Gratitude Again

Gratitude is powerful. So many self help tasks are only effective when “done right.” Affirmations will do no good if the whole time you’re doing them, you’re complaining about how dumb they are. Forcing mindful gratitude, making gratitude lists, etc. have a significant positive impact on mental health and happiness even if one grumbles while doing it.

I certainly don’t want to force the issue, or increase any grumbling in town, but in a few months The Springdale Sun will be publishing gratitude lists, hopefully contributed by you. Just hit reply to any issue and share that for which you are grateful. You can do it multiple times. Lists of things for which people are grateful cannot be too long. (Well, they probably could but this won’t be.)

I would encourage you to start now and maintain some kind of gratitude journal, even if done sporadically. It will have a gratifying effect on you personally. As individuals are uplifted, so goes the community.

I am typically not a fan of anonymous contributions but, for something like this, if you prefer to remain anonymous, no problem.

I’ll start with this one: I am grateful for Debi Keys (whom I do not know personally) and her article in a recent issue about gratitude which started me going down this gratitude path — again.

Every few years, it seems, something happens, sometimes awful, sometimes lovely, and I get re-motivated to inject life into a gratitude journal which I had been neglecting — again.

Gratitude journals don’t judge. They wait patiently for any contribution and help your emotional health journey a drop at a time, maybe even with a gusher now and then. The small amount of time spent doing this has absolutely no downside.

So as you contribute to your well being by gratitude journaling, you get to contribute to The Springdale Sun, and to the well being of our entire community.

TSS would be so grateful.