Whether you classify yourself as religious or not, you shouldn’t neglect the health and state of your spirit.
Your spiritual side – and we all have one – can be nurtured and explored through activities like yoga, meditation, and by developing a consistent journaling practice.
Journaling offers perspective
It allows you to preserve your experiences, impressions, and thoughts each day. Life is littered with joy and sorrow, failures, and successes.
We have a variety of experiences each day, and they impact us differently. When you capture your emotions and thoughts about those experiences on paper, it provides you with a snapshot. You can reflect on this to explore previous experiences and what has been changing in your life and make plans for what you would like to change in the future.
Once you have been journaling for a while, you can flip back through journals to see where you were a year ago. Or, flip back to a time when you were experiencing similar things.
Often, we face problems that seem insurmountable. Yet, when you investigate your past journaling, you can see all the challenges that you survived, thrived, and overcame. Amazing things are happening in your life and it’s easy to overlook the small things.
Your journal can remind you of what you have walked through, what you have survived, what you have overcome, and how you’re still standing. That’s something that will feed and strengthen your spirit.
Be Consistent & Keep it Simple
Creating a consistent routine that involves journaling will provide you with insights into yourself and healing.
It isn’t just the process of writing that will transform you; it’s the intentional and authentic reflection. The clearest path to developing your spiritual self is a mindset that nurtures. You can create that mindset in yourself through the self-reflection that journaling offers.
All you need to write a journal entry is a pen and paper. You can create your journal in whatever way makes you happy.
You can find a journal that you like the feel of when you hold it. One that you love the look of will encourage you to want to write.
Parameters for Starting Your Practice
The key to benefiting your spirit through journaling is consistency. Ideally, you should be available to journal daily. However, as you get started, try to journal at least four times a week. As you get into the groove, you are more likely to think of more things you’d like to write about.
Reflective journaling is one of the best methods to benefit your spirit. It’s a meaningful and powerful way to journal. Once you have finished your journal entry, take ten minutes or so to reflect on what you have written.
Think about your day, how it made you feel, and how you would like to do and be better going forward. You can add more to your journal if you wish, no pressure. A short and powerful journal entry can do more to advance your goals and aspirations than several pages of unfocused writing that means little to you.
Writing in your journal helps to put you back into the experience you’re writing about. Try to recall the smell in the air, the faces of the people who were there, how you felt, what you could see, smell, and touch. Think about how other people felt in that moment and whether your emotions aligned. Take time to dwell on it.
As you continue to journal you will learn more about yourself. As you learn about yourself, you can find new ways to grow and develop as a person.
Your physical health is important, your mental health is vital, your emotional state matters, and so does your spirit. Don’t forget it as you look to support the other areas of your health. Allow journaling to feed your spirit as it supports your emotional and mental health.
Take time to reflect, and don’t be afraid to ask yourself honest questions to tease out deeper knowledge and record that knowledge in your journal for current and future consideration.
