Breathe.Gratitude.Love.

When I first began journaling, the pages were filled entries discussing who broke my heart that month or how my dreams of an idealized, picket fenced future was being slow to manifest.  These types of entries were okay for my teenage and young adult self, but I began to want more from life than constantly crying over relationships gone wrong and failed dreams.  

My journal entries had the same themes year after year with no real change-inspired actions.  It seemed my journals were becoming nothing more than internal gossip columns that left me feeling empty. 

 Discouraged, I took an entire year away from journaling, thinking it was doing me no good to write the same things over and over.  

One year after I quit journaling I took on a mentoring client.  I encouraged her to keep a journal to document her progress through the program.  Saying “keep a journal” to her was one of those moments where I knew the message was also meant for me. 

This time around I dedicated my journaling to the specific task of self discovery.  There was no room for “loves” lost, for people who may have slighted me or for tears that would likely be forgotten within the week.  

This refreshed  journaling practice would serve as a way to get to know myself, to monitor my own feelings, and to find out what I really believed.  It would serve as a way to separate the thoughts and ideas placed into my consciousness by others from the things I felt were true from the space of my internal knowing.  My journal would serve as a sacred space of self-evolution.

I think of journaling as a member of the tribe, as a life-partner who reflects back to me the things I most need to know.  It reveals the patterns, tendencies and preferences that formulate how I relate to the outside world.  It helps me to work through challenges and celebrate victories.  The year-long separation afforded me the opportunity to think of journaling as more than writing words on paper.  It is an invaluable companion, one who keeps my innermost thoughts in sacred silence.  (Thank You)

Self-Journaling Benefits
With consistent and intentional journaling, you can expect some or all of the following benefits:
Clarity– Consistent journaling can help you to know who you are at your core. It can help you define your principle beliefs and develop healthy personal boundaries.
Energy Increase- Journaling engages your energy centers (Chakras), and your writings can positively charge a number of these centers. Your writings regarding creativity, emotions and surrender can activate your sacral energy center, while writings about love and connection can activate your heart energy center.  Higher-level energies tend to keep you clear and focused throughout the day.
Managing Challenges– Consistent journaling brings a sense of stability, making it easier to manage the challenges of daily life.   Your consistent journaling will fortify your ability to stand strong in your innate power. In time you can even begin to sense when challenges are on the rise and prepare accordingly.
Healing Traumas– Journaling practices such as affirmations and lists of gratitude can help to re-program the traumas that trigger negative responses. Many traumas are buried deep within our bodies or psyches, and journaling will help bring them to the light for healing.
Quantum Leaps– Consistent self-journaling can cause things to change quickly.  Your devotion triggers sudden increases and moves things forward in the direction of your focus.
Revelations/Downloads– Self-journaling clears and widens the communication between you and your higher self. This results in your questions and contemplations being answered with greater ease, and sometimes instantly. This is not to say that you will always love the answer, but the knowledge you receive can be used to make choices that will benefit you on your journey.
Deeper understanding– Consistent self-journaling deepens your understanding of how the universe works, providing for richer experiences. Deeper understanding also gives you the ability to have greater compassion for those around you.

Self- Journaling Intentions
Setting journaling intentions can help solidify your commitment to yourself and your Spiritual practice. Here are some to the intentions that have been beneficial in the evolution of my personal self-journaling practice:
Set an overall intention– Your overall intention will help guide the  relationship dynamic with you and your Higher Self.  Remember that the Spirit has infinite ways of communicating with us, so it is important to remain open to all message delivery methods.  Set a clear intention, then allow room for this intention to manifest without attachment to the outcome, or how you think it should look.
Set small-increment goals– Setting an initial 30-day journaling goal is relatively attainable. The entries can be short or long, shallow or detailed.  The most important thing here is consistency.  Once you have completed your 30-day goal, you can set another incremental goal to continue your journaling practice.
Set a topics of focus– Select a topic that you want to examine on a deeper level and journal on that topic for 30 days.  Love is a great 30-day topic because there are countless ways to examine and express love, and the revelations from this topic are absolutely priceless.  Other 30-day topics can include health, gratitude, joy, forgiveness and compassion to name just a few. 

Commitment to Consistency
Challenges to our consistency come as part of the package when we choose to consciously evolve and expand.  It is only prudent that we acknowledge these challenges and make a space for them along the journey. Here are some tools to assist with your success:
Prioritize your Practice– You are here because your spiritual growth is central to this phase of your journey, but it can often be difficult to commit due to life’s responsibilities. The solution is simple but sometimes difficult to execute: Choose yourself.  Chose yourself, even if it means disappointing someone else. Only you can put you at the center of your life.
Chose a practice time that works for you– Choose a self-journaling time that best connects with your lifestyles and obligations.  Choose a back-up time that will serve in the space of a missed journaling opportunity.  The Spirit is always available for communion.
Be flexible– Create a self-journaling time that includes a heart of flexibility.  If you are unable to journal at your regular time, keep the commitment in your heart until you are able to express yourself within your journal.
Allow for Interruptions– We often categorize all interruptions as intrusions on our spiritual practice. We may take them as a sign that we should just give up now because this is never going to work. In fact, some interruption allow us the opportunity to “act out” the principles we wish to embody (compassion, grace, love).  If our practice is an act that involves our attention and focus, then a child who begins to cry just as we sit down to journal becomes a part of our practice.  We simply shift our attention and focus to the child until they are comforted.  If the phone rings and the call can wait, then denying the call becomes our practice because we are choosing self-care over unnecessary interruptions.   

Realignment– Realigning with the trajectory of our path is a natural inclusion of our spiritual journey. As we embark to make significant changes, we expect significant resistance. Therefore getting off course is never an issue, but failing to realign with our original course causes tribulation.  Being off course can last 5 minutes or 25 years depending on our commitment to realignment.  Regardless, the original track is always there awaiting our return.