The Magick of Gratitude Journaling

This is a special guest post by my mom!

I love studying psychology and have taken several classes over the past six months. One was on Brain Health and Wellness. Another focused on the Integrative Management of Anxiety, Stress, and Insomnia. And the third looked at how healthy lifestyle modifications can affect chronic disease risk factors and quality of life in cancer survivors.

All three of these classes emphasized the importance of gratitude in people’s lives. We learned that research has found that grateful people are healthier and live longer and are more loving, forgiving, helpful, enthusiastic, optimistic, joyful, generous, trustworthy, self-confident, successful, and better able to deal with stress. That is a lot of benefits to get from just a few minutes of effort a day!

Every year, Deborah and I make a gratitude tree for Mabon, a time of giving thanks and celebrating the harvest. For Mabon 2017, we wrote words of gratitude on fabric leaves and then burned them in our bonfire.

This past year, we made a gratitude tree with shortbread leaf cookies hung on tree branches.

But developing a grateful attitude takes practice. People are much more likely to see and dwell upon the negative than the positive. So in my classes, we were asked to write down every day three things for which we were grateful. Some people wrote them down before they went to bed, others wrote them down first thing in the morning, and some wrote things down as they happened. I personally like writing things down as they happen but it isn’t always convenient so I use a combination of the three. However, it is supposed to be easier to develop the habit of journaling if you do it at the same time every day.

Last week we found some small daily planners at the dollar store and thought they would be perfect for keeping gratitude journals.  We bought up a bunch and gave them to family members and friends as well. Even though we are starting on New Year’s Eve, our plan is that each of us will write down three things every day so that around the fire on Mabon 2019 each of us can look back and remember the many blessings that have been enriching our lives and our friends and family all year long.

This action of intentionally finding things for which to be grateful and taking the time and energy to write them down is really a magickal working. We believe this is why gratitude journaling has such good results!

Be sure to choose a planner that has enough space to write three things on each day:

Here is the start of my journal:

Here is Deborah’s:

We wish you a peaceful new year filled with magick, love, joy, and gratitude!