To put it mildly, 2020 has been a dumpster fire so far and I’m not holding out a lot of hope for it to get much better anytime soon.\u00a0 This pandemic has upended everyone’s life in some fashion.<\/p>\n
But we can’t forget there ARE still good things going on.\u00a0 People are having babies.\u00a0 People are getting married.\u00a0 People are falling in love.\u00a0 People are creating art.\u00a0 People are volunteering and giving to charity in record numbers.\u00a0 People are rediscovering and reconnecting with their families.\u00a0 People are taking up new hobbies.<\/p>\n
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have been taking an online class called “The Science of Well-Being”.\u00a0 I HIGHLY recommend it to everyone. The instructor is very friendly and easy to listen to, The course material is simple enough for just about anyone to follow, even if you’ve never taken a psychology class in your life.\u00a0 And it’s free!<\/p>\n
One of the things that I’ve learned from this class is that feelings of gratitude are a real source of genuine happiness and there are actual scientific studies that prove this!\u00a0 So, I have started a gratitude journal as a way to count my blessings and recall how many blessings I really do have.<\/p>\n
Of course gratitude journals are nothing new- they’ve been around for ages and promoted by numerous celebrities including Reese Witherspoon.\u00a0 \u00a0I always thought they were hokey and lame.\u00a0 But, I believe in science, so I decided to give it a go.\u00a0 I’ve been doing it several times a week for a few weeks now and I am finding that, with practice, it’s becoming easier and more enjoyable to do.\u00a0 \u00a0If you’ve never tried it, I would suggest giving it a go.\u00a0 \u00a0 Will it feel weird at first?\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Is it worth it?\u00a0 Absolutely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To put it mildly, 2020 has been a dumpster fire so far and I’m not holding out a lot of hope for it to get much better anytime soon.\u00a0 This pandemic has upended everyone’s life in some fashion. But we can’t forget there ARE still good things going on.\u00a0 People are having babies.\u00a0 People are getting married.\u00a0 People are falling… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-warm-fuzzies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t