LiveWork Blog
If you’re like me, you sometimes feel like you’re living in a fog, seeing the world with fuzzy edges and hearing conversations in muffled tones. When in this place of confusion, I rely on my journal to create direction out of the darkness.
Here are some basic tips to start of journaling from confusion to clarity.
Everyone gets stressed. Even rockstars, yogis, coaches and therapists (loving seeing therapists and rockstars in the same sentence). So grateful for celebrities like, Megan Thee Stallion for spotlighting mental health (see Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too) and showing us that even the most together people one can imagine, can still have bad days. Anxiety, sadness, worry, insecurities…These feelings flare up for all of us and can steer us into a pit of gloom. My surefire way of steering clear, or shoveling myself out, is to write in my journal. I start with the truth as I know it, and then begin my inquiry. For example try this in your journal…
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,
The Talmud says, "A dream uninterpreted is like a letter unopened." Recent scientific studies estimate that 95% of brain activity is unconscious. Recording your dreams is like receiving dispatches from the deepest part of yourself, a personalized map into your own great unknown.
In order to begin understanding your dreams, here are some helpful tips:
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.
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.
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.
Want to get started writing in your journal? Here are 5 simple, yet effective methods you can try right away.
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.
During times of great upheaval, there’s a sense that we should “to live today as it were your last.” This sounds really appealing, but what does it really mean?
Spiritually speaking, living each day as your last isn’t bestowing worldly possessions and checking-off bucket lists, but about holistic integrity. As Adlai Stevenson famously said, “it is not the years in your life, but the life in your years.” The following are topics of contemplation, calls to action and operating instructions for more mindful living. Try using one of these teachings a week as a focus for your meditation, as journal prompts, or for deepening conversations with loved ones.
One myth, stubbornly persistent in our culture, is that needing therapy means one’s mentally ill. In reality, most people seek out therapy for what I like to call emotional coaching. A holistic therapist serves as a translator between heart & mind, helping create a pause, between stimulus & response. Therapy does not have to be about what’s wrong, but about uncovering all that’s right.
Tricycle’s interview with Lama Tsultrim, author of Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine.
