Gratitude Journaling Not Working? 3 Tricks to Feel Truly Grateful

Every moment we breathe, we make choices; our lives are full of decisions and each choice we make leads to another. We may even decide not to own that reality and believe things are ordained, and that is a choice. However, even in the way we perceive this pre-destined outcome, it will be a choice.

Stepping into the energy of gratitude is definitely a personal choice, and moving from one state to another can be experienced in a split second.

Many of us have walked a path focused on gratitude for years now, and there may even be times when we feel we have heard it all before – yet, the key to gratitude is not knowing that it exists but rather, embodying it.

Have you ever heard or experienced this scenario?

You take out your gratitude journal, and start to write – I am grateful for…

And proceed to write a long list of things, your health, your family, your job, your home, the sun on your back, the food you eat, etc., and then you close your book. You may feel a sense of glow for a while, but then life moves on.

So when people say, you need to keep a gratitude journal, your first reaction is, 'Yep! Done that."  It may remind you to start the process again, or you may even dismiss it as it doesn’t have the impact you were looking for.

If this scenario is familiar, then you may be curious to go a little further.

You see, the key is only partially in the writing down – it is a part of it, as the commitment to paper and the discipline of bringing it to your awareness does have an impact, but it is only one step.

A TEDx talk interview by Jane Rawson explores a 3-step process.

She introduced the 3 Keys to gratitude, which were Emote (to feel it), then to Extend (to share it with others) and lastly, to Exercise (some form of repetitive practice that will enable you to remap or reform the unconscious mind, e.g. Journaling).

Let’s break this down a little further:

Emote

When you decide to bring to your awareness what you are grateful for, it is important that you not only speak/write it down, but you need to “feel” it, and the best way to do this is to be specific.

For example, if you wanted to say you were grateful for your partner in your life, then being more specific, you would also answer the question “ Why am I grateful for this person/this situation/this object?”

Some reasons could be, they make you feel understood? Do they make you laugh? There is something special they do, just for you, when you need a pickup? Do you feel safe and supported with them in your life? Whatever it is, it will be specific about that person, situation and object to you, and it is important to acknowledge this, at that level.

Drilling down further will allow you to not only be more specific as to why you are grateful, but it will also tap into the part of your brain that will signal emotions, and with this, a stronger connection, emotions will be attached, and you will start to experience the sensation of gratefulness.

Extend

To bring more gratitude into your life, one of the easiest ways is to extend this to others and to go beyond yourself.

There was a wonderful experiment conducted by SoulPancake that shows this perfectly. They get people to write down what they are happy/grateful for and then get them to share this with the person who has made them feel this way.

When we are in a state of gratefulness, we look beyond our own issues and connect with others. Jane Rawson goes as far as saying, "it frees us from emotional pain”. And I believe when we are in this state of gratitude, we see our lives as full, so we are more inclined to look for more things to be grateful for, and then we attract this vibration, and the cycle continues.

One disclaimer with this is that being in a state of gratefulness doesn’t mean that you do not have things that don’t go your way, or days when you are feeling a little flat, or disappointment – remember, it is always a choice. So you should always honour your feelings and not dismiss them.

But when the time is right, look for what the gift is in this situation, as the most challenging times have wonderful gifts in them, and when we see them, it will assist us to raise our vibration.

When we change ourselves (and more importantly, the ripple effect when we share this with others), we change the world.

Exercise

From the time we were aware of the benefits of neuroplasticity and how we can change our brains, the potential to change the way we think becomes real.

Regular repetition, discipline, and ways to bring a gratitude practice into our lives a ways we can remap and reform the unconscious mind.

We do have choices; however, a large part of our decisions are on autopilot, out of our awareness. 

Here’s the scoop: your reality is just that – yours, no one else sees it exactly the way you see it, and therefore, there is a possibility in the billion-plus people we have on this planet that there are other ways to see a situation.

So, if you can flow with that hypothesis, and that we have the ability to remap our brains, then you can also see how we can change the way we see and interact with the world.

And so the benefit of a gratitude practice, be it journaling, being mindful at a certain part of the day of our blessings, saying “thanks” to all you receive, recognizing and giving credit to others, posting notes around your home to remind you of what you do have/rather than what you don’t, whatever it is – putting a regular practice to exercise your gratitude muscles, is the way forward to continuing to live a grateful life.

Putting This into Practice

Apart from the fact that when we are in this state of gratefulness, we are happier and more connected with our world, many studies have linked the state of gratefulness to experiencing better health and well-being.

It has also been shown in the research that it is not joyful people who are grateful, but rather grateful people who are full of joy!

And if that is not enough, a financial expert was known to have been asked several times a day, what one needed to invest in to make their millions and his reply was simple, “I may not always know what to invest in to be rich, but I can tell what you need to do to have a rich life, and that is simple – be grateful.”

So with all that your life presents you, you have choices – the only thing you need to decide is which choice you will make today and know at every moment you can always choose again!