Happy Journal, Happy Life — My Gratitude Journal Journey

Want to be more mindful and fully enjoy your life? My new book, Happy Journal, Happy Life, will teach you how to do just that. It’s easier than you think!

This is the little book that almost didn’t happen. I was writing another book and ran into a major roadblock. And while I was digging myself out, Happy Journal, Happy Life emerged.

It also almost didn’t happen because the concept of drawing my life is one I’m too familiar with. I have been sketching vignettes of my day and the things that make me happy for years.

I think keeping a regular journal is wonderful. I will likely write in one until I’m an old woman. Might as well—I’ve been journaling since I was six years old.

But this drawing-my-day practice? It didn’t even have a name until recently.

I was trying to describe my version of a gratitude journal on my Instagram account. “It’s a gratitude journal, except you draw what you’re grateful for. You draw out what makes you happy.”

What I love about this is anyone can do it. My four year old keeps a happy journal with scribbles and doodles galore. My mom started hers after proofing an advanced copy of the eBook.

If you can write your name, you can keep a happy journal.

I wonder what magical stories your journal will tell?

Below is an excerpt from chapter 1 from the book. You can purchase the limited edition full-color paperback by clicking here. Enjoy!

How I Discovered The Happy Journal

(excerpt from Chapter 1, Happy Journal, Happy Life)

I didn’t know of any other options.

My plane would leave the next morning from Prague, and minutes before, I had stepped off the bus from Germany. Make that I had taken a train from Germany to the metro in Prague to a bus ride that took me to the airport. I felt lucky to have made it this far, considering I knew no German or Czech.

My method of navigation had been a map laid out in my friend’s apartment in Dresden, a train schedule, and a bus schedule. My destination was the airport in Prague, which was marked on the maps. (Is this when I mention this was in the olden days, before we all had cell phones?)

My only problem was I would arrive at the airport the evening before my flight was scheduled to depart. It was the end of my summer overseas, and I didn’t have money for a hotel. So I chose the only obvious option: spend the night in the airport.

The bus stopped on the outskirts of the airport. After waiting for a while for a much-hoped-for tram, I decided to make the trek to the terminal. After all, I had hours to spare. Many hours.

I made my way to the airport and thought over my summer. I had spent most of it in Pushkin, Russia, teaching high school students English. There had been a team of us Americans, teaching and learning the ropes of living overseas. We had had so much fun.

I missed my new friends.

After Russia, I had taken a train to Dresden, Germany, to stay with my friend from college. We had spent much of the last week talking and walking all over Dresden. It was wonderful to experience her world and to see her again.

But I was tired and ready to go home.

Within a day or so, I would see my parents again. I couldn’t wait.

Stepping into the terminal, I eyed my surroundings. There was a food court of sorts, which I mentally took note of—I would need coffee to get me through the night. My quick scan also revealed my home for the next several hours: a sitting area next to a large window.

After grabbing my coffee, I settled down.

I read for a little bit and marveled at how many people were in the airport at that time of night. Then I reached for my journal.

What happened in the next several hours changed how I viewed journaling. Sounds dramatic?
Well, for me it was a bit dramatic, but not in a bad way.

Starting in first grade, I had kept a journal. And in those notebooks, I had written volumes. I wrote about my dreams, my goals, and what was going on in my life. Up until then, I also wrote about all the frustrations and stress I was facing.

My journals were a safe place to vent. To let off steam.

Nothing wrong with that.

Except I never wanted to revisit them, because, ugh, who wants to reread that? It was kind of depressing! That venting served a purpose in the moment. Writing all the junk out always worked to lighten my mental load. But it wasn’t anything I wanted to read again.

That night at the Prague airport, after writing for a few minutes about how I had to stay up all night, I began to doodle.

I drew tiny pictures of memories from the summer with my black pen and colored them in with colored pencils. Nothing fancy.

But as I drew, I felt a spark of inspiration growing inside of me. More memories popped into my head. Drinking hot tea on a muggy afternoon. The golden cupolas glinting in the sunlight throughout the city. Learning folk dance moves in a parking lot.

I drew and colored (and drank coffee) the entire night. And when I was finished, I had a memory book that teemed with life. It was better than the pictures I had taken of anything and everything. It was better than the writings in my journal of the struggles I had faced.

Somehow it was a microcosm of the truest part of my experience.

And the part that was so easily forgotten.

It was a remembering of the small things.

It was in that moment that I realized that the little things make a life.