How To Stick To A Journaling Practice

06:53

06:53

How To Stick To A Journaling Practice

by Madison Cresswell

Rated

4.9

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

324

Journaling is one of the most effective tools for self-love, personal development, and integration. Sometimes it can be so hard to stick to, though. Today I'm going to share with you how I have filled dozens of notebooks and have been (more or less) consistently journaling for over 15 years! I hope you enjoy these tips and find solace in your practice.

Journaling Self Development Emotional Processing Mental Clarity Personal Development Consistency Journaling For Self Development Talking As Meditation Journaling Tips Journaling Misconceptions Journaling As Mental Clarity Journaling Superstitions Journaling Consistency

Meet your Teacher

Madison Cresswell

West Palm Beach, FL, USA

Meet your Teacher

Madison Cresswell

West Palm Beach, FL, USA

Transcript

Hey everybody! I wanted to pop in here and give you a little message about journaling. I get a lot of questions about my journaling because it's been a practice of mine since I was probably nine or maybe even younger and yes of course there are weeks and sometimes months where I fall off of the practice but if you're watching on YouTube I'm holding up a huge handful of I have filled so many and I know a lot of people really want to get into this practice and just can't seem to have the discipline to do it so I wanted to give you a little bit of my advice on this practice because it's been so transformative for me in a lot of different ways. So first off I want to say that this is maybe not going to be for everybody. There's different tools that each person is going to resonate with and for me journaling just works. For you it might be talking out loud okay and this is something that I also do. I heard once that thinking about something is not necessarily effective because when we think our thoughts are stumbling over each other. We think too quickly to process things properly so by the time I have completed this one thought I'm already on to the fourth or fifth thought right. The opposite goes for journaling. Sometimes when I write if I'm overthinking if I'm a quick thinker I'm writing one sentence and I'm already on thought four five six seven right so it might be a bit too slow to process and especially at first it feels that way and so talking is like this really beautiful middle ground and that's why I have a meditation. I think it's called connecting to your higher self or something like that and that's really the practice that changed and transformed my life that had me start to teach meditation and just become so much more grounded and clear and connected to myself and my higher power. So I strongly recommend starting with talking especially if journaling feels like a lot but and this is the main point that I wanted to make today is that if sitting down and writing feels like overwhelming for you it's probably because you're acting like you're writing a book about your life. This is not an autobiography. This is not we don't want to be journaling for the the sole purpose of being able to go back and read our old entries. A lot of people find I find that people are super jealous that I have all these recollections and memories written down and I'm like dude I do not want to read these. My journals are not truth. They are not proper documentations. They are outpours of emotion that I was processing at the time. A lot of times they're exaggerated. They are dark. They are just the consciousness that I'm working through at that moment okay so if you want a journal because you want documentation that's going to be a different practice altogether. When we talk about journaling as a means for self-development it's likely going to be messy okay and we want to be able to take this day by day because if you're not in a practice of journaling and you're going to be skipping days weeks sometimes months at a time we cannot get caught up in the fact that oh I have to catch my journal up okay it's not a therapist it's not someone that you need to make sure all the details are in there before you know outpouring right it's a journal use it as such right whatever you need to write in that moment okay so we have to be super present with our journaling process and use it like this right journaling is taking out the trash. It's taking out the trash and if you can simply arrive at your journal in that moment and let whatever needs to come through come up and out you're going to find that this practice becomes something you want to do more often not because you have these really beautiful journals that are now filled with all your memories no because your brain is much more clear because you don't have all of this jumbled up information every morning and every night and you can actually get it out of your brain and have a little bit more peace throughout your day you know where you're headed you know what you're up to and you know that you're having these thoughts that maybe aren't valid or you know truth for you I can especially use this to get some thoughts out that I don't want to be talking about I don't want to be taking action on right I just did a three-day water fast and then afterwards felt called to do a gossip no gossip and no negative self-talk fast which I'm still on because every time I do it I have to start over from day one and it's been really difficult but I'm noticing that it's easier when I get all that yucky stuff out in my journal and I know some people have a hesitation to getting things out that way because of superstition right it feels like if we write it down then it becomes real then we manifest it no when you internalize it you are manifesting it okay so it's okay to talk about stuff it's okay to get it out of there even if it feels really yucky really dark really messy your journal is not gonna judge you this is a safe practice for you and it's a transformative one so get into it don't worry about yesterday what happened last week don't worry about every moment that led up to this moment just start today with what you need to talk about and process in this moment okay so I hope that helped let me know if you started a journaling practice make sure that you get pens that you like writing with that's another little hack you have to enjoy this process okay figure out if you like it more during the day if you like it more at night before you go to sleep if you like it on your break at work right so really make it individual I hope you enjoy this and I'll see you guys in the next video or track many blessings ah ho I'm in as my friend Jabuela says a garlic tambien bye guys