Guest Post: Journaling is Self-Respect
It’s not exactly easy to firmly establish a discipline of journaling. If you’re launching journal writing as a new way to manage your inner and outer wellness, you may find yourself coming up with a thousand reasons why you can’t journal today.
Notice that this is the worst kind of procrastination, because it stems from a feeling that promises you make to yourself don’t really have to be kept.
Doing good for yourself is something that’s easy to put off until another time, and another time, and another time, until suddenly you notice that years have passed. Your self-awareness and happiness index have sunk to new lows and you wonder how you got here.
The fact is that you are really committed to increasing your self-awareness, to improving your wellness and your soul’s health. You truly do want to be a better, healthier, happier person. It’s just that you always seem to be worried about all the other little things on your list.
While you’re so busy trying to deal with everything going on around you, It seems that getting a grip on your own behavior is the hardest thing in the world.
The key is that you have to remember to love yourself, at least as much as you love all those hundreds of things on your to-do list.
You began journaling in the first place because you crave a better opinion of yourself. You want to realize a more alive and healthy You. If you shelve that goal while giving priority to everyday miscellanea, you’re demonstrating a cruel lack of self love.
On the other hand, you know that attending to your self’s needs through regular journaling results in increased well being.
Journaling never happens at all unless you actually sit down with your notebook and pen. That may seem a simple enough act, but in truth, we rarely stop moving long enough to do it.
So whatever objections the moment may raise, you want to remember to get out of your own way and to get back to the page.
What does it mean to get out of your own way?
Even though you’re swamped, with a million things on your mind, when the time comes that you have set aside for journaling, whether you feel like it or not, take a deep breath and sit down with your notebook.
Ask yourself, “Okay, what’s going on? What’s happening?” in an understanding, soothing tone of voice. Then begin to write.
If you approach your journaling as an exercise in self-respect, you can more quickly make it a welcome habit, one you look forward to and perform with wonder.
About Mari
Mari L. McCarthy is The Journaling Therapist (http://www.CreateWriteNow.com.) Through her trademarked program, Journaling for the Health of It! ™, she helps clients live healthier and happier lives. Her most recently published interactive e-book, is 53 Weekly Writing Retreats: How to Use Your Journal to Get Healthy Now
