Week five, grateful to be alive…

On week five of my journey to happiness, I am going to make it a priority to take note of the things in my life that I am grateful for. Specifically, I will try to keep myself from complaining and write down at least five things that I am thankful for each day. We all have many things in our life that we are thankful for, but it’s easy to take those things for granted and forget to take the time to actually acknowledge and feel the weight of that gratitude. Gratitude is such a great way to boost your mood, simply by shifting your focus from things that might be stressing you out or bringing you down, to things or people in your life that bring you joy and satisfaction. For me personally, I practice the religion of Christianity, so for me those things in my life that I am grateful for are things I see as blessing and gifts from God. Therefore, when I am practicing that gratitude, it feels most natural for me to thank God for them, whether that be through prayer or journaling. I think there is real value in prioritizing the practice of gratitude, taking just a few moments out of the day to realize and think about the things I am grateful for, and though I don’t do it often enough, I always feel very encouraged and hopeful when I do. Today is my first day taking the time to do this in a while, and the five things I journaled about this morning are the first things that come to mind: I am grateful to have woken up this morning, grateful for my family that I got to be with this past weekend for Easter, grateful that I get to play on an intramural volleyball team, grateful for my roommates who love and support me, and I am grateful for my grandma who I call every Tuesday. Thinking about these things that I feel a real sense of gratitude for this morning, set the posture of my day in a much more positive light and I think I really did make an effort not to complain very much today. I plan to continue this new habit for the next 4 days and can’t wait to see the effect it has on my overall happiness!