The Three Things That Changed My Thinking from Traumatized to Curious

I have been doing these things for a few months now, and last week, after listening to Shawn Acher’s book, Before Happiness, I tweaked them a bit and they just got better.

Every morning, as I drink my matcha that I secretly wish were a double shot of espresso (Oh, but I’m grateful, seriously. Totally. Pretty much.), I take out my big fat notebook and write down three things I am grateful for and (thank you, Shawn), why I am grateful for each thing. It’s easy to whip through these (I’m grateful for this warm drink; I’m grateful for the crow calling outside; I’m grateful for the leaves that are still on the trees.), but if I don’t feel gratitude in my body (for me it’s like my chest is dissolving and the top of my head is gone), I’m just putting ink on paper. The purpose is to get yourself to feel gratitude. So it takes a bit of intention and a slowing down.

You can do it. Would you rather start your day an open door of anticipation or a freak show of anxiety? Your call. You decide.

Then I write down three things that would make the day amazing. This was incredibly hard the first time I did it because I was basically living in survival mode. When I woke up, I wasn’t thinking about how great the day was going to be. I was thinking about how I would get through it, frankly. I also had to work at not writing things down for which I had no control. If I wrote “Someone on the T gives me a million dollars,” that’s cool, but that’s called wishful thinking, and it’s not going to change my behaviors all that much aside from the possibility that I’ll smile wildly at every person who gets on the train because I’ll think, Is it you? I guess that has its possibilities, but what I found was more helpful for me was to write down three actionable things. Three things I could word towards. I became the captain of my ship in a new way because now I wasn’t just keeping afloat: I was having adventures because I was looking for amazing.

The idea that I could do things to make the day amazing was such a radical thought. And this surprised me, just how used to surviving I had become. I love this exercise because it helps me to dream and change my behaviors at the same time.

And my life has changed accordingly. It’s better. More fun. Lighter.

At night, I write down three amazing things that happened during the day. I love this exercise because it means all day long I look through eyes that are looking for the wonderful instead of focusing on the depressing or difficult. It also means that three amazing things happen every day because I write them down after the sun sets. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t the three things I had written in the morning. It just matters that I am noticing that they world is full of amazing. That I have amazing in my backpack, in my guts.

If you do these things, let me know how it goes for you. It’s so funny to me to see just how programmed my brain is to stay in survival mode and make life seem so darn hard. It takes dedication and focus and commitment to change this stubborn gray mass. It’s one day at a time.

It’s sunshine and unicorns, if that’s what you are into. It’s stars and ocean, sparkles and wonder, monster trucks, baseball, a child’s hand in yours, sticky with cotton candy.