Gratitude Journal, Faithbooks and Daily Examen
Part 6 in the Journaling toward God series
In Part 5 of this series, I presented three options to help you structure your journaling: Weekly Summary, Morning Pages and Letters to God. I’ll devote this post to three additional structures: A Gratitude Journal, Faithbooks and Daily Examen
A Gratitude Journal – Thankfulness can make you happier!
We all have a Happiness Set Point,[1] which is a measure of our daily average level of happiness. When we fall in love, inherit some money, have a miraculous healing, get that dream job or dream home, our happiness level rises—but it doesn’t stay there. Within six months, we return to our Happiness Set Point.
If the one we love rejects us, or we lose a fortune, receive a dreadful diagnosis, get fired or evicted our happiness level goes down. But typically in less than six months, we return to our Happiness Set Point.
Psychologists studying the effects of gratitude discovered that when you write down (or speak aloud) 3 to 5 things you are thankful for every day for three weeks, your Happiness Set Point can rise as much as 25 percent.
Yes, we can raise our set point! Here’s how it works.
How happy are you when you are thankful for all God has given you? When you rejoice in who you are In the Lord? When you are praising the Lord?
First Thessalonians 5:17 directs us to “pray without ceasing.” You can use your journal every day to thank the Lord without ceasing—or for as long as it takes you to list your blessings. Do this for 3 weeks, and you can reset your Happiness Set Point to a new high.
Then the next time you come down from a temporary high and sink to a temporary low, you gradually will return to a new Happiness Set Point. This new high in your gratitude to the Lord will boost your relationship with him to a new level of closeness!
Faithbooks – Telling the story of God’s faithfulness in your life has no creative bounds when you take the scrapbooking approach with Faithbooking. Faithbookers illustrate and comment on an incident in their life, a favorite scripture or prayer, the family tree, stories of faith to pass on to the next generation, saints that inspire them, self-portraits of pivotal moments, photos and mementos of baptisms and weddings—anything to communicate events in their faith story on paper. My experience in creating a scrapbook combining photos with my Mother’s typewritten memoir, A Legacy to my Daughters, brought unexpected healing of childhood traumas.
Grandparenting brings with it the joy of capturing precious faces bowed in prayer, or reading Bible stories, or singing “Jesus Loves Me.” These inspirational photos beg for a place in a memory book with a commentary about our faith.
Daily Examen – The five steps of St. Ignatius to review our day are ideal prompts for journal entries each evening:
- Give thanksgiving.
- Ask for the Spirit.
- Review and recognize failure.
- Ask for forgiveness and healing.
- Pray about the next day.
The five steps of the Daily Examen give us a format to follow when we are tired at the end of the day and a way to examine our day, reconcile with God and prepare to sleep peacefully.
Ask Yourself: Which of these three structures am I inclined to try?
Read the series: Journaling toward God
Next in the Journaling toward God series: Part 7: Your Faith Biography
[1] http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/LSS2005.pdf
