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Write Down the Best Part of Your Worst Day
How journaling can help you find small things to be grateful for
The week before I started gratitude journaling, I was on a bus tour in Southern Iceland with my boyfriend of about a year. With an Instax camera he’d bought me for my birthday, I snapped puffins and black sand beaches and double rainbows stretched across waterfalls, knowing even then that this would be one of the best trips of my life. Days later, I returned to the most spacious apartment I ever lived in, laying the palm-sized photos on my bed for a quick Instagram.
And I cried. I cried in that heaving, shaking, hollow way. When I tried to figure out what had made me so suddenly and deeply sad, I realized I had no idea. I had a lot to be thankful for. I couldn’t understand why it didn’t translate to contentedness. So, I found a half-empty notebook and started writing down every good thing I could think of.
The phrase “gratitude journaling” often pops up in stories praising the practice for conferring improved mental health, declining materialism, and even encouraging healthier eating habits. But for some reason the word “gratitude” turned me off for a long time. It was something I’d picture engraved on a wooden plaque, sandwiched between “love” and “joy” and a sprinkling of hearts. Or it was what an older adult…
