How My Thank You Challenge Journey Began

Day two of my new blogging adventure:
How my "Thank You Challenge" journey began:

I forget where I was at the time, but I remember overhearing someone saying that every day they journaled what they were thankful for.

What a great idea! What fun!  I thought!
And so, I bought myself a pretty little notebook and began to do the same.
I will do this for one year! I challenged myself

I had no qualms about beginning... This should be easy! I thought. I have so much to be grateful for, and I'm a grateful person by nature!

At first it was easy -- I remember it was springtime; the sunshine, the flowers, the blue sky and clouds, my heart was light and thanksgiving bubbled out of me....I'm thankful for my beautiful daughter, for Tamu (the best dog in the world!), my home, my job, my health, the flowers, the trees, the ladybugs, the birds.... the obvious stuff.

As the days and weeks  passed by however, it wasn't always sunny, life wasn't always good, and being thankful was sometimes a challenge....

Intrinsically I understood that life itself was something to be grateful for, and that I am truly blessed; And of course I was always able to imagine how much worse off other people around the world, or even on the street corner, are compared to my blessings.. But even so, at times the "stuff" of life overwhelmed me to the point that being thankful was not my first thought, not my first priority, not even my desire.

There were weary days when I picked up my pretty little notebook and was tempted to fill it with my complaints, instead of my thanks. I was surprised on those weary days at how strong was my desire to abandon my thank you journaling. A few times that desire was so overwhelming that I actually did not journal my thanks...and then I would feel guilty for neglecting my pretty little notebook and so I would scramble to "catch up" the days I had missed.

I soon began to realize that the weary days would "win" over the thankful days, if I let them, and that because my brain has a tendancy to be obssessive about some things, it would be best on those days, to find a way to "get rid of" the complaints before I began my thanks... and so I bought another notebook (this one not quite so pretty). I kept it near the "thank you" journal. When I would feel the battle strong between the thanks and the complaints, I would pick up my ugly book, journal my complaints, shut the book up tight, and then pick up my pretty book, to list my thank yous.....
The shutting up of the ugly book with my complaints turned out to be emotionally cathartic. Ahhh. I thought, Now I know why people journal! (I had never been in the practice of journaling before this time).

My thank you list grew longer and more detailed, and this journey I had thought would be "easy"  and "fun" was turning out to be something much more. I began to understand some things of life that I thought I understood before, and I was being granted greater insight into the hidden things of my heart and soul.

That's it for today... I will sign in again tomorrow.
Blessings!
Connie

If you haven't already done so, consider taking the Thank You Challenge (go to www.thankyouchallenge.org to learn more, or Watch a Youtube clip about the challenge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BuAi_Dlnek



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