Journaling helps us to clear our minds in order to focus on what’s ahead of us. Think of your mind as an Etch-a-Sketch and as journaling as your hands shaking off the past, in order to be awake in the present.
Etch-A-Sketch Journaling
Breathe & Journal: Easy, Effective Meditation Moments
Meditation doesn’t have to be something formal, with rules and rights and wrongs. Give yourself the gift of the present, but just taking time to reside fully in the present. Giving yourself an opportunity to bring your attention to Now, helps energize and ground you. This is a great place to start a Journaling session. Ground yourself with these few deep breaths and this body awareness and answer the following,
Good News about S.A.D
Mortified: Share, Cringe, Laugh, Heal
Mortified is a worldwide storytelling event where adults tell stories about their lives by sharing their most mortifying childhood artifacts (diaries, letters, lyrics, poems, home movies)… in front of total strangers.
This past November 5th, I had the extreme honor of being chosen to bare my soul in pubescent prose in a room full of friends and stranger - though, after the raw reveal of reading my childhood diary pages, the supportive strangers truly felt like friends I just hadn’t met yet.
Journaling as a game of Where's Waldo
Think of your thoughts like a game of Where's Waldo. There are so many busy, colorful & distracting characters, it can be a challenge to know where to look for what's important. Journaling allows you to examine & sift through all the non-Waldos in the form of extraneous, or superficial thoughts, in order to focus on the heart of the matter, which may, or may not be a guy in a striped shirt & beanie.
When in Doubt, Assume the Best!
Journal Prompts for Presence
Ruminating on the past, or worrying about a future that has yet to come, can keep us from being fully present with all of our energy and self love intact. Instead our attention and energy flow into experiences that have already passed and cannot be changed, or into prognosticating a future crafted by our worries.
Writing about our thoughts and feelings, plucks this anxious energy from the ether, forming it into a language we can comprehend. Labeling and defining the static of our buzzy inattention, allows us to ground ourselves in the now, harnessing our energy to fully experience the wonder of the present.
Three ways to improve your mental health right now
Life is hard enough, why do we have to be so hard on ourselves? If we’re generally pretty good at being kind to, and having compassionate for, others, what’s the deal with that mean inner monologue?
Scientists believe that one reason is due to our “negativity bias”, wherein we evolved to be constantly scanning our environment for danger, training us to orient to what is, or potentially will, go wrong. Retraining something at integral as evolutionary hardwiring is not easy.
To that end, it’s helpful to have a bunch of self-healing tools at the ready. Here are three tools that may come in handy.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
You can’t necessarily judge your mental health by your emotional ups and downs. Feelings are important and definitely have a lot to tell us, but they are always colored by "the stories we tell" about our experiences. Mental health is about experiencing a full range of our emotions without denying, shaming, or becoming overwhelmed. Emotions are innocent, it’s what we do with them (i.e. "act-out") that can get us in trouble.
Journaling T.I.P. for mindfulness & self-compassion
5 Ways to Use Your Journal Right Now
Want to get started writing in your journal? Here are 5 simple, yet effective methods you can try right away.
Learning by failure: life on the edge of the comfort zone
I’ve always learned by failing, like getting lost in a new neighborhood, in order to find my way around (pre-Google maps!). But, this can come at a cost to my self-esteem, as I’m constantly in what Brene Brown calls “Fu*king First Times”.
To get me through the feelings of being a stranger in a foreign land, I’ve had to focus as much as possible of my WHY. Why did I want to make this course/book? How do I wish to change the world/give back to my community? Focusing on my why (mostly) gets me through the rusty machinations of the unknown.
My WHY : Creating and delivering inexpensive and accessible mental health tools to as many people as possible so they can take charge of their own healing.
Hindsight 2021 - Reading the mind of teenage me
To celebrate the beginning of the process to write a comprehensive guide to journaling for “non-journalers”, I have started a new series on Instagram celebrating entries from my very first journal, beginning back in 1987. You can watch the series unfold here while I try not to cringe.
Process Journal: Active meditation for busy minds
What is the Process Journal?
The process journal is the dynamic cousin of your high school diary. It is a creative, effective tool for self-growth and professional development - not just a landing pad for capturing the day’s events.
What does it do?
It acts as a powerful release valve for internal pressure. Amazingly, studies have shown, that just knowing that you have access to a trusted outlet, is enough to reduce anxiety. A regular practice provides even more benefit, like illuminating deeper insights and helping halt negative patterns.
How to stop being hard on yourself as a parent
When you hear that inner mom-guilt voice whisper, "you're not good enough," here's what to say to yourself instead
Parenting is hard enough without a pandemic to navigate. We should be congratulating ourselves for just getting through the day, instead of us beating ourselves up for not measuring up to the Pinterest post next door.
We all want our child to internalize the best of us and leave the rest. That's why modeling self-love and kindness for yourself is a gift you give your child. Lead by example and you will end up raising a compassionate adult, with healthy boundaries and lots of love to give.