I've started doing something each night before I go to bed recently, and mostly, I've kept it pretty private. The only people I ended up talking to about it were my roommate at school and my sister, who is basically my roommate at home. I started taking five or ten minutes each night to write down ten good things that happened that day. Some days, I get to eleven or twelve items on my list, if it was a very busy, productive, or exciting day. Other days, it can, admittedly, be a struggle to make it to ten, but it's sort of my rule that I can't go to sleep until I have at least that many.
I realized after having a conversation with a friend that I was spending a lot of time dwelling on the negative things that happened during my day--occurrences that were upsetting or frustrating. It's not wrong to complain; but I was feeling myself doing it way too much, and laying a lot of my frustrations out on others to whom I complained. I don't remember what thought or moment exactly prompted me to start, but I had the thought that if at the end of each day I took a very small amount of time to write down ten things, as small as saying hi to someone I passed in the hallway or as big as a play I wrote getting accepted into a competition, I would end up thinking more about what was going on that was positive, and that would balance out my natural tendency to spiral into negative thoughts.
While doing this, I've tried also to be careful not to prevent myself from having negative feelings when they do happen. It's okay to get angry, sad, or frustrated, and it's okay to really experience those emotions when they occur. I'm not trying to suppress them. What I'm trying to do, is to think about everything that went well, even and especially during a day that felt completely horrible. It's about putting some things on the other side of the scale so that the bad isn't weighing me down all the time.
Here's some examples from my own lists of Ten Good Things:
12/14: I got confirmation today that I have a job for next semester.
12/14: I got a compliment on my Star Labs sweatshirt. (It's a reference to "The Flash.")
12/15: I got through my Acting I final this morning!
12/15: I had a really nice dinner with a friend today.
12/16: I turned in my Odyssey article for this week on time.
12/16: I did laundry today!
12/16: My Big and I went to Shabbat dinner at Chabad this week.
12/17: I vacuumed this morning and dealt with the water in the fridge from defrosting it all by myself before leaving my dorm for break.
12/17: I was able to do a favor for someone after feeling guilty about making her deal with the snow to pick me up from my dorm.
12/17: My favorite teacher from elementary school accepted my Facebook friend request.
One challenge I've dealt with is remembering to make the list or finding the time to do it while I'm on vacation and my younger sister is also on her break--it feels much easier and more fun sometimes to hang out with her and then fall into bed, dead-tired, than to sit down and make a list. But missing a day doesn't mean you can't do it--if I forget to write my Ten Good Things for one day, I just fill them in the following evening before doing that day.
I'll admit, though, that I sort of put it off all week, and since I'm vacationing with my family, all the days have blended together...so Ten Good Things 12/27-12/30 is going to be a giant list of Forty Good Things! It sounds as though it would verge on stressful, but for me, it has actually been a nice way to de-stress at the end of many a long and hectic day.
