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Your journal provides countless ways to support your personal and spiritual growth. In this video, I share just a few ideas to get you started!
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In today's video we're exploring the WHO of journaling. This is one of my favorites so far, because I give a couple more specific examples of how journaling can help us move through a challenging situation and then move forward more productively. I hope you'll check it out! How do I journal and what are the rules to journal writing? In about 8 minutes, I share some tips for getting started. Where to journal? Options are unlimited, just keep in mind what'll work for you. In about 6 minutes, I provide a few ideas for you to consider and share a few things that help create my ideal journaling space. ...and how do I fit it into my busy day? Invest 10 minutes in yourself and explore these questions with me. Curious about why you should start a journal writing practice? In less than 10 minutes, I share a few examples of how I've used my journal, and three benefits I've experienced as a result. This is the first in a series of short videos I'll be sharing about the practice of journal writing. This video covers the why, and in future videos I'll share the what, where, when, how, and even the 'who' of journaling. Please comment below with your questions or challenges relating to journaling and I'll incorporate them into future videos!  Sometimes I go mining through old journals to see where I've been, how I've grown through life experiences and difficulties, and to observe patterns over time. Life offers many opportunities for us to learn the most valuable lessons and it's up to us to choose the path of learning and insight. For a long time, my choice was to blame other people for my unhappiness, refusing to see how I was creating it myself. I embraced the role of victim and was addicted to my misery. I kept saying I wanted to be happy, but I wasn't doing much of anything to allow happiness into my life. Instead, I counted all the ways people did me wrong and I carried around a lot of grudges and unforgiveness.
When I decided I was ready to let go of all that heavy baggage, I agreed to let Life show me what I most needed to learn. I was then gifted with a number of people who pushed my buttons and many challenging situations to struggle through. In my journal, I wrote about what and who triggered me, but rather than just blaming the others involved and letting emotions like irritation and anger permeate my writing, I started using a more self-reflective approach, exploring the source of my emotions and what they were exposing about myself. Then I started to see how all that *inside stuff* was directly impacting my reactions with others, often in negative and unhelpful ways. Using my journal to reflect on this over time helped me see how much I needed to heal within myself. The more I see, the more I heal, and the the more I heal, the easier it becomes to handle challenging situations and interactions with others in a healthier way. The life lessons we most need to learn will keep resurfacing until we see what we need to see about *ourselves* and open up to healing old beliefs, attachments and wounds, even when it feels vulnerable or scary to do so.  Presence. As a recovering perfection-seeking, people-pleasing over-achiever, I did everything quickly so I could check it off the list and move on to the next thing. I wasn't fully present with myself, my life, or the people in it. I numbed my feelings by over-consuming food, purchases, and sometimes alcohol. Though I was trying to numb the pain, I ended up numbing feelings of joy and love instead.
A huge lesson I needed to learn was that in order to feel fully alive and really enjoy life, I needed to become more present. For me, that meant learning to slow down and moving at my own pace. I chose to completely cut out alcohol for awhile, I'm learning to eat from a place of awareness rather than emotion, and I stopped binge shopping. I'm learning to be more present with myself, too. When I chose to stop numbing, I started experiencing a lot of strong emotions. Now when they emerge, rather than trying to escape them, I let myself feel them and inquire into their source. I explore what I truly need in that moment to support myself. I'm turning to healthy self care practices such as journaling, meditation, and nature. I pay attention to the little things, noticing even the smallest sources of delight. This has been a huge shift in how I approach my life. Going through the process of unlearning and relearning, most things felt harder and took longer. Change is hard and personal transformation can feel downright terrifying. Along the way, I often felt lost, confused, and alone. But by sticking with it and allowing myself to evolve, I'm releasing that which no longer serves me, including old beliefs, fears, and patterns of behavior. I'm stepping into my true essence and am allowing the blessings of true joy into my life. I now feel deep gratitude for even the most difficult life lessons because going through each one taught me more about myself and made me stronger, preparing me for all the good that's yet to come. |
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