Some of you may like to do this before bed. Almost getting everything out of your head about the day so you aren’t reliving it overnight in your head. I remember reading about someone who did this and they would also write about what they think they could have done better or differently.
You might be thinking ‘who has time to do this?’ Maybe it sounds a lot but in reality I do it over my breakfast and so I don’t feel like it takes time out of my day plus once you start you realize that it gives your more time and energy to have a better day, every day.
