A regular journaling practice is a lovely way to check in with yourself.
Just dedicating a few minutes each day to examining your experience,
Your reflections,
Your feelings,
Emotions through writing can help us to gain a lot of deep insight into what is actually going on within the body and within the mind.
So this exercise,
It's best to do it in the morning,
But then also you could do it at night to actually close off your day.
So it does depend on what your purpose is and what you want out of journaling.
So if you want some discovery pieces,
You know,
Downloading before you start the day,
Then in the morning would naturally be best.
But if you're wanting something to get closure on certain things,
Then maybe a suggestion is to actually do this kind of practice towards the end of the day.
It's also useful to have a dedicated journal or a notebook for this specific practice.
So in the practice,
You just set aside anywhere from a few minutes to,
Well,
As long as you need to basically sit down and journal.
As you sit down to do the journaling exercise,
Just tune in to the body sitting in the chair.
Just feel yourself seated,
Supported with your feet on the floor.
You may have your pen and pencil in the hand.
And before you start,
Just take a few deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.
If you just continue with a couple of those deep breaths,
Just to ground yourself in this present moment to lose maybe some of the distractions that otherwise may occur.
And as you continue with the deep breath,
Just recognize the state of mind before starting the practice.
Are you feeling calm?
Are you anxious?
Fearful?
Hopeful?
Some of this may set the tone for what you begin to journal about.
Now,
You don't need to fix anything.
Just remember that,
That that's not the intention of this practice.
It's just to notice where the mind is and to explore some ideas.
So then,
As we go into the practice,
And I'm going to leave this open to yourself to basically continue to write,
But just some things to consider.
Just make sure that you do set a timer.
So particularly if it feels like a daunting task.
Just so that you can make sure that the things that you're going to be doing are realistic.
Because otherwise if we say to ourselves that I'm going to journal,
With not having that end goal in sight,
It may become quite a bit of a daunting task.
So the idea of setting this time frame is that we're not overwhelming ourselves within that first instance.
So some of the suggestions is make sure that you are comfortable in your seat,
Particularly if you're going for quite an extensive journaling practice.
And also prepare a few prompts.
So maybe have a think before you start about a few things that you may want to journal about.
So some of the ideas,
You may decide to journal about some things that you're grateful for.
You may decide to journal about your career.
So how you think you're matching up to your vision.
Or it may even be the vision setting that you want to explore here.
You may also want to explore about a specific situation.
So say that you encountered a difficult conversation the day previously,
Or if you're journaling at the end of the day,
You may choose to journal about that.
What I would recommend here is actually noting the prompts at the start of journaling,
Just before you start,
Just to basically make sure that you have this focus so you're not always thinking.
The next thing is then actually doing the journaling itself.
So this isn't like keeping a diary.
That's not the intention here,
Where you sit,
You think,
You reflect and so on.
What we're trying to do is draw out thoughts and experiences and emotions that we may not think of actually on our mind.
So what will likely happen when we're journaling about a specific topic is that we will become a little bit stuck.
We might not have something that comes to mind immediately that we can begin to write down.
So this is where the continuing to write,
Regardless,
Comes into play.
So even though you've got nothing to say,
Just write that.
I've got nothing to say.
I've got nothing to say.
Or blah,
Blah,
Blah.
Whatever works for you.
Something will eventually come to mind relating to that prompt.
And it's those things that come to mind that are kind of like diamonds here.
Because it's things that our mind might be operating in a bit of a superfluous way.
But then it's these deep insights which are usually the core of what some of the opportunities,
The pains that we actually face come from.
So then in order to finish the practice,
So at this point we've gone through the practice and practiced the journaling.
To finish it off,
Just return to the breath for just a few moments.
So just take a few deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Just before we go in and re-read some of the things that we have noted,
Just observe some of these things,
Some of the thoughts that have come up before then continuing on with the rest of your day.
