365 Grateful

Project 365, Photo a Day, 365 Grateful whatever you want to call it these days people are "stopping to smell the roses" and trying to appreciate the everyday things.  Some time back I read an article about Hailey Bartholomew from Brisbane who was suffering from depression and she went to get some spiritual advice off a nun.  This nun told her to write in a journal each day something that she was grateful for that day so began writing in her journal.  She did this for a little while and because she is a photographer she decided to take a photo using an old Polaroid camera and wrote what she was grateful for each day.

The thing that Hailey noticed was that the previously "unnoticed" things she was now noticing; like her husband giving her the big piece of pie for dessert and serving the smaller yet not so nicely presented pie to himself.  Over the course of the year she became happier with life and started to appreciate and see all the things she already had to be grateful for.  She started posted her photos on tumbler and then a whole on-line 365 Grateful community was formed.  It is good to be reminded that the morning light or clean dry washing on the line is in fact something to be grateful for and we all know this when it's a dull dreary rainy day.

There was an ad or apple iphone on tv yesterday saying more people take photos all around the world now on their iphones because they are simple and usually on us and people are capturing more everyday things with things like Instagram and the other photo sharing sites.  Photography which may have always been a hobby for some is very universal and even my 9 and 7 year old snap photos on my iphone and put filters on them for Instagram.  Photos capture time, photos capture a moment and photos capture a memory......for this I am very grateful for.

Here is a link to the video however I was having trouble loading the video and image directly to my blog so you should be able to click on this 365 video link.  (let me know if this doesn't work as I haven't loaded a video yet and not sure I've done it correctly).

Do you take photos of things that you are grateful for in your life these days?

Anyone suffering depression needs to seek medical and clinical help firstly however, a project like 365Grateful helped Hailey to feel good about the life she had and was living.

By changing the way she looked at things she was able to change her thoughts to enjoy her life and be thankful.  We all know that no one can be happy every minute of their lives and at times you have really huge problems going on in your life, and other times you have small problems and this is the way life rolls.  It's also good to be reminded to notice the small things in life that are right in front of our eyes.