Take The Time To Look Back And Prepare Yourself To Move Forward

Living Abundantly By Showing And Sharing Gratitude

Would you like to live abundantly full of happiness and contentment? How about a life with excellent physical and mental health? Greatly increase your chances of that happening by showing and sharing gratitude. That’s right, something as simple as practicing thankfulness and expressing how grateful you are for the people and things you have in your life has a powerful impact. Here are some simple things you can do starting today to show your gratitude.

1.          Tell the people you love how grateful you are for them. We often take the ones closest to us for granted. Make a point to do it regularly and be specific to make it meaningful.
2.          Think about the people who challenge you. Express your gratitude for how they help you grow and make you stronger.
3.          Take a few minutes each week to write a letter or email to a person who has made a difference to you at one point or another. This could be a teacher, a mentor, an old friend … anyone you can think of.
4.          Give the gift of your time to someone to show without words how grateful you are to have them in your life. This is particularly important for the elderly people in your life. Your time with them is limited. Make the most of it.
5.          Start using a gratitude journal and make the time to write down three things you are grateful for every single day. It will brighten even your worst days and put things into perspective.
6.          Forgive yourself when you don’t reach all your goals, or things don’t go your way. Be grateful for what you have and what you are learning from each experience.
7.          Compliment the people around you. Make them feel good about themselves. It’s a powerful way to show gratitude in an indirect way. Small, meaningful gifts and acts of service do the same.
8.          Pay it forward. Do something nice for someone you work with or a total stranger. Random acts of kindness are a wonderful way to spread gratitude and bring more positivity into the world.
9.          Give a hug and a kind word to someone who’s struggling. Show them through physical affection that you’re there for them and grateful to have them in your life.
10.        Show your body and mind gratitude for what they do for you day in and day out by taking care of yourself and investing in regular self-care.

The Healing Power of Gratitude

So, you’ve committed to journaling, and you have found yourself with a nice stack of completed journals that took time and energy to finish. Your blood, sweat, and tears have been poured out, and you have wrestled with demons, dreamt big dreams, and tracked your journeys.  Time has gone by, and now you have a record of your triumphs and your tribulations sitting there on a shelf.

Now what?

The act of creating journals is one form of self-care. The act of reviewing them is another. There is so much to be gained from reviewing your journals as time goes by.

Consider this

Those journals are a true and accurate view of your life at that moment. Whether you were in hysterics over something you couldn’t control or singing from the rooftops about reaching a big hair audacious goal, that was you…then. Re-reading or reviewing your journal can give you a perspective that you didn’t have back then. You can see yourself more objectively because you aren’t in that space any longer.

Reviewing your journals can give you insight into a path you were too close to in the moment. Being able to read through in a short time that took you a long time to live can help you create some cliff notes about how you manage stress, celebrate success or set and achieve goals. You literally have the ability to armchair quarterback yourself.

Giving yourself the time to review your journals can help you forgive others and recall with gratitude how far you have come. You can literally see your resilience and the way that things played out. This can be healing and encourage you that all things do work out for your best and highest good.

Your family has the opportunity to know you better. Depending on how discreet you are with your journaling, you have the opportunity to share with your family the thoughts you have had over time. They can share in your growth and your success. You can show your teen how you felt at the same age they are now. You can leave a legacy that impacts those you love the most.

Reviewing your journals sparks old ideas. Perhaps you forgot about that idea you released into your journal eight years prior. Seeing it again could be the catalyst to taking action now. Nothing is ever wasted when it is recorded and reviewed. Now may be the perfect time to take action when you didn’t have the resources before.

Review your journals with grace. Be gentle to the person you were on the way to becoming who you are. Be kind. Be open-minded and be friendly and most of all celebrate!

Gratitude for what we have comes when we give. Need a gift idea?

Visit RefreshedandBlessed.com or check out some special gift ideas below!