Gratitude Journaling - Day 9

12 Days of Gratitude: Let's embark on a 12-day journey of gratitude, where we'll focus on the positive aspects of our lives. Each day, we’ll focus on a different prompt to help us cultivate appreciation for the good in life.

Remember, gratitude is a powerful tool that can transform your perspective and enhance your overall well-being. So, grab your journal and let’s get started on this heartwarming adventure.

Today's inspiration comes from Melody Beattie's deck "The Language of Letting Go" -- the card: "Living Through Problems"

Thank you for believing in me, for showing up, and for joining me on this amazing journey! I'm so grateful for your support and good vibes.

Background Music: "Relaxation Music 1" by Blossom Violet. This beautiful piano piece by my friend and fellow Insight Timer teacher is the perfect backdrop for my journaling practice and available separately here on Insight Timer. Check out her profile and discover more of her incredible music!

Transcript

Hello and welcome beautiful Insight Timer community.

Today we are on day 9 of our 12 days of Gratitude Journaling.

And as always,

I decided to pull a card from one of my many decks and today I pulled out The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beatty.

And I chose this one in particular because I decided to use this prompt,

Write a letter of thanks to the universe for the gift of forgiveness.

And I thought to myself,

What better deck to address forgiveness and letting go than The Language of Letting Go.

I'm a huge fan of her work and I have read many of her books and I try to live by them.

I highly recommend you check them out if you haven't already.

So I pulled a card and I got Living Through Problems.

And the prompt on the other side,

Today I will go on living my life and tending to my routines.

I will decide as often as I need to,

To stop obsessing about whatever is bothering me.

If I don't feel like letting go of something,

I will act as if I've let go of it until my feelings match my behavior.

I love this prompt and I love the idea of letting go and obviously forgiveness I feel is something that we do for ourselves perhaps as much as we do it for other people.

But I thought since we are focusing on gratitude,

Writing a letter of thanks to yourself or the universe for the gift of forgiveness sounds like a great idea.

I think often when we explore those feelings around forgiveness,

We gain a lot of insights into ourselves,

Our motivation.

And I for one have a lot of gratitude for the things I have been able to forgive because I feel like I live this life focused on joy.

And when you're able to let go and to forgive,

You're allowing a lot more space in your life for gratitude,

For the beautiful things that you can appreciate,

For the things that bring you joy.

And I have decided that my word this year,

Maybe every year,

Is going to be joy.

I want to focus on joy.

So my friends,

Speaking of joy,

Let's enjoy this beautiful background music.

Once again,

I'm using Blossom Violets piano music because it brings me joy.

So let's put some time on the clock and let's start journaling.

All right my friends,

I hope you got some great thoughts out in your journal and I hope that you can reflect on the gift of forgiveness.

Anytime that maybe you're struggling with forgiving someone,

And I always recommend just remember this gift of forgiveness is for yourself as well and you absolutely deserve to live in that kind of peace.

And as I said before,

For myself personally,

Being able to forgive opens me up to so many wonderful things.

Just the peace that I have in my life from letting things go,

From not dwelling,

From not having those thoughts that keep spiraling through my mind.

And again,

I'm not saying it's easy.

Sometimes it takes a little while to be able to come to this place of forgiveness,

But it is indeed a gift and it is absolutely something to be grateful for because it opens you up to the beautiful life that you deserve and the peace that you deserve.

All right my friends,

Let's meet back here tomorrow for day 10 of our 12 Days of Gratitude Journaling.

And as always,

Feel free to drop some comments.

I love the feedback.

I love hearing where these journaling prompts have taken you.

Until tomorrow,

Have an amazing day.

Reviews

Slowing getting through this series, loving it and that today was more about forgiveness to me. 🙏🦋🌸🌼🙏

Hi Violet,

How are you doing today? I hope that you’re puppy is doing OK.

For Day 8: Ideas and comments I had or like share is: I love writing letters of gratitude 🙏🏿 now.

As I continue to learn and self reflect on “the gift of forgiveness”, this was hard piece to write ✍️ about because it came at a “time of when I lost 😞 my life savings”, and my sister was “kept in the dark”, because, “I was so embarrassed speak up” about what happened in the situation (online scammers)”, and I had “isolated” myself from her and others”It got to a point where I was “missing payments on my credit cards (which I maxed,out), at the time. Since then she has “taken over paying my bills, and credit cards”, I haven’t missed a payment since”. At times, I felt bad about this “not opening up” about the situation”, and asking myself “Will Maureen forgive me for a mistake I made” “My close friend “Bev” who I often speak about in my journal entries, wrote to me on “WhatsApp” a few weeks ago, a response, that I took great pleasure, appreciation and gratitude from: “She said that “overtime, my confidence was fractured, because of what happened, even though I lost that money, she is going to work with me to put strategies in place for when these situations occur again moving forward.

“Online Scammers”, are not “accountability for their actions”, and can’t be identified or pay for what their doing, all because of sitting behind a “keyboard”

Well letting go and forgiveness is so powerful.
Chocks away and prepare for take off 🛫

Oooh this was an interesting one. I thought of the ex-husband (kiddo's bio dad) and how FREEING it was when I was able to release some of that pain I was still carrying by forgiving it all. So many dramatic and traumatic things with the marriage but we grow. And I thought of how I have forgiven myself for what I used to think of as "mistakes" but I was able to reframe into I was just living my life... this was a really good one thank you