Self help sessions

I've been on a bit of a self help kick recently.

The latest book I read was The Secret. You might have heard of it.

I was scared to tell people that I was reading it. The book seemed to get a lot of flak from cynical types (of which I was one). So I took the dustcover off it and read it only when I was at home.

What took the book many pages to tell you I can tell you in a few words:

What you think is what you'll get.

If you think you're a piece of crap, then you'll only get crappy situations in life. If you think you're the bees knees, you'll find yourself in great situations and many fantastic opportunities will abound.

While there's some problematic assertions in The Secret (if you have an illness you willed it there yourself through negative thinking - say what?!), the one major take away from it that I found super useful was the exercises of finding gratitude in your life.

The book has you journaling all of the things that you could be grateful for; starting with friends and family; but going even deeper than that - like the fresh water you have on hand to make tea, and ever further: the ability to pay for that water to make the tea. It's an incredibly eye-opening exercise to take stock of just how abundant your life is; and conversely, how easy as it is to get caught up in feeling bad about things that don't go your way.

So now I write a gratitude list every day. It's an exercise in creativity as much as it is trying to manifest good things. It's easy to repeat the same things over and over, so I re-frame it as a challenge to look inwards and really search for all the amazing things in my life that I don't easily see but should be grateful for nonetheless. Five is my golden number - I always try to write to down at least five items - so if I'm not in great form that day, I'll leave it at five, but once I'm in the flow of it I can write up to 15 items. Here is today's list for example:

Grateful for:

• the delicious coffee from Rum Baba (cafe next door from me).
• a washing machine that lets me clean my clothes with minimal effort
• my ability to enjoy pulling together cute outfits - even on laundry day
• making progress learning Dutch (I can have full, albeit slow, conversations now! And I'm using more tenses than just perfect tense! Wat leuk!)
• Discovering so many interesting things through podcasts (have you listened to Revisionist History? Stop what you're doing right now and go listen to it!)
• dancing! both doing, and watching amazing dancers. It's such a joyful form of expression. 
• my basil plant that I regularly pillage and yet always seems to be growing to keep up with my insatiable demand. Thanks little buddy.
• my new plant that I bought on Amsterdam Yard Sale (a Facebook group that lets you buy second hand things direct from people nearby) - it's a huge Dracaena Fragrans and it is gorgeous.
• continuing the plant love, the insanely beautiful peonies that are sitting on my kitchen table and smell SO good. 
• my first ever pair of new glasses, which are literally opening up my eyes to sharper sights.
• fresh strawberries on EVERYTHING.
• meeting new and interesting people who stay with us on Airbnb.
• my boyfriend's family, who are lovely and very patient with me and my struggling Dutch
• my mum and dad, who are wonderful and accepting of my decision to live in the Netherlands - a veritable world away from Australia. 

The most important benefit of gratitude lists is that it shifts your thoughts and feelings. If you wake up in a foul mood, it's hard to stay in that state when you're writing down and reflecting on all the great things you have in your life. And then you have a written record of those amazing things that you can look at throughout the day if you need a bit of a reminder. Ever better, the longer you do this, the more gratitude lists build up that you can reflect upon over the past weeks, months, and even years. Personally, I've found this little exercise instrumental in changing my moods for the better. 

If you need help with journaling prompts, this page helps me immensely. 

So take it from someone who has a predilection for cynicism and sometimes indulgent negativity: writing gratitude lists is awesome. You don't need to read The Secret, but if you can start thinking about all the things that make your life great, you're onto a good thing.