What's up with all this Gratitude stuff?

I've had friends who have done gratitude journals and I've always been interested in the idea of it.  I purchased a gratitude journal on a girlfriends weekend and even a gratitude app but I've never managed to complete more than a week of it.  I decided to do a personal gratitude challenge this November for several reasons.  First, I really believe in the power of positive energy.  I try to be a "look at the bright side kind of person" who thinks about how to make life easier for others while maintaining a slightly sarcastic edge.  Sometimes it can be a little tricky to combine the two.  Something happened after my dad died though.  I started really focusing on what I needed.  This was a good thing and something I wasn't doing enough of.  But I've noticed lately that this "me thinking" has gotten me a little hyper-focused on all the negatives-the things that shouldn't be there for me to have the "perfect experience."  The gratitude challenge was a way for me to try to get out of my head a bit and to try to go back to being a little more balanced in my thinking.  I chose to do it publicly because I think it gives me an extra incentive to stick with it.  

Image from Quozio.com

Last November, I was still a super secret blogger.  I would post items but didn't know how to promote or how to get anyone to read my blogs.  Part of this felt very safe-it's terrifying to put yourself out there.  What if someone says something bad to you?  But it's also exciting to be able to put down your thoughts and really express yourself.  

My Gratitude Challenge #11 is that I am thankful for all of the wonderfully smart, talented and amazingly helpful and kind Speech language Pathologist blogger/TPT'ers that are out there.    

First, I would like to thank the blogs that I read/blog stalked that made me want to start my own blog (or start writing more once I had one):

If I only had Super Powers
Speech Room News
Heard in Speech
Autism Games
Sublime Speech
Testy Yet Trying
Consonantly Speaking
Activity Tailor
Jill Kuzma's SLP Social and Emotional Sharing Site

The ideas and resources from these blogs kept me busy for months.  I have a whole shelf in my materials room that contains projects I made from your tutorials.  Thank you so much for providing such fantastic resources on a regular basis.

Anytime you are talking about great blogs, it's important to remember some of the fantastic websites that have been around for years:
Caroline Bowen
Judith Maginnis Kuster
Speaking of Speech

These were fantastic resources for me when I was first starting out as a new therapist and needed guidance in so many areas.  Here's something to blow your mind a little, the internet didn't really exist when I went to undergraduate.  YIKES.  I remember being really excited to find something that was an early, early, early version of mapquest that was before Windows was invented.  I did all of my papers on my word processer-try typing when you can only see 5 lines at a time.  

I have a few more specific thank-you's that I would like to share:

Thank you to Jenna from Speech Room News for sharing information, for encouraging others to create materials, for being generous with your talents, comments and ideas.  Jenna previewed one of my earlier products and I was so excited that she offered to do so.  Her blog is tremendously popular, and she has used it to encourage collaboration with her question feature on Facebook, teach others how to blog and create therapy materials and promote other therapists, bloggers, and products.

Thank you to Jill Kuzma who left a tremendously kind comment on my blog when no one had read it and pinned a variety of my products to Pinterest.  Without her help, I would probably still be a super secret blogger.

Thank you to Carrie from Carrie's Speech Corner who was one of the first consistent commenters on my blog.  She really got me to start thinking about other blogs and about commenting on people's posts.

Thank you to Laura from All Y'all Need for hosting awesome monthly blog link ups which helped me to get to know some of the SLP bloggers in a less "speechy" kind of way. 

Thanks to Cindy Meester for being the first consistent commenter on my Facebook page, her blog is so amazing!  

Thank you to Jess from Figuratively Speeching for inviting me to be part of her blog hop.  It was through that hop that I was able to meet so many talented SLP bloggers/creators (Mia, Rachel, Dana, Rae, Karen, Natalie, Amy)   Thank you all for letting me vent, for looking at my stuff, for providing fantastic suggestions and for being my online Speech friends!  You are all lucky that blogs can't sing as I'm currently singing an old Dionne Warwick song as I write this.  

Thank you to Felice from the Dabbling Speechie for being the first person to put my button up on her blog and for asking me to do a product swap with her.

Thank you to Tatyana from Smart Speech Therapy for having such fantastic powerpoint presentations and for being around to answer my questions related to International Adoptions.

Thank you to Jennifer from SLPrunner for hosting a FB Frenzy party this fall where I got to meet a bunch more fantastic Speech bloggers!

Thank you to Erik X. Raj for posting hilarious notes from our favorite Speech therapy products.  I don't know him but he just exudes positivity and excitement online.  I aspire to be as positive to others!

Thank you to Jenn from Crazy Speech World for hosting instagram parties with Jenna from Speech Room News as well as helping to promote other speech bloggers using their multiplying Mondays posts.

There are many more (and I know I missed some...)  I'm grateful to everyone that I've gotten to know personally or through their blog.  I'm grateful for people who take the time to share the information, ideas, and creativity with their fellow Speech Language Pathologists.

I'll post again at the end of the month about how my "gratitude experiment" has gone.  So far it's day 10 and I've noticed that I am more relaxed and feeling calmer.  I am able to deal with stressful things in a more rational way.   I think it might be working.