January 28, 2010:  I get it!

For three days I’ve been intending to sit down and write about keeping a gratitude journal as a way of opening up your world to a whole new level of appreciation.  But each time I sat down to write another subject was pressing at the time…my Oprah ticket drama.

But nothing is a coincidence and all has a reason.  This time I get the bigger picture of the delay.  I need to rename the gratitude journal and call it instead an appreciation journal.  Abraham (see side bar) talks about the difference between appreciation and gratitude.  They have very different vibrations and if you carefully stop to listen you can feel the difference.  Appreciation vibrates at the same rate as love and carries a very pure high vibration.  Gratitude carries the idea of having overcome a struggle and is a lower vibration.  So in that light appreciation does feel better to me.  I knew this but was going to call it a gratitude journal because that’s the more common name and more may identify with that.

But in the two days that I was writing about Oprah drama I came to know that I would write about appreciation rather than gratitude because it’s the best I can offer.  So keeping an appreciation journal will change how you perceive the world if you commit to doing it for at least 6 months but I would recommend one year.  If you have the resources get a blank book that appeals to you as well as a pen.  Actually any paper will do but I’m really into paper and like office supplies I guess.

I strongly suggest picking the same time every day to write in your journal so it can become a practice that is built into your daily schedule.  Hopefully you will look forward to it.  The idea is to write five new things every day for which you are appreciative.  The key word is “new” here.  The first day or two it is easier to find 5 things to be appreciative of but then after that  you have to begin to look more closely to your days to find things that you enjoyed or noticed that you appreciated.  Now are you getting the idea.  After 6 months or one year of 5 new things every day you get to go deeper into your life and put a magnifying glass on to see of the texture of your days.  It really does shift your view and awareness.

For example to day I’m appreciative of:

  • I’m appreciative of a meeting with a friend and we shared a lot of good talk and ideas
  • I really appreciate his dog who is so sweet and loving and I loved him in my lap
  • I’m appreciative of an opportunity my daughter has for a shift in her future job situation and that she called to tell me about it
  • I loved coming back to my loft/home this evening and feeling grounded and truly “at home”
  • I’m appreciative of the taste of dark chocolate with chili flavoring because it is so unusual and tickled my taste buds

That’s a sampling.  Of course everyone’s will be different.  Sometimes when I was beginning I felt so badly some days that I was just appreciative that the day was over, appreciative of sleep, of darkness.  Whatever.

I’ve talked with a lot of people who enjoy doing this and it shifts your focus to more of what you like rather that what you dislike.  Remember, what you focus upon brings you more of that.  So if you focus on things that feel good to you you get more of that.  If you are a complainer, you will notice more things to complain about.  That’s the way of the Law of Attraction.

With Love, Connie