I am here to take you on a journey through the school of life. Here, your life will be transformed through a mindset shift. This life-changing transformation can happen through several positive psychological tools, one of which, is gratitude journalling.
Gratitude Journalling has the following benefits:-
- overcome depression
- overcome anxiety
- increase unhappiness
- increase life expectancy
- decrease cholesterol levels
- decrease risk of heart disease
- reduce stress
- help prevent dementia
- change your emotional state in an instant
- overcome traumatic experiences
- boosts immunity
- makes you more resilient
How does gratitude Journalling do all these amazing things?
Gratitude Journalling helps us to replace negative habits. Examples of such toxic emotions are resentment, bearing grudges, dissatisfaction, insecurities, blaming others, feeling out of control with our life. They can be replaced with positive thoughts, habits and in turn, a positive reality.
It re-wires our brain, forming new neuronal pathways. This trains it to develop more positive thoughts. As a result, more of the two happy and stress-relieving hormones, dopamine and serotonin, are released. In turn, intentionally practising gratitude lowers our cortisol hormone level. This is the stress hormone!
When we do gratitude journalling daily, it can help to boost our immunity and life expectancy through these hormonal shifts to a more healthier balance. We also start to naturally and subconsciously look for things, circumstances and people to be grateful for.
Why is gratitude Journalling so important?
I have mentioned a whole host of amazing benefits above but the biggest thing I would say is the feeling of control it gives you despite any adversity you may be going through. It is the resilience it offers you as a gift despite challenging times. In fact, gratitude journalling, gives you a power tool to turn a challenging situation into a beautiful opportunity for personal growth which will go on to serve you well for the rest of your life, taking you to the next level of life mastery. So embrace it!
Instead of feeling like a Victim to the external world we can use this psychological power tool. We need not just survive our current adversity but to see it though a new pair of glasses, and view it as a challenge and thrive!
How to do gratitude journalling?
- Write it down. It’s important we do this as this takes our brain through a different learning process as we also engage our fine motor skills through writing, making it a much more powerful experience.
- At least 3 things. It can be anything from enjoying a lovely hot shower, to overcoming a deep seated fear like doing you first YouTube video!!! Or it maybe proud of yourself for not reacting negatively to a difficult individuals behaviour when that would have been an easy thing to do.
- Write down the WHY. Why are you grateful for that thing. How did that come about? For example, I might write in my bliss app, “I am so grateful I didn’t react to that person’s insult because I have been practising mindfulness. I have become very aware of my emotions and this gave me time to self-regulate what I was feeling. Therefore, I chose to not REact but instead to PROactively address the situation in a more positive way. I recognise how differently I approached this situation to a year ago when I would get more easily offended and let external events and people affect me. I can recognise how much more emotionally intelligent I am. I’m grateful for this journey in personal growth.”
- You can use a paper journal, an app such a bliss, Evernote, it doesn’t matter except that you write it down, do it daily and just get started. I would chose a lockable journal so that you feel comfortable to really let rip without worrying about offending anyone. It’s important to go through your thought processes on this. You will see that just because you have a thought about something, it doesn’t mean it is always a fact and journalling can help you to dissect that.
Assignment for personal growth:-
Comment below
- 3 things you are grateful for
- 2 lessons you will take away from this Gratitude Journalling Masterclass
- 1 self-development topic you would like to do a post on so I can help serve you better.
3,2,1 Go!
Disclaimer alert!!!!!!
Of course this advice here is not a substitute for you seeing your own medically qualified practitioner.