Journal Prompts #2
a journal prompt series
The word gratitude compelled me this week. Over the past week, I had recognition that it’s not often that I highlight the positivity I do hold in my daily life. Not a new recognition, but one that really held me this time. I thought about: what I maintain, what is accessible, and what opportunities I have daily.
Through a curious spiral of research, I found others who have similar feelings searching for a method of resolution. I learned about the habitual practice to hold a space to affirm and write down gratitude on a daily basis. The action of practicing gratitude is to make a habit how one approaches the mundane based on their subjectivity. What is noticed first reveals a lot about someone’s head space. How their thoughts carry them out into the world and show up.
The past few weeks, I had the opportunity to relax a lot from my regular routine. Initially, I wanted to use that time to accomplish multiple personal projects, but ended up overwhelming myself instead with an ambitious need to pursue. My productivity hasn’t been as high as I wanted as instead, I felt the weight of how my year gone so far.
My year started off with loss that still feels like it happened last week when it really happened eight and half months ago. This loss shifted how habitual routine played out. Characterizations that nurtured my comfortability became an aspect of life that now only exist in my memories. There have only been a few days in the year that I have gone without replaying that moment in my head.
I hold on to that negativity of that experience and it comes out as a shark bit to those around me. I want to flip that narrative around. So I place the word gratitude under a microscope and attempt to study it so it may be a portion of me.
Breaking down the details has never failed me. It aides me in stitching together where my connectivity is. As a writer, it’s a practice I’ve habitually done for over a decade as I recall the literal definition like a tool to my relevance.
“The feeling or quality of being grateful”
deep/external gratitude
express your gratitude
show your gratitude
token of your gratitude
The state of being grateful comes as a journey with multiple ways to experience how it blossoms into manifestation. What someone does with that is up to them. Either to speak it into others, to act on it, or to keep it in their own privacy. Seems that it has to be a feeling we acknowledge in ourselves in order to be defined. Something that stems from genuine emotions. “Quality” characterizes a need to reassure the moment and love it for what it is. It’s to measure appreciation for what it is.
“The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”
Initially, I read the last part as “return to kindness,” which struck me. It’s interesting how my brain interrupted what words were actually written and adjusted based on my perception of how to understand. It speaks to a place I would like to return to as opposed to constantly feeling loss and frustration. I do have readiness to return to a feeling that’s been slithering away. Return to it even if there is no one there to mark it down for me.
A few days ago, I made an gratitude journal and have been using it every night. It was a fun process decorating the outside of the journal before I began. It presented light heartedness before I began the a new practice. So far I’ve used it daily and will be continuing to do so.
Anyways….
Here are some writing prompts I wrote after reflecting on the depth of gratitude and would to share:
list your wins of the day or the week — a borrowed prompt I learned while researching gratitude journals — Expand on why they are your wins.
Write about a moment, person, thing, or event no matter how big or small. Only include the good about it and what felt good about it.
Think of things you access on a daily basis. How do you want to acknowledge it for what it is? How does it exist in your environment?
Think of your hobbies and interests. During the week, were you able to do those things? How did it make you feel doing them? If you weren’t able to, why do you look forward to the moment you can do them? What moment are you hoping for in order to do them?
Write about a memory where you thought for a second and realized you were at peace. This moment doesn’t have to be a quiet moment to feel at peace.
Hope these questions provoke further connection to self. : )