What Happened When I Lost My Gratitude

For the past few months, my life hasn’t felt as bright. I’ve been feeling exhausted all the time, my husband Mark and I have been fighting a lot, and I’ve generally felt pretty rough. I noticed that I was getting irritated with people (especially Mark) a lot easier than normal and wasn’t able to bounce back from negative situations as easily.

I figured I was just going through a rough patch energetically and wondering if maybe Mercury was in retrograde or something but I don’t think it was. Maybe it was because I have recently started limiting my carb intake? That might explain being irritated more easily but I don’t think it would explain my inability to bounce back from that irritation once it had passed.

I was laying in bed one morning, reluctant to get up (which is highly unlike me) and it hit me: I had lost my gratitude. As I rewound the film of my life for the past few months, I’d realized that I had stopped saying my Gratitude Letter along the way. It had started as an experiment but turned out to be an experiment gone wrong.

Let me explain.

A Daily Practice

Every morning for the past three years, I’ve recited a Gratitude Letter which is a letter that I’ve written to the universe thanking it for all the amazing things I have in my life and also the things I wish to have in the future. It has been one of the most incredible practices I’ve cultivated in my life (next to meditation) and honestly, it’s been this biggest game changer. It’s brought me amazing career success, helped me build a beautiful marriage, and helped me heal in numerous ways, both physical and emotional.

When I say my gratitude letter in the morning filled with love, hope, and joy, I start my day off with an open heart and a bright smile. It instantly changes my mood and allows me to manifest my greatest joys.

I’ve been reciting this letter for years. Well, not the exact same letter that I first wrote over three years ago. I have been modifying it along the way, either because something I had hoped for came true or I was refining the vision I was holding for my life. But a few months ago I thought I’d internalized the content and the feeling of the letter so well (I was reciting it by memory at that point) that I thought I could get away with not saying it anymore. I mean, why should I when I had been able to take my heart and mind to those feels of joy and gratitude with a thought? I didn’t need to recite a full letter each day, right?

Wrong.

Gratitude Lost

This is what happened when I stopped reciting my daily letter:

• The energy and excitement that I approached each day with started to disappear and was replaced by lethargy and indifference.
• I had trouble waking up early (I’m usually awake by 5ish so that I can start working on blog stuff) and feeling more tired and less motivated throughout the day.  
• I became less interested in spending time with friends (I’m an introvert but there are a few friends that absolutely love spending time with, but even spending time with them became less of a draw).
• Mark and I started fighting…a lot. We fought about important and trivial stuff, but the arguments about the trivial stuff became a much bigger deal than they should have been.
• I became less engaged at work. Things that I would approach as exciting opportunities to learn became boring and bothersome.

When I lost my gratitude, my life was like a diamond that had been covered in dirt. There was still beauty there but I couldn’t see it past all the grime. And the worst part was that it took me two months to realize it was happening.

My Aha Moment

Mark and I had a particularly heated argument the other day and I was feeling an unreasonable amount of anger. When we decided to take a step back and give ourselves some time to breathe and reflect, I asked the universe to help me see things differently, to help me understand what I was meant to learn from this situation.

The next morning, I woke up and laid in bed for an extra few minutes after my alarm went off and the message came to me: I have lost my gratitude.

As I reflected on the last two months and the way I’d been feeling, I realized that those negative experiences, the loss of excitement for my life, it all began when I stopped my daily gratitude letter practice.

What’s ironic is that I started creating my “Science of Gratitude” course a couple of weeks ago and even then I didn’t realize that taking a break from my letter had such a huge impact on my daily life.

Approach Each Day With a Grateful Heart

The minute I realized my error, I said my gratitude letter aloud. Even though I wasn’t particularly feeling the emotions of gratitude and joy at the beginning of the letter, by the time I was even a quarter way through it, my face had changed. I was smiling brightly again. I was excited for the day, I was looking forward to seeing my friends at work, and I hugged and kissed Mark with so much love, not giving another thought to our petty disagreement the night before.

I believe so wholeheartedly in this practice because not only is it incredibly powerful for manifesting a beautiful life, but it completely changes the way you approach each day. And that’s what ultimately matters, right? If we approach the present moment with gratitude, it changes our mindset and our physiology which in turn changes how we interact with our world.

If you enjoyed this post, leave me a comment below and let me know which part resonated with you the most!