Last week I hosted a discussion on gratitude. One of the interesting things that came out of the discussion was just how loaded a topic gratitude was for some of us. It was often coupled with feelings of guilt, unworthiness, or unrealistic expectations. Or that it’s all just a bunch of woo-woo nonsense.
But we also talked about how despite all that, it’s still an important perspective and practice in our lives. It’s so easy to let ourselves get bogged down in our fears, insecurities and tensions that we can so easily miss what’s going well in our lives or the lives of people close to us. Having a gratitude practice also strengthens us for the inevitable bad days or tough times in life.
In this post I compiled some different gratitude journal prompts, but I curated these with an eye towards understanding some of the challenges that came up in the discussion session.
If you have some time, sit down with a pen and paper to write on each prompt. Or save the post somehow and write on one prompt each day.
Not every prompt will work for everybody, but hopefully these offer some help and perspective to some of you.
Do you have your own challenges with gratitude? What are they? Let us know if these prompts help!
Here are the prompts:
Who are the people you are grateful for having in your life, past or present? Why are they important to you?
What are experiences you’ve had that you’re grateful for, whether they are positive or negative? Why do these experiences stand out?
What resources and opportunities are available to you? What resources and opportunities helped you get to where you are now?
What do you like about yourself? Your physical body? Your mental state? Your talents and abilities? Can you find gratitude in your limitations?
How are you able to best help or share your gifts with others? How have you been able to do this in the past? What opportunities do you have to do this more in the future?
What are you grateful to have learned or develop awareness of in your life? What are you grateful to have the power to positively effect?
What’s something that scares you or makes you uncomfortable? Can you find gratitude in the thing that scares you or makes you uncomfortable?
What’s something beautiful you’ve seen, heard, tasted, touched, or smelled in the last week? How did it effect you? Can you connect yourself with other beautiful things more regularly in your life too?
Good luck! If possible, I recommend keeping a gratitude journal and writing on different prompts daily to help you more deeply explore gratitude in your life and how it changes for you in the different seasons of your life.
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For a long time I knew there was a different version of me that I wanted to be. That person would be more open, expressive, curious, and excited for life… but I didn’t know how to get there.