Weekly gratitude journal published every Saturday.
Last week I started blogging my gratitude journal. I’ve attempted a gratitude journal in the past, but this time around it has been easier. I’ve been tracking symptoms, sleep, and mood. Each day when I track symptoms I also track down something I’m grateful for. At first, I was just doing it daily when I was prompted to track symptoms. Now, every time I have one of those “Oh, I’m so glad this went this way instead of that way” moments I open up my phone and jot it down.
It’s amazing how many moments of gratitude I’ve had this week once I started taking the time to notice it. I’ve also been working hard on shifting my attitude and reframing negative thoughts into positive ones whenever I am able. I am not talking about toxic positivity. There are moments in life that are just bad and no way around it. However, by recognizing as many opportunities for gratitude as I can each week, I am finding peace and joy in this.
Here’s my list of every grateful moment I jotted down throughout the week.
Rowing machine
Yeah! I went to try and see if I could use my rowing machine with the boot on. Hip hip hooray! I could row with the boot on! Woot! Woot! That was some serious gratitude. I have a cheap one, but I don’t care. It’s the first bit of cardio that’s actually gotten my heart rate up in months. I visualized myself rowing across a big lake as I was exercising. It felt soooo good!
Slept without getting up to pee.
Silly, whatever, but this is something I’ve been working on is sleep. I am 97% sure I have overactive bladder even though I don’t have an official diagnosis. I was waking up 1-3 times a night to pee. It was really impacting my quality of sleep. I started taking a probiotic and reducing my caffeine intake during the day. I think it’s making a difference. I jotted in my journal twice about this. I actually think I slept through the night without waking up more times than that. This is a big deal for me. Yay for sleep! I am actually going to write an article soon on probiotics and sleep.
2 hours on call pay
I hate my on call schedule. I chronically complain about it, but this week I did some reframing. I had an infusion I had to go in for. It took an hour of my time. My commute is 45 minutes. So, I spend more time driving than actually working. However, this week I looked at it differently. Minimum pay is 2 hours for coming in. I got 2 hours of on call pay for one hour of work. This is essentially 3 hours of pay. Then I thought, hey not too shabby. If I got paid every day 3 times my pay and only had to work an hour wouldn’t that be great! Mind shift and that I am grateful for!
Light work schedule
I wrote this down. Usually I’m grumpy when I get sent home early from work, but this week I was very grateful for a light work schedule. My foot appreciated the extra recovery time as well.
Doctors appointment today
I was seen in the emergency room Tuesday night, TMI, heavy irregular vaginal bleeding. Heavy enough to cause me as an RN to bring myself in to be evaluated in the ER. Embarassing having a pelvic exam with coworkers present, but it is what it is and I needed to be seen. I was diagnosed with a uterine polyp and was to follow up with a GYN. I called all over to get an appointment. I am very grateful that I got an appointment Thursday! I definitely needed to be seen as my issues had not resolved.
$$ to take the car in
My car was making a sputtering noise and needed to be looked at. I was grateful the repair was not too expensive and I had money in the bank to cover it.
My car was fixed.
I took some time to be grateful that my car was fixed.
Meds are working
Friday, I made a note that the meds they gave me at my doctors appointment seem to be working. The issue has not completely resolved, but it’s much better. I think medication is going to do the trick and I’m not going to need a D&C or other measures to stop the bleeding.
Exercised this morning and posted my Fit Friday Five Blog post
Friday I added this to my journal. I was very grateful that I was able to exercise and that I was able to get my FFF posted.
This morning I jotted down another note about sleeping through the night.
Sleep, glorious sleep!
I am so glad I took the time to write all this down. I hope to inspire others to take the time to recognize moments of gratitude throughout the week.
