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Gratitude Journals
Mar. 8th, 2023 04:14 pm_In general_, my response to the idea and practice of Gratitude Journals is to want to punch the person urging them in the face. Since I generally have a background value of Only Punching People Who Probable Neutral Third Parties Called In to Adjudicate Would Agree Definitely Needed to Be Punched, I avoid the sort of people who advocate for the gratitude journal type of thing.
However! I also recognize that I am ignorant and sometimes I want to correct my ignorance. I was talking to a friend about Gratitude Journals, and he described his mother’s Gratitude Journal, that she started keeping on encouragement from her church, and sneaking in and reading it and it really wasn’t at all about gratitude; it was about grudges. This cracked me up. So then I went to wikipedia, which has an entry on Gratitude Journals, and now I have a time frame problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratitude_journal
Wikipedia seems to think this is “early research” on gratitude journals and let’s just say that it’s _way_ after the friend was no longer having anything to do with his mother.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/pdfs/GratitudePDFs/6Emmons-BlessingsBurdens.pdf
It’s an interesting article, because it actually compares gratitude journals with other approaches to getting one’s subjective assessment of one’s life and expectations for the future to be more positive and hopefully also improve other health measures / health activities (getting enough sleep, exercise, etc.). Other approaches include the ever-popular, It Could Be Worse (they call that downward social comparisons).
It is a consistent observation that Mormon women often score highest on all kinds of measures of subjective happiness, and when you look at things like suicide attempts by Mormon women, you really wonder whether one should pay any attention at all to subjective measures of happiness (yes, I changed that slightly — pick whichever one you like best and go with it. I can’t decide).
Anyway. Reading this article has clarified why I feel a strong aversion to Gratitude Journals, and I think I will go forward from here NOT suppressing the desire to punch people in the face, but rather to converting it into a particularly entertaining monologe on how I am Pro Reality and Pro Neutral Assessment, and since Gratitude Journaling is Positivity Biased, I am no more okay with it than I am with a variety of things (such as catastrophizing as a way to cope with anxiety, or creating a sense of scarcity in order to be more frugal, or delusionally believing that one is disgustingly huge in order to stay on a diet) that are Negativity Biased.
This episode in Shadow Work is brought to you by My Ongoing Search for Strategies of Stable Resilience
Are you curious about Shadow Work? This is a great, short article describing it: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-is-shadow-work
When I described Shadow Work (very poorly, compared to that linke!) to a friend who works in the field, she said it sounded like A.C.T., which she found personally helpful. A.C.T. is definitely related, and there’s a lot to like about it, altho again, I’m gonna sit here and carp about the deviation from neutrality.
Here is a good, short resource on A.C.T.:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy
In general, whenever someone urges stopping suppression of negative emotions (Tied Up in Nots, for sure!), I am deeply in favor. Negative emotions exist for a purpose! Our job is to figure out what that is. We learn from them. When we learn what we care about, and what action it is important for us to take, then we investigate how to effectively take the necessary action, and we use that powerful motivation of negative emotion to power us over the hump of doing it. With the plan in place, and as long as we make progress on the plan, the negative emotion will reduce in intensity. Once we are moving, we don’t need motivation! We are on our way. But this summary is _my_ summary. Shadow Work and A.C.T. are less mechanistic. Probably less of an asshole about it, too, honestly.
However! I also recognize that I am ignorant and sometimes I want to correct my ignorance. I was talking to a friend about Gratitude Journals, and he described his mother’s Gratitude Journal, that she started keeping on encouragement from her church, and sneaking in and reading it and it really wasn’t at all about gratitude; it was about grudges. This cracked me up. So then I went to wikipedia, which has an entry on Gratitude Journals, and now I have a time frame problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratitude_journal
Wikipedia seems to think this is “early research” on gratitude journals and let’s just say that it’s _way_ after the friend was no longer having anything to do with his mother.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/pdfs/GratitudePDFs/6Emmons-BlessingsBurdens.pdf
It’s an interesting article, because it actually compares gratitude journals with other approaches to getting one’s subjective assessment of one’s life and expectations for the future to be more positive and hopefully also improve other health measures / health activities (getting enough sleep, exercise, etc.). Other approaches include the ever-popular, It Could Be Worse (they call that downward social comparisons).
It is a consistent observation that Mormon women often score highest on all kinds of measures of subjective happiness, and when you look at things like suicide attempts by Mormon women, you really wonder whether one should pay any attention at all to subjective measures of happiness (yes, I changed that slightly — pick whichever one you like best and go with it. I can’t decide).
Anyway. Reading this article has clarified why I feel a strong aversion to Gratitude Journals, and I think I will go forward from here NOT suppressing the desire to punch people in the face, but rather to converting it into a particularly entertaining monologe on how I am Pro Reality and Pro Neutral Assessment, and since Gratitude Journaling is Positivity Biased, I am no more okay with it than I am with a variety of things (such as catastrophizing as a way to cope with anxiety, or creating a sense of scarcity in order to be more frugal, or delusionally believing that one is disgustingly huge in order to stay on a diet) that are Negativity Biased.
This episode in Shadow Work is brought to you by My Ongoing Search for Strategies of Stable Resilience
Are you curious about Shadow Work? This is a great, short article describing it: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-is-shadow-work
When I described Shadow Work (very poorly, compared to that linke!) to a friend who works in the field, she said it sounded like A.C.T., which she found personally helpful. A.C.T. is definitely related, and there’s a lot to like about it, altho again, I’m gonna sit here and carp about the deviation from neutrality.
Here is a good, short resource on A.C.T.:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy
In general, whenever someone urges stopping suppression of negative emotions (Tied Up in Nots, for sure!), I am deeply in favor. Negative emotions exist for a purpose! Our job is to figure out what that is. We learn from them. When we learn what we care about, and what action it is important for us to take, then we investigate how to effectively take the necessary action, and we use that powerful motivation of negative emotion to power us over the hump of doing it. With the plan in place, and as long as we make progress on the plan, the negative emotion will reduce in intensity. Once we are moving, we don’t need motivation! We are on our way. But this summary is _my_ summary. Shadow Work and A.C.T. are less mechanistic. Probably less of an asshole about it, too, honestly.