At the start of a new year, ideas go flying about: how to make this a good or a better year? One trend is all about positive thinking and gratitude therapy. I wonder what is your immediate response to hearing those words?
Gratitude journaling is a practice I’ve known about for a while. I know people who write and illustrate gratitude journals and find this useful. Gratitude therapy is a term I only encountered more recently, but it is growing ever more common.
Writing a thank you letter when you receive a gift is probably the most common traditional way most of us express gratitude in written form. However truly grateful you are, it can be a struggle to find the best words. So the idea of writing a daily gratitude journal might be unwelcome or feel like a chore, the very opposite of its aim.
Gratitude is not always instinctive. It can feel forced or exaggerated. Expressing gratitude may not come easily, whether that’s in your own head, committed to paper in a journal or spoken aloud. Nor may taking time to reflect and think back over why you might be grateful, instead of getting on with life and its present demands.
Suggesting gratitude journaling to someone else could feel insensitive. Even while someone might say “I know I do have a lot to be thankful for”, illness or bereavement or ageing or loss of any kind can be overwhelming. Concentrating on gratitude is likely to be little more than wishful thinking, and could even make someone feel worse, sparking anger, bitterness or regret. And even if gratitude therapy highlights simple and small everyday things to celebrate along the way, this in itself might feel trivial or belittling. But for others it might be helpful.
Positive thinking will not always work. Yet mental health and wellbeing are so complex and unpredictable or ever-changing that I think we need as many different tools as possible. Gratitude journaling is usually recommended as a daily activity but could be more flexible than that. I myself have recommended art and craft as daily activities, on the basis that we are more likely to stick to something if it becomes part of our routine. But I would find daily gratitude journaling forced. I prefer to think what I’m grateful for, in fleeting moments here and there as something strikes me, and just sometimes record gratitude on paper. That way it feels spontaneous and sincere – although yes, it may also get forgotten or overshadowed.
Art and music can help with positive thinking and gratitude. One of the building blocks I believe are central to art for wellbeing is “Root”, how art and creativity root us in life by helping us respond to events in the world around us. In so doing they can encourage us to celebrate and think more. And music and song can express gratitude in powerful ways. Think of The Kinks’ (Thank You For The) Days to name but one song.
Gratitude – or thankfulness – can be an important part of prayer, and this becomes an opportunity to reflect and consider the day, the week, the month, the issue, or to hand them over for a while, to set them aside or move to another day, week or experience.
Medley 