Have you every been in a situation where the rug was just pulled out from under you and you
didn’t know which way was up? Well, I have. And my husband. And my son who was 15 at the time. I know that we aren’t alone in this experience. Many people have had this happen. It’s how we deal with hardships that counts!
If I am being honest I was in panic mode. I couldn’t see the trees through the forest. My husband and I both lost our jobs, we had to move, and my husband and I had to see the effects of all of this on our son. It was a very dark time. (Don’t worry, it has a happy ending!)
For months my family was reeling from events that had happened. We, as a family, needed time to heal and regroup. God is good and He provided that much needed time, however I wasn’t exactly grateful.
We decided to travel in our camper for awhile. This worked out great and we were able to spend the winter in the south.
Despite ALL the blessings we had I was still in panic mode! I couldn’t get out of it!
About that time I was introduced to Bullet Journaling and fell in love with the concept. I say concept because I just don’t do things the way they are “suppose” to be done. Yeah, I’m one of those people.
I bought a grid dot soft cover notebook and started my gratitude journal. I’m a paper nerd, can you tell?
You should know that I am a recovering perfectionist and with a blank notebook in hand it can be a “bit” overwhelming. Read about that here.
I decided several things in advance before I started the notebook:
Mistakes don’t matter, it’s all part of the process
I would do this for 1 month! 30 days!
I would list 3 things that I was thankful for everyday
I wouldn’t deliberately repeat anything
Boy, was I in for a wild ride! LOL! I had no idea how sticking to those 4 simple rules would change EVERYTHING! Here is why I had those rules:
1. Mistakes don’t matter, it’s all part of the process
This was really hard for me because of my protectionism but I knew that if I let spelling errors, or bad handwriting, or whatever get in the way that I wouldn’t be able to stick to my goal of 30 days of gratitude. This is actually where my protectionism recovery started. There was something very freeing in knowing that making errors was ok.
2. I would do this for 1 month! 30 days!
I was really committed to this for 30 days and it turned out to be a really good amount of time. I will talk more about that in a minute.
3. I would list 3 things that I was thankful for everyday
Even though there was a lot of uncertainty in my life there were still SO MANY THINGS that I had to be grateful for.
4. I wouldn’t deliberately repeat anything
This is where things got interesting but this was very deliberate! You see, it’s easy to say, “I’m thankful for my family”, over and over again everyday. You should be grateful for your family but if you say the same thing over and over everyday you aren’t looking at anything new because that is your backup plan. You always know that you can use that if you can’t quickly think of something.
Because I was doing this for 30 days and I was listing 3 things each day and not repeating any blessings I needed to come up with 90 things that I was thankful for in that month! It became a challenge. The moment it became challenging is when EVERYTHING CHANGED!
Because of the challenge I had to REALLY think about my blessings. What was I really thankful for that day? I found myself not thinking, “Whoa is me”, let’s have a pity party. What I was thinking about was all the things that I had to be thankful for instead. Just like that, one challenge that I gave myself turned my entire attitude upside down. I was now actively looking for things throughout the day that I would be able to write down.
Many times I had more than 3 blessings in one day. I usually wrote down my 3 things in the morning and then I would find myself constantly looking for blessings for the next day to write down.
My focus was now all about my blessings. When that is our focus EVERYTHING is different. The problems we have are still there and need to be dealt with but we see our blessings instead.
What is your focus? Are you intently looking at the problems and not at your blessings? Do you have a positive attitude or a defeated one? Maybe it is time to focus on the blessings. You will be amazed at how things can change.
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