As part of my daily journaling process, when I reach the Emotional category, I then think of two subcategories, gratitude and forgiveness. I find these to be pivotal in freeing myself of grudges and negativity, and highly recommend the practice to anyone, especially since they take almost no time at all.

First is gratitude. I think of a focal point, such as a person, an event, a group, or just a time, and I’ll think of five things about that to be grateful for. If I can’t think of anything, I’ll just use the previous day.

The key here is not to overthink. Once you do that, you’re in the rational realm of your mind, where thoughts become overly complex, and you will essentially lose what this exercise is supposed to do. That is, gratitude is about developing a more instinctive practice of being positive – to have to think “deeply” about what to be grateful for loses the point.

So as fluidly as possible, think of five things to be grateful for. And here is where this really pays off: over time, when you reach this point, and you wonder what to think about in terms of gratitude, often a negative thing (again, person, event, group) will pop into your head. And naturally you’ll resist.

Don’t.

That is where you can really make strides in improving the depth of your appreciation. It’s easy to appreciate the positive, but can you appreciate the positive about the negative?

When I find the five things I’m grateful for, I don’t write them down, since again, the point is that we’re making this more fluid and instinctive (thus, a habit), not conscious and rational.

Immediatedly next after the gratitude exercise is to choose something to forgive. I’ll write more about that later, since it’s an entire topic unto itself, but here I’ll define forgiveness as simply a vow to oneself to do the following:

  • Declare something to be forgiven.
  • Avoid thinking about it at any length.
  • Never to mention it, anywhere.

Often, something will pop into your mind as a possible thing to be forgiven. And you’ll find yourself resisting. That’s where this is therapy, beecause now you have a data point about yourself: is there a reason you don’t want to forgive that? Why not?

You may find this to be tremendously valuable, and one key is to do this quickly, to avoid the rational mind taking control, making things overly complicated, and then refusing to let go. The result of overthinking will just be more rationalizations about why one should continue to hold grudges and be negative.

So that first thing that pops into your mind is probably what is currently controlling you more than anything else, and is giving you a sign that you need to release yourself from it. (Yes, forgiveness actually is freeing oneself from negativity.)

As with most paths to improvement, this idea is far simpler than it is easy.

Try it for yourself, and I wish you all the best.

Life is an adventure in forgiveness. – Norman Cousins

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