Right On!

And Write On!

I heard a comedian explain in a patient manner, “Journals are for old people to process their feelings.” The comment is funny and true. Journaling is that, and so much more.

Journaling is a compelling tool with which we can study ourselves (Svadhyaya, Sanskrit for “self-study,” one of the ancient practices of yoga and many other classical philosophies). If we don’t know ourselves, what can we know? And how can we function at our best? If we don’t know ourselves, we are essentially sleep-walking through life—reactive, stuck, unaware, fearful.

Journaling helps us write it out/right it out. Our hands seem to bypass the mind, the stories, the things we think we think, and the beliefs we believe we believe. It's like the fingers and hands have a direct connection with the “truth” of ourselves.

Whether we are in a funk, or frustrated by life, or stymied by our goals and inspiration, journaling helps.

I often tell this story of one exceptionally powerful session with a pen and paper. I was stuck in an awful gloom, gripped by a painful story that wouldn’t budge. I breathed, I stretched, I walked for miles, I did everything I could, but this dark and miserable story held me captive. I could see it and painfully feel it but couldn’t subdue it. While I knew journaling would likely help, as it had done so many times before, I was afraid to face this monster within.

I finally sat. I wrote many pages, howling in pain initially, but simmering down to ask myself the questions that would help. They might have been: “What is this misery telling me?” “Why do I think that harsh thing about myself/someone else/the world?” “What do I need to know to alleviate my suffering?” “Why am I so contracted, and what can I shift to be born again into a healthier, happier version of myself?”

Eventually, the answers came. They were likely realizations that deep down, I’d come to believe false and harmful ideas about myself. “I’m not enough.” “I don’t deserve.” “I’m defective in some significant way.”

There’s healing in realization, for the light of awareness sanitizes. That is the power of self-study. Once I wrote the words and saw the words and contemplated the words, my rational and wise mind knew they didn't serve me and weren't true. No one is not enough. Everyone deserves. No one is or could be defective. We are who we are because of our developmental journey. Every deep and dark belief is based on a faulty memory, a traumatic event, or the pervasive confusion of human experience.

These negative and fear-based ideas are the thick veils that prevent us from being our finest, kindest, bravest, wisest, and fullest selves. We can remove them, one fragile and delicate veil at a time, but only if we know they are there.

Thankfully, most of us are not roiled in misery in our day-to-day lives. We can suffer from the malaise of mediocrity, however, when we aren’t fully connected with the best version of ourselves. There is discomfort when we aren’t practicing our goals and dreams.

Journaling helps us develop and study our inspiration, and our challenges in playing with it. By the same process as described above, we can face our dreams—which can often be as scary as facing our woes. Fear convinces us we are inadequate, not smart enough, not lucky enough, and all the gruesome confusion that lies beneath the surface.

A journal is a safe place to play with our goals. We can imagine the life of our dreams while examining that which obstructs us from it. We wouldn’t have the dream if we weren't capable of frolicking with it.

The supreme version of ourselves (brave, kind, wise, complete) is supporting us every step of the way. It knows us better than we know ourselves, because It’s witnessed our survival throughout every moment of our lives—without judgement and without fear. It is that supreme being that wants to play with inspiration, and it needs the weird and confused human part to navigate the physical realm. Self-knowledge through journaling unites the supreme with the human--a powerful pair!

There’s no wrong way to write a journal—writing it out is righting it out. It’s helpful if we are honest, although honesty isn’t always accessible. But it becomes accessible, the more we practice.

Through no fault of our own, we have many knots of confusion and veils of ignorance that prevent us from living the life of our dreams. While writing, the hands are untangling those knots and removing the veils, one word at a time.