Journaling - The Down Side...Or Is It?

Regular readers know that I consider regular journaling to be one of the big three as far as personal growth and well-being are concerned. (The other two are meditation and exercise.) However, one perceptive person commented the other day that she used to journal long ago, but stopped when she found that there is a down side to journaling. This can come when one reads through previous entries (reading the entry from a year ago after you have made your today's entry is very educational). Many people find it depressing to realize that the problems about which they were writing, and their insights on them, show little change today. They had thought they were making progress, and yet a comparison of the old and the new entries suggests that they are actually going in circles, still thinking the same thoughts and facing the same problems.

I agree that this can be depressing. However, it is also beneficial in that it does let us know what is going on. If you are lost in a forest and are going in circles, it is at least useful to recognize that you have once again looped back into familiar territory, so that you can change your tactics and thus have a hope of making better progress in the direction you choose. In life it is the same way. Unless you don't WANT to know when you are circling rather than making progress, the information culled from old journals can be very useful. Perhaps, rather than be depressed by this discovery, we can greet it as a pointer to future progress.

Obviously, in order to have old journals, you need to be a journal writer. Journal writing contributes to self-examination. (Was that an "ouch" I just heard? Yet remember that Plato - or Socrates, the scholars dispute this - wrote" The unexamined life is not worth living." It certainly cannot be learned from.) Journaling encourages us to examine what is going on, what part we are playing in our own successes and our own disappointments. Essayist James Boswell, back in the 18th century, wrote "a man (sic) adjusts his character by looking at his journal." If we write our true thoughts and feelings, and then read them later, we can indeed take the part of observer and notice where we are in error. Which means, does it not, that we will then be able to make a correction?

It also encourages us to express the thoughts and feelings that may be bottled up, even barely in awareness, within us. Such expression is healthy. It makes us more aware of things that are simmering below the surface. It brings us insights that we might not have reached had we not forced ourselves to put our vague thoughts and glimmerings into words. Expressing a thought or an idea in words forces us to clarify it, to hold it up in front of ourselves and examine it to see whether the words we have used are a true expression of it, or if they need to be tweaked until we get it right. In doing that, we may also examine and tweak the thought itself.

Where to start with a journal? With pen, or pencil, and paper. Or keyboard and new "blank document." With a few moments of uninterruptible time. With an open heart and mind, and total honesty, for if you cannot be honest with yourself... then, friend, you are in deep, deep trouble. Your journal is not for publication, not for posterity, it is for you and you alone, so this is a place where there is no excuse for dishonesty. In fact, if you find yourself censoring as you write, this is itself a "red flag," a warning to check what is going on, and from whom you wish to hide the thoughts that you just chose to censor. Journal about that, too, in your quest for self-discovery.

There are many journaling systems, and a few of the many, many books on the topic are listed below. There is no one "right one." Choose what seems to you to be the one you are most likely to follow. I know that many people relish the work they do with The Artist's Way. Some people use a bound book with blank pages designed expressly for journaling. Others use a writing pad and gather their pages into a 3-ring binder. Some systems are simple, some complex. I have participated in journal workshops where I received journal systems so complex that even after a weekend of instruction I could not figure which "type" of writing to enter into which section of the binder. Yet I know that such systems work well for many - particularly those who have more time for journaling than I. I have found great satisfaction in simplicity, but, if you plan to journal, use what you will continue to use.

It is well worth the time.

For, indeed, this is what the human population and species is learning: control cannot be controlled, it can only be journeyed. There are decisions with pathways, byways and highways that you will choose in this life, seemingly a destiny, if you get in touch with your passion and let go of control. The passion of neither right nor wrong, the passion of what is real. And these are the times you find yourselves in. To speak and to avail yourself to the truth: beyond magistrate, jurisdiction or belief: to be the truth. Yes.
"Malachite" speaks:
And so, once again unto the voids…
To come to a place, a space, whereby you can absorb and still at the same moment be seemingly separate, yet, be all ways connected. To find the stasis whereby you can receive and give, commit and connect; expand, and in your expansion, notice contraction. And within the contraction, again, notice the expansion, for it is always and forever the expansiveness of reality. It may look at times that mortality is more real than the acceptance of living a life. And that's really all, after awhile, can ever be appreciated.
Are you accepting your lives? Are you accepting what's happening? Because, yes, I hear human egos scream, accept? "I don't want to accept that. I want to change that." The first level of changing anything is to recognize, obviously, you permitted it to be there in the first place. Acknowledge it, and then the fight for "survival" will not be so great with that which you are misaligned. Secondly, to acknowledge and bring it closer would be to accept the fact that it has a position. Accept that. And do all and everything, all and everything, within your awareness and your grasp to commune; to communicate, to acknowledge, to appreciate.
There will be times and moments where that which you want seemingly is unavailable. What do you do? You fight it? Do you nash teeth? Do you accept it? Do you love it? Your human species still has difficulty with allowing things to be as they are. Because you think they are inappropriate; 'there's got to be something wrong. It shouldn't be that way'. Well, that might be true, and, what do you do when it is that way, right now?
So, the greatest thing is to be the reflection that is not seen by the other. Reflect what they cannot see by making sure that you see it. It's one thing to teach others to be loving and compassionate and murdering them if they are't. It's sort of a supercilious - laughable. And at the same point there has to be a space created whereby you, all of you, have the intention of accepting what's happening. Of all the species, you struggle the most with this. And it is so very, very simple.
Speaking of simplicity, how simple is it in these moments, after digesting these words, to breath? Be where you find yourself, inhale, exhale. Acknowledge the form. Acknowledge the forum of your awareness. Look around you.
You may say, 'I distain where I am!' Well, if that's your truth, and you've got situations, issues or problems in your life, then be like the wind. You know, the funny thing about the wind is, everyone thinks that the wind stops at some point. It's very funny that way. The wind is not stubborn. It just keeps on moving. It's like the Energizer Bunny: "keeps on keeping on." If it can't blow through you, it'll blow all around you. Because its mission is not to blow you down. It's mission is just to blow.
Be like the winds Beloveds, and what you'll find out is sometimes when it feels uncomfortable, fall into the wings of that which is blowing when you feel you can't make another decision because it's too uncomfortable or painful. And ask in these moments after reading these words: 'What, what am I willing to share of myself now?' 
If you're in a relationship, if you're in a job, if you're in a situation, issue, or problem: There are always situations that will come up! You call it doing right action. (I'd love to know what left action is.) Right action? How about simply, action? Who cares if it's left or right! We know… You Do.
Action! Movement will always release that which is in bondage. Remember that beloveds in the days and weeks, months that come ahead.
Breathe deep. Know that you are god. Know that you are godly. 
Yes.