One of the most difficult things about being single in today's world is dealing with the discontentment that sometimes comes from being surrounded by images of love, engagements, marriages all around you.
On September 11, 2015, my love life crashed like the Twin Towers did in 2001. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was having a beautiful day. I had stepped out on faith and quit my job 2 weeks prior and that was my last day in a job that wasn't for me. I had a job interview for a dream job that day and I felt like I had nailed it (I did end up getting the job). I went to the movies after that to see The Perfect Guy which had come out that day. As I was leaving the movies, I was scrolling Facebook and came across a collage of pictures posted by a girl of the "love of her life" and it just happened to be the man that I had been talking to and loving exclusively for years and years and years. I immediately felt dizzy and hot and enraged. I felt like I needed to go to the hospital. My mental state was just that fragile.
I say all that to say...I was at a place of zero gratitude. I couldn't understand why God was allowing me to hurt this way. After my heart finished bleeding, it began to harden.
Then I discovered the magic of gratitude.
After telling one of my sister friends about my most recent heartbreak, she invited and encouraged me to join her in Shanel Cooper Syke's Miracle Week challenge. That challenge changed my life in a lot of ways but one of the most crucial life lessons I learned was this:
"The expression of gratitude does not just change how you see things, it actually changes things."
What do I mean by that? During the challenge, Shanel encouraged us to start and keep a gratitude journal. So the premise is that each morning and/or evening you open that journal and write at least 2-3 things you are grateful for. Don't skip a day. Some days will have a lot to write and some days you will have to create the spirit of gratitude.
Some days my gratitude journal was as simple as this (this was the day after the big heartbreak):
Some days it was a lot more specific like this:
Starting this habit made such a difference in my life! The first shift was a mental shift. Have you ever noticed that when you decide on or focus on something, you see it everywhere? For example: My friend decided she wanted a Lincoln as her next car. From that point forward, she was seeing them EVERYWHERE! She wasn't seeing them everywhere because everybody started buying them after she decided that she wanted one. It's because she had focused her mind to look for them. When I started gratitude journaling, I trained my mind to look for the things to be grateful for everyday. I even used to say to people "you're going in my gratitude journal today" if they did or said something nice to me. Then my life went to another level. Because I was looking for things to be grateful for, the universe started delivering those things to me! Like magic, I started receiving opportunities, promotions, money, compliments, approvals, invitations, and gifts out of nowhere. The universe simply gave me what I was looking for.
So I challenge you to start a gratitude journal today and start looking for reasons to be grateful. Don't have a journal? Start in the Notes app on your phone. No excuses babe!
XOXO,
Brandi Nikkale
The magic of gratitude. I love this!