Hi Friends!
I’m so excited to dive back into blogging. It’s been so long since I’ve blogged regularly, if you look at my old blog, the last meaty posts with my own writing were in the summer of 2018 😬. Funny how our life journey twists and turns and we find our way back to the things we left behind, eh?
Speaking of finding our way back to things we’ve left behind, I started out this month committing to a practice that I’ve had a long on and off relationship with — my daily gratitude practice!
In my heart, I deeply believe in the power of writing in my gratitude journals, yet I repeatedly find myself getting lazy and falling off the wagon with it. It seems we humans have a habit of keeping up with a new habit right up until we get the results we want. Once we reach our goal, we promptly abandon the practice that got us there.
In this case, my goal was a more stable mood, a happier disposition, and general satisfaction with life. I felt the euphoric relief of a bright disposition and conveniently forgot that it’s not just going to last forever on its own. It’s called a practice for a reason! We tend to take these good things in our lives for granted until they break down. This is true of our relationships, our health, our cars, etc. With our mood, we may find ourselves getting irritable and annoyed at little things and wonder what’s gone wrong.
Well it’s usually that we forgot that we have to keep building our joy muscle!
Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.
– Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love (one of my fave books :))
So how do we maintain our joy muscle? For me, I’ve decided to adopt a daily meditation practice in the mornings and a daily gratitude practice in the evenings for the month of August. It’s been going well so far! Both habits seem to reinforce the effectiveness of the other so they’re good to do in tandem.
Morning Meditation
I’ve committed to meditating a minimum of 10 minutes every morning and tend to extend it to 15 minutes or longer most mornings. Starting the day with meditation is a great way to clear the slate and start the day with more mindfulness. Instead of waking up groggy and less than thrilled about another day that looks a lot like the last one, you’re preparing your brain to notice small joys around you. I alternate between using a guided meditation on insight timer and simply sitting in silence, anchoring my attention to the sound of my fan or counting my breath.
There are countless studies tying meditation to increased focus, presence, and brain-rewiring but its greatest appeal to me as a deeply feeling person who tends to take things personally, is the ability to mentally cultivate space between a triggering event and my response to it. Like if someone cuts me off in traffic, rather than get offended immediately and blurt out obscenities, I’ll have access to another breath in that moment which allows me to stay grounded and laugh it off instead. A way better option for your blood pressure and cortisol levels.
If you’re interested in learning more about meditation I enjoyed the Mindfulness episode of the Netflix docu-series, “The Mind Explained” as an intro. I also recommend trying the headspace app for a great series of starter meditations for the newbie meditator.
Gratitude Writing
I’ve committed to writing a minimum of 5 things that I’m grateful for each night before bed. I keep two gratitude journals (along with many other journals including my general ponderings one and morning pages one) in my nightstand beside my bed so they’re easy to reach. You could certainly just think of things that you’re grateful for but I’ve found that when I just think them, it’s not as powerful. I also run the risk of falling asleep while trying to think of my 5 things.
There’s a whole journal brand that’s gained cult-like status called The Five Minute Journal which incorporates this strategy of writing things that you’re grateful for daily though they only have space for 3 things daily. If you ask me, the more things you can write down, the better!
The two gratitude journals I have are pictured above. The Calm The Chaos Journal was from Anthropologie and so cute I decided it was worth a splurge purchase for me though its still cheaper than The Five Minute Journal it has space for reflecting on your day and the self care you took then also setting intentions for the next day! I use this one when I’m more awake before bed. My other journal just has a blank square with room for the date and I think I found it from TJ Maxx (I love the journals and candles at TJ Maxx!). I tend to reach for this one when my body is telling me it’s ready to sleep. I can stop at just writing 5 things but I tend fill the whole space with bullet points of up to 20 things I’m grateful for.
Once you start thinking of good things, it’s easier and easier to identify even more good things. This stuff works, I promise! Even in the middle of a pandemic you’ll surprise yourself of how many things you have to be grateful for each day. Low hanging fruit include: your health, your home, your friends, your laptop or whatever device you’re reading this on. We take all these things for granted until some god-forbidden thing happens to any of them.
For an intimate look into my journal, I recently wrote things like: morning yoga, night stretches, plans to catch up with coaching buddy, cute nephew pictures, funny videos on youtube, 4 hour workweek on audio book, etc., etc.
Now Your Turn
I’ve been loving these practices and haven’t broken my streak since I started on August 2nd! Feel free to give it a try yourself and see if you have any positive results! Even if these aren’t your flavor, I hope I’ve inspired you to find your own daily practice to cultivate your joy muscle. We’re all in an unprecedented time with more uncertainty in our lives than ever before. Having something that you can count on daily and look forward to can be extremely powerful. I think you’ll enjoy the side effects of it too 😉.
Wishing you a beautiful and joyful week!
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
-Henri Matisse
. . .
Have you tried meditation or a gratitude practice? Tried another practice? I also love yoga but that’s a more infrequent practice then my daily meditation and gratitude. Share your tips, tricks, and ideas in the comments!
