How I Journal

I want to delve more into the benefits of journaling and demystifying it. I think many people think journaling is like writing in a pink diary with a lock on it like in high school, writing “dear diary”, but it is actually one of the most powerful tools you have for making progress in your life!

This is because journaling allows you to see what is happening in your mind on paper in front of you. When the thoughts swirl around in your head, the energy doesn’t go anywhere. You can overthink but nothing ever comes of it other than rumination and anxiety.

However, when you write your thoughts down to where you can see them, you get a different perspective and can work through what has you stuck.

The way we approach self-worth section of the Powherful Mind portion is through a cycle of: your beliefs affect your thoughts, your thoughts affect how you feel, how you feel affects your actions and your actions ultimately result in the experiences you have. These do bounce backwards as well, but generally this is a great way to clarify the way you perceive the world around you to make meaning.

The journaling exercise I will show you below works through this cycle, using reflection to work from the outside in, and visualisation to build from the inside out.

Phase One: Reflection
Question 1: “What experiences are happening in this area of my life and what actions am I doing to contribute to this?”

What is happening right now, and what actions are you doing that are contributing to this? What reactions or responses are you doing to the experiences you are having.

Question 2: “How do I feel about this experience?”

Question 3: “What thoughts come up that make me feel this way?”

Question 4: “What belief may be creating these thoughts?”

Phase Two: Visualisation

The visualisation phase is important to build up beliefs that are important to you.

Question 1: “What beliefs do I want to have about this area of my life?”

Your beliefs come deeply ingrained on what is important to you. You want your beliefs to back your values, or what is important to you. Otherwise the discord between what you want, and what you believe can cause much internal discord.

Question 2: “What thoughts would back this belief up?”

As stated earlier, your thoughts bounce back with your beliefs. Your self talk, and what you think repetitively grooves pathways in your brain. You can change thoughts much easier than beliefs, and you can be aware of them, like a shepherd you want to make sure your thoughts support what you want. Empowering beliefs back you up, disempowering beliefs pull you down

Question 3: “How do these thoughts make me feel?”

With these thoughts, some of which may be brand new, really embody how they make you feel. Your emotions and feelings are powerful, and aligning these thoughts with feeling good.

Question 4: “What actions will I take to support this?”

What will you do differently to break the old patterns and cycles. Your actions much reflect your words and thoughts to cause tangible change.

Phase Three: Gratitude and Affirmations

Gratitude: What am I grateful for that is already happening in my life?

You will never be happy when you get “there”. You must be grateful for all the incredible things that are already in your life to attract more. What are you grateful for that you already experience in your life

My affirmations for the day:

Affirmations are great reminders to reinforce the work you have done in your journaling. They serve to reposition you back. Remember old patterns will have grooved quite deep, so they will slip in automatically unless you have a way to steadily repattern the new patterns so that they get stronger. You must be able to feel and emotion. Remember they won’t always feel “true” at the start, and you might want to use all the evidence you have against it, but remember an acorn looks nothing like an oak tree, it takes consistent watering, and nurture to grow and grow into it’s potential, but you never doubt it.

There are hundreds of ways to journal, this is just my simple system to work on firstly clarifying what is blocking you, and to rebuild internal workings. What is happening internally will always reflect externally, you cannot fake it. And old patterns can stay ingrained for a long time, turning up again and again.

All of these aim to help you develop your self-worth, where ultimately your deep beliefs are “I am enough, I am worthy” of every area of your life. When you have self worth, you don’t self sabotage, your actions and experiences match your beliefs, you are at peace with your life and you can make much faster progress in every area of your life because you are no longer holding yourself back. Self worth is a journey, and something we will often be working on always to undo past experience.