You tried gratitude. It didn’t fix it.
Neither did the reset, the routine, or the app that pinged you at 6am asking what you appreciated about your morning. You did the work. All of it.
You’re not behind. You were sold something that didn’t exist.
From the Club
You know the moment. Someone asks what you're grateful for and something in your chest goes tight, because the honest answer is I am holding eleven things together with my hands and I would like to put one down.
But you can't say that. So you say your kids. Your health. Coffee.
And then you feel worse, because now you've lied about your own life to a journal.
This is the one that doesn't do that to you.
What it actually is
The Anti-Gratitude Journal starts from where you are instead of where a wellness influencer decided you should be. The prompts don't ask you to reframe. They don't ask you to find the lesson. They ask what happened, what it cost you, and what you'd like to stop carrying.
Sometimes the answer is funny. Sometimes it's ugly. Both are allowed here, which is the entire point.
You are not required to arrive at hope by the bottom of the page.
Why you'll want it
The prompts assume you're an adult. No "list three wins." No smiley faces. Questions that respect that your life is complicated and you already know it.
It works on bad days. Most journals are built for the version of you who has time and perspective. This one is built for 11pm, in bed, annoyed.
Nothing to keep up with. No streaks, no habit tracker, no empty pages judging you from January.
It's funny. Not comedy-club funny. The kind that makes you exhale.
You can hand it to a friend. She'll know exactly why you gave it to her.
Details
101 lined pages, acid-free
8.5 x 11 inches. Full size, so you can actually write
Lay-flat binding, stays open while you write
Matte soft-touch cover
Printed in the US, packed and shipped by me, not a warehouse
Free shipping in the US
Every order ships with a card from the Club
Gifting
If you're buying this for someone, you already know why. She's the one who says she's fine in a tone that means she's not, who did everything right and is quietly furious that it didn't work. This lands as recognition, not advice. That's rare, and she'll notice.
You don't have to be grateful today. You're allowed to just write it down.
Throw something, grow something.
You can't fix the year. You can't fix the news. You can throw these balls at a patch of dirt and trust the bees to do their part. That's not nothing.
Eighteen seed balls rolled from recycled paper, which sprouts faster than the clay kind, and a wildflower mix the bees and butterflies actually want. For the days you keep showing up when it would be reasonable not to. You toss them where the world needs more flowers, and a month or two later, bees and butterflies show up to the chaos you started.
Functional rage. Productive spite. A small act of stubbornness in the direction of life.
How to use them
Throw. That's it. Bare soil is best, spring or fall is best, but honestly the point is the throwing. Plants have been doing this without you for millions of years.
Gifting
This is the gift for the friend who just got the diagnosis, the divorce papers, the layoff email, the text she wasn't expecting. It says I know, and it gives her something to do with her hands.
Hand-rolled in Cleveland with seeds, paper pulp, and more personal investment than is probably healthy. I sit on the board of a wildlife rehab center. This is what that looks like when it comes home.
One-on-one coaching
When you want a person, not an app. One hour, one thing, no silver linings.
Work With Colleen
Say It Out Loud
A coaching chat that answers back. On your phone, whenever the thing shows up. Free to start.
There's no such thing
No such thing as the woman they told you to be. No such thing as the practice that fixes it. There is, however, a club.
The perfectionist in me tried to out-schedule, outwork, and out-organize a brain tumor. I can tell you exactly where that stopped working, and what I made when it did.
