We all have a story to tell, even though sometimes our stories mingle between reality and what we choose to remember. However, what determines our destiny is oftentimes the way we fashion our stories. While it is always best to err on the side of truth, sometimes we are driven to reshape unhappy experiences to find a smidgen of the positive; doing so can be life preserving.
Memoir writing has soared in popularity in recent years. It is one avenue for recording life’s experiences. Viewing the memoir within the genre of creative non-fiction makes it easier to write a personal, family or love history from the perspective of gratitude. There is no longer the constraint of rigidly adhering to dates and history. With spring in the air, it might be time to buy a new journal, pen words on a card, or begin writing an uplifting memoir.
While at Yale’s department of psychology, Robert Sternberg, PhD, pointed out that a love relationship between two people follows a story, oftentimes a story we created as children. If we find that our stories do not turn out happily, he suggests rewriting them. Here is a twist on a love story for couples. Remind yourself as to why you fell in love and retell the story to each other. Embellish it. Fill it with romance. Add wishes that you can now make come true. Fashion your love story into a commitment to each other.
Take to heart what we learned from the research of Marcel Zentner, a professor of psychology at the University of Innsbruck. “Men and women who continue to maintain that their partner is attractive, funny, kind and ideal for them — in just about every way — remain content with each other,” he said to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It is one of the secrets to lifelong love.
If you are seeing the love of your life, a family member or friends in a less than perfect light, Loretta Breuning says that you can wire your brain to see the good. Just spend three minutes a day for the next 45 days (or one minute intervals three time a day) building a pathway for gratitude. Oftentimes we focus on the negative because the positive has no place to flow until you build that new pathway. Author of “Habits of a Happy Brain,” Breuning told me, “If you miss a day, start over.” Then she added, “Make your energy available for gratitude. You’ll be so happy that you did.”
Deciding to write a gratitude memoir can bridge family relationships, capture the wisdom of older relatives and even enrich the love bond between couples. To begin, it simply takes treasuring one memory at a time.
Rita Watson, M.P.H., a Providence Journal relationship columnist, writes “With Love and Gratitude” for PsychologyToday.com. / http://www.providencejournal.com/entertainmentlife/20160331/rita-watson-creating-story-of-gratitude