Living in Awareness – Day 12
Living in Awareness Day 12
By Vedam Clementi
Journaling & Emotional Starting Gates
I am a firm believer in the use of journaling as a tool to support awareness and I recommend it often to my life coaching clients.
I first began journaling about 20 years ago, because it was part of a course I was taking. The exercise was to hand-write three full pages EVERY morning before I did anything. I journaled like this during the whole course, which took about 6 months to complete, and after the course, I kept journaling for years because I got so much out of it. During those years, the journaling was sometimes cathartic, and other times it kept me spinning on the gerbil wheel of my conditioned mind and thoughts. Predominantly, the journaling was cathartic, so I kept going. I was able to obviously see the difference between the two by how I was feeling, and my outlook on life after that day’s entry. Here’s how I could tell: Normally, journaling is just a record of your thoughts in the moment or about the day, or an event. From my perspective, journaling in this fashion will do nothing other than keep you on the gerbil wheel. The only advantage that I have seen with this type of journaling is that you will sometimes feel better just by getting your thoughts and emotions out, and giving them a voice. I would be careful with this type of journaling though, because often it keeps the story alive and strong.
