Harnessing Gratitude: Transforming Life through Journaling and Deepening Connections

Imagine spending just a few minutes each day to transform your outlook on life. That's what I discovered when I embarked on my personal journey with gratitude journaling, a simple yet profound practice that has become a beacon of positivity in my life. As we share a cup of tea, I recount my experiences and reveal how writing down things I'm grateful for in the last 24 hours not only helped me appreciate the small moments in life but also shifted my focus to the positive aspects. 

But the magic doesn't stop at journaling. As we delve deeper into the topic of gratitude, you'll learn that it’s much more than just a feel-good emotion. It's a potent tool that can pivot our lives in extraordinary ways. I share how gratitude has deepened my friendships and brought about feelings of joy, love, and happiness that were often overlooked. So, grab your notebook and your favourite cup of tea, and join me on this enlightening journey. Let's harness the power of gratitude and make life truly amazing and rewarding.

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Episode Transcript

TJ (00:15):
Hey friends, it's TJ and you're listening to Tea with TJ.
Where our love for tea?
conversation andself-improvement intersect.
So let's take a deeper dive intomy cup and let's have a chat.
Hey friends, it's TJ, so today Iam having some black tea.

(00:39):
I wanted something a littlemore robust today, and I think
that goes hand in hand with ourtopic for the show today, which
is gratitude journaling.
Let's dive in.
For me, gratitude journaling isalmost like a warm hug for the
soul.
It's a practice that I feellike can bring a lot of

(01:00):
positivity and joy to your lifeand also help to appreciate the
small moments in life that Ifeel like we sometimes overlook.
Now, I've always been the typeof person that led with
positivity and optimism.
It's just how I grew up.
It's always been in me, even asa child.

(01:21):
But within the last few years,I've felt like I lost sight of
what can truly be possible andthe beauty in that and so about,
I would say.
Two years ago, I had aconversation with a friend who
recommended gratitude journalingto me and I was skeptical at

(01:46):
first.
Don't get me wrong.
But I thought I would give it atry and I will admit that after
the first few prompts I startedto feel better and I started to
notice my view of the world hadchanged.
Thank you so much.

(02:06):
It really kind of justtransformed me and shaped me, I
think, into the person that I amnow and has allowed me to space
to really reflect and meditateon the small joys of life.
It really showed me, it showedme how to appreciate the little

(02:26):
things more and I do feel likeage has helped that in
combination with gratitudegenerally.
But I will say that in myexperience of going through the
prompts daily, that it reallyjust opened me up to allow
myself to appreciate everythingand it kind of it reengaged my

(02:53):
senses a little bit, especiallyin this type of city where it's
very easy to get caught up inthe hustle and bustle or the
momentum that you have justgoing through your life and
trying to get to the next thingand making sure you're taking

(03:13):
care of yourself and doing allof those other things.
But this idea really helped meto kind of just refocus recenter
and really look at thingsthrough a different lens, and so
I just wanted to share with youtoday what gratitude journaling

(03:37):
is and how powerful it can beeven in its simplicity.
All you need is a journal ornotebook and a few minutes each
day.
So start with jotting downthings that you're grateful for,
and they can be anything right.

(03:58):
They can be as big as yourdreams being accomplished, or
even as small as the smell ofsomething or the aroma of
something.
One of the first prompts that Itried fairly frequently was what
am I grateful for in the last24 hours, and especially living
in a city where sometimes youcan't remember what you ate?

(04:19):
Last week, it was insightfuland helpful to just kind of
engage with my life a littlemore and not be so passive about
it.
Right, and one of the thingsthat I used to write down was
that I'm grateful for this cupof tea, or I'm grateful for the

(04:40):
smell of the trees, I'm gratefulfor the smile that I got at the
grocery store last night whileI was shopping, and it really
kind of opened my mind andallowed me to really acknowledge
and comprehend and see andappreciate those little nuances

(05:02):
and those little momentsthroughout life, because I feel
like we so often kind of justthrow those things away.
Right, we forget about therandom smile that we got at the
grocery store.
We forget about how nicesomeone was or a compliment that
someone gave us, and so, in myexperience of starting that

(05:23):
journey of gratitude journaling,it started to open my eyes to
how beautiful life can be, howexceptional it can be, how
magical it can be if you justopen your eyes, right, If you
just take a moment to stop andlook at it.
Because I feel like we can losesight of how beautiful this

(05:48):
world actually is when we're sostuck in our own little bubble,
right, and the things that we'retrying to do, which is not a
terrible thing, right, we wantto focus, we want to maintain
our momentum and try to achievethings, but it really allowed me
to go beyond myself and toengage with life and to

(06:12):
appreciate it on a deeper level.
The key to gratitude journalingis to be as specific as you
possibly can, right?
So don't just say I'm gratefulfor my family, right.
Think of it, rephrase it,reframe it to say I'm grateful
for the laughter that I sharedwith my family doing Sunday
dinners, right?

(06:33):
That way, you're able torecount these moments in your
life that do bring you joy, thatdo bring you peace, that bring
love into your life and makesyour heart full, and one of the
specific moments that I canremember is it was like a fall
day one year and whatever wasgoing on that year, it was

(06:56):
something happening and Iremember looking up on the walk
home and seeing the leaveschange on the trees and thinking
to myself, that's such abeautiful thing and we take it
for granted.
Every year, right, it kind ofjust gets swept up and how

(07:16):
things are supposed to be, and Iremember writing it down that
night I'm grateful for seeingthe leaves change colors,
because it reminds me howbeautiful life can be.
And I will say that gratitudejournaling also, it doesn't just

(07:40):
shift you as a person, itshifts your focus to positive
aspects of life.
And I think that's sometimesthat's where we are lacking when
it comes to trying to be betterfor ourselves, right.
We're focusing on okay, I haveto do this thing in order to get

(08:00):
better.
I have to do this thing to thenshift me into level two.
But I think gratitudejournaling is one of those
things that can really kind ofhelp you focus on the positive
aspects of your life and not getstuck or hung up on, or it has
to be done this kind of way,right, because then it starts to

(08:23):
open up your mind, to reallystart to appreciate what you
have and what you're gratefulfor, and kind of rewires your
brain for happiness in a way,right Like it opens you up to
the things that make you smile,that bring you joy, that gives

(08:44):
you those fuzzy feelings inside,right.
It's almost like a life hack tocontentment in a way.
So I got a new journal becausemy other one was full.
It's called the Spark OneSentence Journal and I haven't

(09:10):
started writing in it yetbecause I took a few days off,
but the thing I love about thisjournal is that it gives me it's
in tune with my artist'sperspective and gives me prompts
that are sensory based.
So, like one of the prompts isa memory spark, or like all of

(09:35):
the prompts are called sparksright, and it's meant to have
you engage with things thatbrought you joy or happiness or
love.
And one of my favorite sectionsthus far is memory sparks and
it says use the prompt below tospark a memory in one sentence
Think about who, what, when,where of each moment to

(09:57):
transport yourself back to thatplace and feeling.
And so I quickly skimmedthrough this and they have a
smell in here, like your sparksmell, and I can't wait to dive
into this because I've alwaysbeen like a sensory person and

(10:21):
so smells, textures, colors,feelings have like tangible
meaning for me, like the smellof like fresh baked bread or
soup cooking in the winter, orthe smell of like snow when it
first falls, like all of thosethings stand out in my memory,

(10:44):
and so this journal, I think, isperfect for those who have that
kind of sensory memorizationwhen it comes to wanting to
recount like joyful moments inyour life, when thinking about
and you don't have to buysomething like this in order to
practice gratitude journaling.
You can write your own props,you can look them up online if

(11:09):
you just wanna get a head start,but it's literally just
something that is specific, thatyou are grateful for and, again
, try to be as specific as youpossibly can so that you can
recount a moment that you've hadin your life.
I'll just throw a few out there.
You know, think of, like myfavorite again.

(11:31):
My favorite is you know, whatam I grateful for in the last 24
hours?
But you could say somethinglike what am I grateful for in
the past year or six months?
Or what am I grateful for in mycareer?
What am I grateful for withinmy family?
What am I grateful for when itcomes to love?

(11:53):
You know, one of my thoughts isyou know, I'm grateful for the
love I receive from my friendsthat treat me like family.
That's a specific point of view, and I know that I have those
types of friends where we'vebeen friends for years and it's
at that point in our lives wherewe consider family right.

(12:16):
We can talk about anything, wecan tell each other anything,
and it's beyond just a regularquote, unquote friendship now,
where we are brothers or sistersor, you know, cousins.
So I encourage you to trygratitude journaling, because it

(12:36):
could potentially invokefeelings that you've forgotten
about and allow you to have morejoy and love and happiness in
your life.
And remember that gratitude canreally make life more amazing,
more rewarding in the feelingsthat we have when it comes to

(13:00):
gratitude, to have the power topotentially shift us in so many
ways.
And with that, I'll see younext week.
And that's our show, friends,thanks for joining us on tea
with TJ.
Please rate, review andsubscribe, and you can find us

(13:24):
on Instagram at tea with TJpodcast.
And, as always, stay kind, keepsipping and remember we're here
, so we might as well do it.