Lorraine (Trezza) Miller ’89 is founder and creator of GratitudeToBliss.com and an award-winning author and podcast host of The Gratitude to Bliss Show.
When you are focused on all the good things happening in your life and wake up feeling grateful, you are more likely to feel positive throughout your day, even when things become challenging. Keeping a gratitude journal rewires your brain, making it easier to handle conflict, mishaps or obstacles. You become less affected by stress and more appreciative of others. Your relationships improve, your health improves and you feel a greater sense of fulfillment.
The biggest change I noticed after I started practicing gratitude is that I no longer felt like I was spiraling into depression during eight years of infertility. I was able to enjoy my life without fear and uncertainty getting in my way. Shortly after I started my gratitude journal practice, my mom passed away suddenly. Even through this tragic loss, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. It was then I realized how powerful this practice is. Three years later I gave birth to my son, and he is a true miracle.
Creating a daily practice and committing to it for 21 days or more will motivate you to continue feeling grateful throughout the year because once you start feeling the amazing effects gratitude offers, the more you’ll want to keep doing it. It’s a healthy addiction. It’s also contagious. When you share gratitude with others, the effects increase exponentially.
The first step is to get a separate notebook or journal just for gratitude and write down five things you are grateful for every day. Keep doing this for a couple of weeks and notice any changes in your mood, energy and stress level.
The hardest part is sticking with it. There are so many activities vying for our time. By making gratitude a priority, for as little as five minutes a day, and doing it consistently for 21 days or more, it becomes part of your daily life, just like taking a vitamin. I like to think of my gratitude practice as Vitamin G because it’s so simple and easy to do and also so nourishing—it’s a lot like taking a vitamin.
Lorraine (Trezza) Miller ’89 earned her B.S. in business and economics from Lehigh.
