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Hello, my dear friend! I hope all is going well for you.
We're here again as I blog through the alphabet for the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge.
Today, we're tackling the letter "J" for "Journaling."
Journaling (aka Personal Writing)
I've been journaling for MANY years now. (I have a cardboard box FULL of used journals to prove it. lol)
At first, I found the blank page pretty intimidating. Over time, though, my journals have become trusted allies.
Do you already journal? If not, and you decide to after reading this post, you can do so in many different ways including long-hand in a paper journal or via a computer or app.
The Benefits of Journaling
In his essay, Journaling Your Way to a More Authentic Life, Eric Teplitz listed five key benefits of making journaling a practice.
1. Honoring Your Inner Experience
2. Increasing Self Knowledge
3. Creating a Tipping Point for Change
4. Developing Your Intuition
5. Validating Your Own Existence
In addition, suppressing emotions and letting them swell around in our bodies without some sort of expression drains us. Not only that, but the energy can become stuck where it creates all sorts of havoc (ie manifesting dis-ease and illness). Whereas personal writing (aka "journaling") provides us a safe space to explore our feelings and thus release their accompanying energy.
Journaling can also lead to self-reflection, leading us to self-empowerment.
"Imagine the quality of a relationship with a partner, spouse, or significant other in which you rarely check in to see how the other person is doing. Or one in which you rarely let the other person know, honestly, how you are doing. Would you expect such a relationship to work in the long run? Bring out the best in each of you? Be fulfilling? Now consider that the only partner you will have for the entirety of your life is yourself. Regular checking in is essential." ~ Eric Teplitz
Tips for Journaling
Protect your privacy. When you know that your journal is safe and away from prying eyes, it is easier to fully express your thoughts, feelings, and being.
Date every entry. This is such a good reminder. There may be times when you'll want to revisit wisdom when it may be essential to know what day the entry was written. An excellent example of this is I am currently going through journal entries that I wrote in "9 Years". Numerologically speaking, these are challenging years of completion. To locate these entries, I first need to know when they were written. Some sources even suggest going as far as logging your location for each entry.
Be authentic. During our spiritual journey, we often shed the layers of conditioning and find out who we are beyond who others have told us we are. Journaling gives you space to practice being the real and authentic you. At first, this may feel very foreign. Keep at it! Give yourself the space and patience to figure out who that is.
Forget the rules. In your journal, you determine the rules. There are NO rules or "shoulds." It is a safe space for self-expression. Don't worry about grammar, spelling, or clarity. Write outside the lines. Heck! Get a journal with dots or no lines at all. Draw. Doodle. Color. Make lists. Do what you want! Let go of all preconceived notions of what it "should look like."
Track actions, not results. If you're embarking on a weight loss journey, write about the things you are doing to accomplish your goal, NOT the results you are getting from them or not. Sheryl Garratt tells us in her essay, The Power of the Weekly Check-in, "It really helps to focus on what you can control and build habits that will lead to the results you want."
Make it fun! Maybe try art journaling.
What Do I Do With My Journal?
Remember? "Forget the rules." But sometimes, it helps to have a vague idea, at least, what others are doing before venturing into new terrain.
Use it to:
Prepare for a new day.
Reflect at the end of the day.
Celebrate your successes.
Make notes and reminders for future use.
Freely express yourself.
Recollect dreams.
Keep notes from conversations with friends, loved ones, and advisers.
Keep ideas for future creative projects.
List the things you're grateful for.
Rant! Pour all the **it onto the blank page. It gets the energy out and keeps it from getting stuck in your body.
Keep a list of books, movies, songs, and articles you've read, watched or heard or make a list of ones you want to read/watch/listen to.
Cultivate new habits and break old ones.
Deal with blocks and stuck spots through brain dumps/freewriting/stream of conscious writing/Chatting With Spirit (see below). This helps you to release worry, anxiety, random to-dos, what-ifs, and other bits of mental clutter. Once you're done, it can feel like a weight has been lifted off of you!
Make daily/weekly/monthly check-ins.
Keep a photo diary.
Re-Reading Old Entries
There are those who might advise against doing this. I have found that doing so is quite enlightening.
They assist us in revisiting wisdom that we may have forgotten but can come back around to.
Doing so allows us to identify patterns that are clearer in hindsight than in our day-to-day activities.
Chatting With Spirit
I discussed this in a previous post, but I thought I would reshare it here for ease of reading.
As part of our journaling practice, we're going to ask for guidance (as Julia Cameron puts it). I prefer to call it "Chatting With Spirit."
This is a great practice, especially when you feel "stuck" or cannot discern for yourself "what the heck" Spirit is attempting to get across to you in any given situation.
1) Journal
For starters, give Julia Cameron's practice of writing "Morning Pages" a shot.
Morning Pages are three pages you write as a stream of consciousness. You can type these out, but through my own experience, I've discovered that things flow better and more easily when I write them out by hand.
2) Ask for Guidance
"I believe in higher realms and higher forces. I believe our world is touched by them, needing only our consent. Swing wide the gate and all manner of spiritual aid rushes to our side. Clang the gate shut again and experience life without headlights. Guidance gives us high beams, and we come to truly on them. As we ask to be led, we are led. Write for guidance, and our lives become friendlier. The future no longer looms hostile and unknown. As we ask to be guided we experience a benevolent guiding force, tutoring us as we move forward. This force ‘speaks’ to us in a wise and kindly tone.”
~ Julia Cameron, Living the Artist’s Way
Open your journal and go to a new page.
Write a question pertaining to the situation at hand that you would like answered. (ie “What about X?” or “What do I need to know about X that I don’t already know?”) Questions that require a lengthy answer, rather than simply “yes” or “no,” work best here.
Listen for your answer. Write in a stream-of-consciousness fashion—whatever words you hear or that come to you. Write as quickly as possible and use the exact words that come to you.
You want to do this from a centered space. Do NOT edit yourself. Do NOT think about what to write. Do not stop to read what you are writing. Keep writing until you cannot write anymore. Write until nothing more comes to you to write. And, yes, it might sound like your voice, but you are not “making it up.”
”It is our hand moving across the page, but our hand is an instrument of God.” ~Julia Cameron
The “voice” will be supportive and loving. It will not be manipulative or overly critical. That would be your mind and Inner Critic getting in the way. That is not it!
In my experience, Spirit or my Spirit Team (ie angels, guides, etc) will sometimes come through as “firm.” They will tell us like it is, and if our actions do not support our Journey or “big picture stuff,” they will let us know. However, it will not come through in an overly critical way. Instead, it is loving and supportive.
An example could be: “We love you so much, but what you are doing is not helpful.”
If Spirit or your Team says something that you don’t quite understand, you are welcome (and encouraged) to ask for clarification.
Keep writing until you no longer hear answers forthcoming.
Do this often, even daily! The more you do it, the more precise the channel becomes and the easier it becomes. Eventually, you will get to the point when it seems as though you are in constant contact with your team, as though you are having an ongoing conversation with them. They will seemingly become “Chatty Cathys.” When that happens, you’ll want to carry a small journal around with you at all times. That way, you won’t forget any of the wisdom shared with you.
I hope you have found this information enlightening, my friend, that you will give journaling a go, if it is not already among your current practices.
If you have any questions or insights that you would like to share, I invite you to comment below!
Until next time, my dear friend, may you have a wonderful rest of your day!
Sending you so much LOVE, LIGHT, and BIG SQUISHY hugs!
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