You’ve got your gratitude journal and we know you are ready to go. So here are some tips about starting off with your gratitude journal. Add your own tips in the comments; we’re in this together and the beauty of that is that we all have wisdom to share. So share it.
Some people find that when they start to actively practice gratitude, they experience pushback. Sometimes when we open our hearts to love, we realise how much unlove we have been unwittingly carrying. Soften, remind yourself that you are worthy. If you feel that you want to, reach out and connect; we’re here, other people doing the challenge are here and so are the people who love you.
Gratitude isn’t the act of denying that in life there are challenges, struggles and awful experiences. Gratitude is the way that we remind ourselves that we are all greater than the sum of our parts. It’s the subtle reminder that we are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. And that we really deserve to celebrate our good as much as we can.
What’s the difference between celebrating our good and showing off?
You can’t please all of the people all of the time. We all communicate in different ways, if you are more of an extrovert (even if it’s just online) and want to tell the world what you are grateful for then do it. If you prefer to practice gratitude less publicly, do that. However you do it, practice gratitude in a way that is in alignment with who you are.
In the unlikely event that you feel like celebrating your good to shame someone else. Then that’s not cool and really isn’t inline with the gratitude challenge (but we know that you knew that already).
But….isn’t shame useful? What about people who do bad things?
We often talk about shame as though its a cornerstone of civil society. It’s not. Shame is rooted in fear, our society isn’t. But somewhere along the way, we forgot how to encourage accountability in ourselves and others. We leaned a little too hard on shame, and adopted it as a coping strategy.
If shame was that effective in making people accountable, then no-one would do bad things. Corruption and hate would be unheard of. The reality is that shame is more likely to be a better motivator to do bad things than deterring bad things being done.
Thank you so much for reading! If you haven’t got your copy of our free seven day gratitude challenge, head over here and come say hi! over on instagram here
