- A part of Amy Gill's contribution in 365 Gratefuls
In 2008, Hailey Bartholomew found herself struggling with depression. When she sought life coaching and counseling, Sister Paula advised her to reflect on her day and write something about that day that she was grateful for. From there, Bartholomew turned it into a photo album on Flickr, which then became a group where others began to share their own versions of the project. Bartholomew writes: "The consequence of feeling like life is actually amazing is that you start to believe you have something to give the world. You feel full, and it spills out all over the place."
I agree. It's something I've been doing myself, on and off, for the last wee while (although minus photos, and usually just inside my head and not a journal or photo album). A few months back I was in a bit of an emotional slump. My feels were all over the place and absolutely unreliable (i.e. I was bursting into tears over nothing of consequence at all hours of the day and night, and hating myself for it because, as I saw it, getting feels on me was so not punk rock) and it was ugly and messy. One little thing not going to plan and I'd let that colour my whole day. I hated it. And then I thought, "You can own the day, or you can let it own you," and decided to set my expectations for each day.
They weren't big things, sometimes they were incredibly silly, but the end result was always the same: Every day I would get out of my own head for a little while and deliberately look for people, situations, circumstances, things that would fit my expectation of the day. What I found was that I wasn't just actively looking, I was also continually assessing and reflecting. Okay, it sounds a little twee, and possibly it is,...
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