I haven’t always been a joyful person.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot about positive thinking, managing my mind, shifting my focus and seeing the good in my life. The one thing I have figured out in learning to do these things is this: Joy is not natural. Sure, we all know the rare individual who seems to be smiling and full of good thoughts, but for most of us? Not natural. It’s much more natural to gripe and complain, to see the messiness and disorder, to point out the flaws and inconsistencies.

 

 

I used to feel really guilty about my negative, glass-half-empty personality. Who am I kidding? I still sometimes see myself that way. When I was a girl, I remember being told I was a pessimist. I just accepted that this was fact, that this was how I was made. I didn’t think that it was something I might be able to change. At the time, the concept of neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to adapt and change) wasn’t being taught yet. And certainly I didn’t know that I could train my brain to think in different ways!

Learning that my primitive brain is designed to scan for danger and threat, to look for what is out of place or off, to warn me when it sees these things helps me to be more patient with my brain.  When I also recognize that I’ve been practicing the skill of seeing what’s wrong for decades, I can acknowledge that this finding fault is just a skill I’ve gotten good at performing. Very good.  The act of finding what is right, the practice of seeing what is good and joyous – well, that’s something I’ve only been working on as an adult. So, I’m growing and I’m learning a new way to be. The good news for you is that I can share the things that have helped me to rewire my brain, to find the good, to live with more joy. Am I happy all the time? Of course not! That wouldn’t even be normal. Life is 50% positive and 50% negative on average. When we allow our brains to practice negative thinking, we tip the balance to the negative side. Practicing joy – that keeps us in balance. So let me show you my most powerful tool in finding joy…

 

 

My Gratitude List

I’ve been working on my lists for years now. I started this practice after reading 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It was an incredible book, but even more importantly it gave me a concrete way to learn gratitude. I think reading the book is absolutely worth your time, but let me give you the gist so you can get started now. Write down three things every day that you find beautiful, helpful, useful, lovely, or otherwise good, and in one year you’ll have a list of 1000 things that you were grateful for. In a year you can see (in written form), 1000 gifts that you were given in your life, 1000 good things that you’ve been grateful for. The key is not the number of gifts. It wasn’t looking back after a year of writing that helped shift my mindset. It was tracking the good things that helped me grow in being able to see the gifts as they appeared. Writing down the gifts slowed me down enough to notice the gifts.

 

 

Let me warn you of the loophole almost everyone wants to take. Most people start writing their list, and after not too long they start to think, “I can just remember three things from today that were good. I don’t really have to write it down.” Before you know it, the practice is done every other day, then you fall asleep before you can think of three things, then all of a sudden you can’t remember when you even thought of something you were grateful for. There’s also something about writing it down that helps cement it in your brain. You have to write it down.

The question I often get is this: Do I have to write it on paper or can I do my list electronically? I still love the scratch of pencil or the glide of ink on paper. And filling a notebook brings me a particular joy that I just don’t get from an electronic document. That being said, you’ve got to do whatever helps you to keep the practice going. Even I have started using my notes app on my phone to record my gratitude, even though I love my notebooks more. Why? Because I always have my phone with me, even if I’m at the hospital all night, or I have a super early surgery morning and I’m doing my morning practice on the go. Since I open that app to food journal daily as part of my weight management practice, it’s a reminder to hop over to my grateful list and jot down a few items. If you never use your notes app, you probably won’t use it for your grateful list either. A notebook on your bedside table might be a better reminder.

 

Let me show you some of the things I’ve recorded in my list. Remembering how I felt when I reread them brings back the gratitude too!

 

Sweet lavender sprouting in my yard – had to put it on my desk!

 

 

Sun rising over the trees – His promises are new every morning…

 

My new plant

 

Let me tell you a story about how the grateful list practice changed me. For many years after we were married, my husband prayed for me to be able to be more peaceful and joyful. He saw the turmoil and anxiety that my way of being caused me, and he wanted my suffering (self inflicted though it was) to ease. He bought me a book one time on a bible study of Phillipians, hoping that I would learn joy from studying the scriptures (it helped, but I still didn’t grasp joy the way I needed it). After my first 1000 gifts list, my husband noticed major changes in my perspective, in my thinking, in my attitude. Unknown to me, he took an electronic copy of my list and sent it to his cousin (who is an artist) and commissioned her to create a piece of art using my list. This is the mixed media piece she created:

 

See the strips of “grass”? Those are the items from the list, the roots from which the woman blooms…

 

Gratitude is the key to joy. There will always be trials and difficulties and challenges. But in the midst of it all, we can find the beautiful and lovely and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8). And this is where we find joy!

 

How do you practice gratitude and find joy in your life? Please share in the comments below!