I have been journaling for a long long time. I had my first diary when I was 9. I still have it. It's pretty damn cute. I went on from there, and as the years progressed I found journaling to be indispensable to my life. Indispensable? It's a strong statement, but seriously, journaling has had profound effect on my mental and emotional well-being. And if you believe what I believe, that our physical state of health is mostly determined by our emotional state of health, then journaling has had a positive affect on my physical state of health as well.
When I journal, I integrate. What does that mean? You'll notice that the website name or URL of this blog is 'integraleverything.typepad.com'. I know that my body-mind requires some integration time every day. When I am journaling, I am integrating the thoughts, feelings and ideas that I have been experiencing that day, or that week. Or sometimes that year! It's not a linear experience. When I am really involved in my journaling the notion of 'time' becomes less clear and I am able to access a part of my brain (they say it's the 'right side' of the brain) that is wiser, more creative, and more spiritually in tune with a deeper, truer part of myself.
In these modern times we are bombarded with, they say, thousands of messages every day. Our subconscious mind makes a note of all of these, and then all of these messages basically just sit there, taking up space and energy in our systems. Also we are constantly experiencing people and situations that emotionally affect us, but because of the fast-pace that we have to maintain just to 'keep up' with everything, our minds and hearts begin to feel overloaded. We often will NOT know when we are overloaded because 'overload' will often look like anger and frustration. It's often hard to make the correct distinction.
With Journaling you have a simple and effective way of dealing with this 'overload'. And it really works!
Four years ago I did Julia Cameron's 'Morning Pages' routine. It involves writing 3 pages straight, stream-of-consciousness style, preferably every morning, with no distractions. It doesn't take long to do this. It can be done in as little as 10 minutes, depending on how fast you write. (And handwriting is better than typing, although if typing is the only way you can do it, it will still be effective!)
I was doing something like Cameron's Morning Pages before I read her book, The Artist's Way, but I loved that she so clearly validated my past experience with my own journaling. Her book, too, is a wonderful workbook with many exercises that you can use to get in better touch with your own creative abilities.
What you'll find, if you sit down and give yourself this time every day, is that, as you get about two pages into your writing, you'll experience a sense of clarity that will surprise you. If you are writing about a specific issue then you will find more clarity about that issue. If you are just free-writing about anything and everything, you will also come out of the three pages feeling more relaxed and intelligent and clear-headed than you felt 10 minutes before.
Try it! Like EFT, try it on everything!
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