JournalingDiscovering Your Inner Self

Journaling
Discovering Your Inner Self
E. Thomas Costello 120andHealthy@gmail.com

Journaling is a self discipline that allows you to have a conversation with your inner self. It is a journey of exploring the things within you that need expression. It is a self guided journey that is safe and free from harm. It involves you and your inner self, no one else. It is freeing, exhilarating, fun and a gift to yourself from you. This guide walks you through how to do it and encourages you to begin your journey now. Enjoy! 120 and Healthy 2008 all rights reserved www.120andhealthy.com

Journaling - Uncovering your inner self

Journaling Discovering your inner self What it could mean to you How to do it E. Thomas Costello What is journaling? Journaling is the practice of having a "conversation" with yourself in written form. It can be typewritten, written out in long hand in pencil or pen, kept in a secret journal, a loose-leaf binder or a spiral notebook. It can be organized by date or subject. Your journals represent the time you take to talk to yourself. Why is journaling important? Too often we do not have time to listen to ourselves, our inner being. Journaling is that process. There is no right or wrong involved in it. It just is. This is very different from our day to day lives where there is a wrong way and a right way to do things. Journaling is taking time to listen to ourselves in a respectful way, that is, in a way that does not require us to change ourselves. We respect what is, rather than always having to change it. Journaling is a space or place where we give ourselves permission to feel what we feel, think what we think, fear what we fear, and want what we want. We can write about those things without feeling that our thoughts and feelings are controlled by the "shoulds" and "have tos" we have been programmed with in our past. Journaling gives us a chance to acknowledge pieces of ourselves that we have secreted or pushed aside for whatever reason. Therapeutically, it can release some of the energy that we have lodged in our bodies, freeing that energy for use in other activities in our lives. How do you do it? You will need a writing instrument (pen, pencil, keyboard) and something to write on (paper, a notebook, computer screen) to begin. Place the date, time and your location at the top of the page. Label the top of the page, My journal about_________, or My thoughts about____________, or, "My questions about________________." Now begin writing the first paragraph. You can start with a thought and just write about it. You can write down anything that occurs to you about that thought or anything else. There are no rules limiting what you can journal about. If you have difficulty starting your first paragraph, simply write about having difficulty your first paragraph. Go on from there. You should plan to journal on a daily basis, ideally at a regular time everyday. It doesnt matter whether it is the morning or night or in between. It is whenever you can get into a space that allows you to express yourself to yourself. You can even ask yourself questions and write the answers as they occur

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Journaling - Uncovering your inner self

to you. If you come up with the answer, "I dont know," then ask yourself the question, If I knew, what would the answer be? and write about that. You wont have to wait very long to feel a sense of relief and pleasure from the writing. And if you dont, write about not getting a sense of relief and pleasure from your writing. As you gain confidence in your journaling, being able to ask a question, hear an answer in your mind and write it down, you may want to try something called dialogue journaling. Dialogue journaling is when you have a dialogue with another person, concept, idea, emotion, or thing. The person need not be alive or nearby for you to have a dialogue with them. On the other hand, they can be in the same house. Their location is not important. What is important is that you are able to visualize this person or concept and can have a conversation. You can speak your part out loud as you write if you want. At the same time you should be able to listen, in your mind, for the responses from the other participant. You write out your portion of the dialogue. You should end your portion of the conversation in a question, this helps set up the response. You then write down what you imagine the "participant" is responding with. And so the dialogue goes back and forth as you discuss whatever issues you need to with the other participant. You can use dialogue journaling for dealing with past or current relationships such as husbands, wives, parents, children, bosses, associates, customers; ones relationship with money, ones relationship with their body, or concepts like fear, courage, and hate. Examples: People who harbor bad feelings toward a family member can journal about the issue. They can shift their attitudes by converting their viewpoint into seeing the issue as a gift with the other family member as the giver. Journaling about how this "gift" actually has had value in their life is a way to heal past hurts. A client says, "Journaling rewards me with an inner wisdom I never believed I possessed. Fears that occupy my head are released when exposed to paper. Confusion becomes a lifting fog. The anxieties of the daily world are replaced by the comfort of talking to an old friend. But this friend doesn't come to me, he waits for me. Waits for me to realize there's more to this world than errands and priorities. There's more to this world . . . . With the peacefulness of a meditation, journaling clears my head." Another adds, "When I was first introduced to journaling, it was rather awkward. It is like a diary but more specific. It is basically writing out my own dialogue from inside my head. The good thing about it is, when written, I get clarity about the subject being addressed through journaling. Otherwise, it is still mumble jumble inside the head. The more I journal, the easier it becomes and the more answers I get. It is a great tool to get clarity on any situation I face. I highly recommend it to everyone. It

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is true, the answers are within!" And a third says, "Journaling allowed me to go into a great deal of depth about my feelings and where they were coming from. Once I started writing, surprising information started coming up from my past that answered lots of questions about my current beliefs and behavior. All in all, I found it very cathartic."

End results: When we respect and validate ourselves, as we do when we journal, there are many positive results. We come to a higher level of acceptance of ourselves. This results in a greater sense of peace and security. We become more compassionate with ourselves and this overflows so we have more compassion for others. Much like taking the time to untangle a snarled fishing string or a ball of yarn, journaling can help straighten out the way we process information and think of ourselves. When we learn to be more attentive, respectful and appreciative of who we are, how we think, and what we feel, we can pass the same on to others. This is how love, caring and understanding of others comes about, through loving, caring and understanding ourselves first. So the bottom line result is: we can have more love in our lives for ourselves and for others. And that is worth writing home about! Be aware that after you experience relief you may tend to stop journaling. You can use journaling the way some people go to a doctor--only when they are in pain. Or you can use journaling as a standard part of your daily routine, as you would taking a shower, eating well, or brushing your teeth. I would recommend you try journaling for a two-week period. I am certain that you will find it one of the more pleasant and empowering things you do for yourself and for those you love and care for.

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Journaling - Uncovering your inner self

Journaling for the Value One way to change a negative experience from a loss to a gain is to give it value. Since value is often an arbitrary assignment of worth, it is possible to simply assign a positive value to what has been up 'til now a negative experience. Many people don't realize that they have the power and right to interpret their experiences anyway they want. Knowing that, it makes sense to interpret those experiences so as to promote personal empowerment, healing, and peace. Journaling is a very effective tool for self-communication. Having the journaling "conversation" about experiences that would be better healed is what this essay is about. Each of us has the power to choose to see experiences from another perspective. Humor, for instance, has tremendous healing power. That is why survivors of trauma use humor to their advantage when discussing what they have gone through. If you need more information on journaling, please see the other article on it. The value of journal is often the increased awareness you gain. Expect that the value of your past experiences will often be what you learned to do and not to do as you live the rest of your life. First, a couple of definitions from a dictionary: GIFT: something bestowed or acquired without being sought or earned by the receiver. GIVER: the person or person who did the giving. VALUE: relative worth or importance; estimated or assigned worth; the abstract concept of what is right, worthwhile, or desirable. You can make a "game" out of looking for the value of your experiences. Be light, be silly, be serious, be willing to give up making the "giver" wrong. The part of you that wants to stay a victim and use that position to manipulate from will resist letting go of the need to have been wronged. Sometimes the "wound" gives one a sense of identity such as "I am the child of ......" or "I suffered...." or "I am a victim of ...." That is when it is difficult to let go and move on to better things. The payoff from belonging to this victim group can be very attractive. There are, however, other ways to get this type of payoff without giving up self-authority and self-esteem. Here's how to get started: (Of course, you have the paper and writing instrument or the keyboard and word processing program ready to go.)

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Journaling - Uncovering your inner self

Select a subject, a person, an experience, a trauma, a hurt, etc. You have now either chosen the GIFT or the GIVER. The next step is to name the giver of that gift or name the gift that came from that giver. Now, start journaling about the value(s) of that gift. Write about how it shaped your view of the world for the better; how it taught you what felt good and what felt bad; what you wanted and didn't want; how it changed your life for the better by putting you on a different path; how it made you understand more about life; how it made you stronger and more resilient; more compassionate, or how it made you stronger to prepare you for greater achievement later in your life. The key in this journaling is to use your creativity and imagination to discover value where you had seen none before.

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Journaling - Uncovering your inner self

Self-Parenting Journaling This form of dialogue journaling consists of one questioner and one answerer. This technique is based on several important concepts: There are almost constant conversations in our heads throughout the day and they generally consist of two participants each with two points of view. The participants are called Inner Parent and Inner Child. The two points of view are positive and negative. So, we have a positive Inner Parent and a negative Inner Parent as well as a positive Inner Child and a negative Inner Child. The Inner Parent is based on the words of our actual parents (and authority figures) when we were children. The Inner Child is based on the thoughts, feelings, and words of ourselves when we were responding or reacting to life when we children. This journaling is designed to train us to be our own positive, strong Inner Parent. For many of us this will represent a very different internal conversation. The positive Inner Parents voice would be characterized by positive, encouraging, clear, supportive, reasoning, reasonable rules enforcement, patient and compassionate. It is pretty easy to imagine that a positive Inner Parent would lead to having a positive Inner Child. The positive Inner Childs voice and behavior would be energetic, eager to learn and discovery-oriented, fun, enthusiastic, eager to please, active, lets-do-stuff and success-oriented, entertaining and liking entertainment. The negative Inner Parent, on the other hand, would bring out the negative Inner Child by being disapproving, critical, harsh, judgmental, etc. The negative Inner Child would react with sulking, tantrums, resistance, being scared, discouraged, hurt, and cranky. Moodiness would be his/her style too. The author of this technique attributes emotions to the Inner Child. The Inner Child directly influences the body, sex, fun, and the energy to make things happen. I suggest that physical health hinges on a positive Inner Child supporting the body with its energy. Ones life and emotions can go out of control when we stifle, abuse or neglect the Inner Child. Besides training us to be our own positive Inner Parents, this process serves to rehabilitate our relationship with our Inner Child. When we look at how we talk to ourselves we probably hear plenty of evidence that we talk to ourselves just the way our parents did. Now is the time to upgrade how we parent ourselves. For more information see http://www.selfparenting.com/ I highly recommend this approach.

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