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9 Ways an Observation Journal Made Me Happier
And why a gratitude journal didn’t.
I feel a lot of tenderness for my teenage self. She was unhappy, but I don’t blame her for it. Her reactions were understandable responses to the dysfunction and denial around her. And to be perfectly honest, I still won’t smile when I’m asked to, and I’m resistant to anyone who tells me to “look on the bright side” when I’m simply trying to come to terms with uncomfortable truths.
Sometimes there aren’t bright sides and silver linings, but that doesn’t mean life has stopped. We don’t have to feel grateful in order to feel alive — to feel a sense of vital belonging and engagement with the world around us. And frankly, sometimes it’s an insult to those who are experiencing far more misfortune than us to enforce positivity on top of it all.
So long as I’m not needlessly bringing anyone else down, or perpetuating the equally false notion that everything’s awful, I’ve come to understand that resisting and blocking certain feelings makes much more work for me than just allowing myself to experience them.
Getting to this point of self-acceptance, where I now feel able to approach events in my life with curiosity about what gifts each challenge might be offering me, has taken time and practice. I don’t think I’d be where I am today without keeping an observation journal.
To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling, in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them, in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking.
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are
What is an observation journal?
An observation journal is a simple daily writing practice. Every day, write a list of five things you’ve noticed, describing each in as much detail as you are able to.
