We journal to reflect on past experience, but it’s pretty cool how journal writing can become an indispensable tool for guiding our steps in the present and into the future, as well.
We all have good times and bad. How can we put the blessings of the good times to use in
our defense against the bad? Your journal is where you make this kind of connection.
Have you ever had the sensation of loving what you’re doing so much that you want to hold on to the moment forever?
Maybe you were on vacation or with family or doing anything that gave you great pleasure. You wanted to find some way to make the feeling last.
We can’t endlessly maintain a state of delight: our lives consist of seasons and contrasts, and nothing is forever. Nonetheless, it’s a waste to let peak moments go by without recording them, and somehow making them a permanent part of our awareness and being.
Often, we satisfy this need by taking a camera along. The snapshots serve as excellent reminders. We can leaf through them in an album or on the computer, and mentally recall the images anytime.
Sometimes, though, a camera can seem to come between me and the thing I’m experiencing. At those times, it’s more satisfying to journal about what happened, soon after the fact. Journaling is not as precisely, “realistically” accurate as a photo, but it indelibly etches the experience in my consciousness.
Remembering an image is something that’s hard to put into words. But when you journal about your life, it’s all about the words. It’s all about letting the words flow, without censure, without expectation. Letting thoughts (awareness) become sentences.
(What happens when thoughts become sentences? This is my question to you. Comments, please!)
Which brings us back to the main theme of this post: how can we cull a mantra, a prayer, an affirmation or directive from our journaling that will carry us through the day and give us strength against the things that stress us?
Much of the time, your writings will present obvious candidates for this role of mantra or guide. A certain phrase will appear, as if by its own volition, and its power will stay with you for a long while.
Other times, you will write and write and yet still be looking for that key phrase, that single liberating statement that puts you back on course. When this is the case, try the following steps.
1. Write a minimum of three pages in your journal. It is important to push past your edges somewhat, so you mine your psyche for new and undefended, spontaneous material.
2. After writing, do something else for a while. Talk a walk, eat dinner, call your mother.
3. Eventually, return to your notebook, armed with a pen, and read your latest entry. As you read, circle words or phrases that stand out to you for any reason.
4. Now comes the fun part. Make a list of your circled phrases and words, and then play with it. What parts go together, what parts contrast or contradict? And yes, you know where this is going. Make one sentence that puts this list into some kind of order.
5. Is the sentence useable as is? Wonderful. If not, whittle it down. There is a kernel there that will serve you in the days to come.
There’s method to journaling’s madness. By articulating – i.e., putting awareness into words – we can discover something that amounts to no less than divine guidance.
Do you feel like it’s really time to get a grip, take charge, and create your own future? Journaling will guide you, if you make space for it. Check out my newest publication, Creating Self Space, and get started on the self-discovery journey of a lifetime.
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmichel67/3899744510/
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