Do you ever gratitude journal? Do you ever just play with colors?
Today’s Prompt: Gratitude/Colors
How can we combine these seemingly unrelated things? Both of these practices have useful benefits. Let’s try mixing them into our regular nature journaling practice. As usual feel free to take the prompt and improvise with it. The following is just more info for those who want to procrastinate doing the prompt.
Benefits of a Gratitude Journal
Keeping a gratitude journal has many mental health benefits. In fact, it might be the easiest way to improve your mood. While people in spiritual communities have talked about the importance of gratitude for millennia, science has been catching up. For example, health care practitioners improved their mental health in a stressful work enviornment through gratitude journaling in a randomized and controlled experiment. You can read the publication here at the National Institute for Health. Perhaps you need more convincing than just me and some scientists. Well how about this. Oprah Winfrey said that keeping a gratitude journal was “the single most important thing I’ve ever done.” See Oprah speak about gratitude journaling in this video.
How to get started
Here are some ideas for combining a little gratitude into your nature journal.
- Write down five things you are grateful for at the beginning of a session.
- Alternatively, you can gratitude journal on alternate pages. I used to do my daily gratitude journal in my regular nature journal.
- Speak your gratitude out loud. Remember, nature journaling normalizes talking to yourself. Therefore, don’t feel self conscious talking in the forest by yourself about what you are grateful for.
- Share your gratitude with others. If you are part of a nature journaling group or have a buddy you could try sharing gratitude as part of your introductions. “Hi, my name is Marley, I live in Quito and today I am grateful for my family.” Or something like that.
What about the color part?
Have you ever made color swatches on your page? Have you ever thought about what colors match what feelings? To make your gratitude journal a little more fun try mixing color into it. You could try big watercolor washes under the words. You could do swatches next to each thing you are grateful for. Or you could write everything with colored pens. Maybe you’ll decide you are grateful for colors!
But what if I’m completely new to nature journaling?
Regardless of your experience, we got you right here. Below are links to some super resources for beginner nature journalers.
Are you just getting started with Nature Journaling?
Here are tips and motivation for beginners.
Where is the 30 day challenge?
If you missed the beginning you can still jump in now. Here is the complete guide.
If you want a PDF for printing: 30 Day Challenge Wild Wonder Nature Journaling
