We often have secrets that we cannot even admit to ourselves since we’re afraid of confronting the truth. It’s really difficult to be completely honest without being afraid to confess our blunders and deepest fears. So it’s a continuous battle, to be aware of our inner world and mindful of what’s going on outside.
One of the best ways to win this battle is by telling the truth to ourselves with the help of journaling. Regular writing practice can significantly improve our mindfulness. In its turn, mindfulness is vital for good mental health and psychological well-being. To succeed in developing this essential skill, you could follow the tips given below.
1. Ask Yourself a Few Questions
To boost mindfulness, writing must become a highly reflexive process. Keep asking yourself questions to get closer to the issues you may be dealing with. Some of the most helpful questions may include the following:
- Why am I doing X?
- How do I really feel about X?
- What am I doing right now?
- Am I going to make an authentic decision about X?
- What emotions am I holding on to?
- What could be the worst-case scenario?
Such questions can significantly contribute to mindfulness and self-improvement because they help to get closer to the truth of your thoughts and deepest feelings. By answering them, you learn more about yourself, your values, and your goals. Also, those questions help to become more focused on some of the relevant things at a given moment.
Make your writing reflection-focused rather than event-focused. Instead of writing about what happened to you, skip right to your feelings about that. Remember that your reactions are more important than the events themselves.
2. Write Down Negative Thoughts
Even though it may be easier to turn a blind eye to your problems rather than to confront them face-to-face, there is nothing more cathartic than letting go of your negative thoughts. Anything that frustrates you, makes you sad or angry should get out of your head and find a new home on a paper. Once you write down everything you think about, you get able to set down your thoughts instead of letting them fly around in your mind unexamined.
Writing can be a perfect replacement for traditional therapy. If you cannot talk to a therapist about what is disturbing you, your journal can be a good listener. The great thing about it is that after expressing what you really think, it gets possible to let go of negativity and fix things.
3. Be Completely Honest
If we aren’t honest with ourselves, we can’t expect to be mindful. Although it may seem obvious that you shouldn’t lie to yourself, sometimes overcoming delusional thinking about ourselves turns out to be quite difficult. When we are not genuine with ourselves, we only choose to notice what we want to, and we tend to ignore what we don’t want to see.
On the contrary, when you are honest about both the “good” and “bad” going on in your life, you can cultivate a mindset of radical acceptance toward everything that happens to you. Learn to see things as they are, rather than pretending they are something else. By doing this, you get into a much better position to improve particular areas of your life. Without the initial acceptance, you won’t be able to make a real change.
The point of writing practice is to give yourself a safe space where you can be unflinchingly sincere with yourself so that you can become more self-aware. Whenever you catch yourself leaving some significant bit of information out of your paper, stop yourself and ask what the truth is and why you are hesitating to write it down. Remember, being dishonest doesn’t contribute to mindfulness.
4. Try Marcus Aurelius’ Method
Have you ever heard of ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius? This book is written like a journal in which the author lists out all the people in his life that positively impacted his personality. This is a great writing technique to start recognizing your core values and become more mindful of your identity. This way, the self can become more defined.
It also helps to feel more gratitude towards people who surround you. While shifting the focus away from yourself, you can become more aware of the lessons taught to you by your friends and family. The next time you are practicing writing, think of other people instead of yourself, so you can come to know your own mind even better.
5. Re-read Your Notes
Reading what you’ve written helps to identify both constructive and destructive patterns that rule your life. This is a really rewarding work that makes you see the trees for the forest. Start examining how you think in a larger context by looking for patterns in your journal. They may be habits that hinder or help you, negative as well as positive thought patterns helping you feel more confident and optimistic. Reading your notes makes you discover things about yourself you never realized, so writing becomes even more productive. As a result, you get to know yourself better and raise self-awareness.
Mindfulness is a necessary component of long-term happiness and success. The act of writing down one’s experiences, thoughts, and emotions can boost mindfulness and have a positive effect on mental well-being. Similarly to meditation, writing can be therapeutic.
This habit helps to become more aware of yourself and your surroundings. When you communicate and release unwanted feelings in writing, you can have more attention to details in your life. Everything you need is just to put aside 10 minutes a day and to focus on expressing yourself. Undoubtedly, you will notice how your personality changes very soon.
Author bio: Alan Walker is a writer and reviewer of essay writing services at Stressays.com. He enjoys writing short stories, essays and opinion pieces on things that interest him. As an author at Stressays, Alan spends a lot of time on research and digging for the truth to be able to provide students with unbiased, thorough reviews of essay writing companies. He also contributes to r/stressays and spends lots of time on Reddit.
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