HELLO!!! *Excitedly Waves*

I am pretty committed to my journal lifestyle. I have been committed to journaling since April 2011, and it has been a life changer (or enhancer). My journal practice journey started with the hope of tracking my life journey, but it became a place for breakthroughs and healing.

Through journaling, I have been able to expose MY TRUTHS. Whether it is my mistaken beliefs, self-sabotaging thoughts, fear, shame, pains I wanted to suppress, or relationships I wanted to hide from—I often reconnected with them in my journal entries. Journaling brought me comfort, gave me a place to put my secrets, and also helped me find guidance. Now that I look back, knowing what I know now, my journal depicts conversations between my ego and my soul.

I wanted to come by and discuss using a journal to breakthrough. When I say breakthrough, I am talking about breaking through your pains, self-doubt, confusion, truth, and happiness. It’s about understanding and connecting with SELF, in a deeper way.

When we journal, our ego, which is formed from our feelings, beliefs, ideas, desires, thoughts, memories, and preferences, is the one recording in the notebook. However, it is our soul, the observer that sends us intuitive vibes to understand, through its observation, the meaning of our thoughts and feelings (words by Aletheia Luna of Awakened Empath). And through this connection of the ego and the soul, journal to breakthrough, is able to occur. Journal to breakthrough is about gaining clarity of whatever circumstances you find yourself in. That means reflecting on lessons, taking responsibility, establishing your next move, or freeing yourself of the baggage a circumstance brought.

As I often state in my social media and blog post, we have everything we need already in us. Your soul has answers to questions you seek understanding of. And so… I challenge you to get into journaling! I don’t journal every day, but I journal at least 3 times a week. However, if you are just starting out, I would recommend you journal daily to create a habit and a relationship with it.

With journaling, you don’t have to be a writer. In fact, there is no need for you to worry about grammar or punctuations. It is more important that you are being candid and letting your words and thoughts flow. When we start trying to filter our thoughts and feelings, we lose our truth. When journaling, I would recommend that you focus on just recording your feelings and perspectives. That’s how you get the real, candid, unfiltered, and raw thoughts and feelings out.

WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE ABOUT?

If you are first starting out…I recommend you free write. Free writing is when you write continuously without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic.  So here, you can write whatever comes to mind, or whatever happened in your day. The great thing about journaling is that there are no RULES. The rules are whatever you want them to be. This means that if you want to draw… draw. If you want to write in all CAPITAL LETTERS— DO IT! If writing and pictures are how you communicate, DO IT!! Make your journal something that really connects to you. It’s personal. It’s for you and your permission is the only permission that matters when deciding format and structure or lack thereof.

HOW CAN I EXPERIENCE JOURNAL TO BREAKTHROUGH MOMENTS?

Free writing in an unfiltered way, will bring you ah-ha moments for sure. You’ll be able to dig deeper into why you’re feeling what you’re feeling, once you acknowledge how you actually feel. Be raw, uncensored, and unapologetically you.  But try not to go into it with expectations.  I believe that when we start putting expectations on our experience we lose the enjoyment and mindfulness of it.  Just be there and allow the experience to be what it is.

As you are free writing, and once you establish how you feel or what’s happening, you can then dig a bit deeper by asking yourself follow-up questions; this is when the breakthrough happens.

For example: “What am I feeling today”?

You may want to follow up by asking yourself:

Why do I feel this way? Or Why am I thinking these thoughts?

When did I start feeling this way or thinking these thoughts?

Was anyone involved when I started feeling this way? Was there a situation that occurred that triggered this feeling?

And you continue to ask follow-up questions that take you deeper within. You want to slowly build from one question to the next. This will help you either get to the root of your emotions/thoughts or eventually be able to see patterns.

With time and journal entries, you can read back on your journal entries and see repetition in your writing.  Maybe you will see a pattern of perceiving things from a victim role, or thoughts of lack. By reviewing your entries, you may be able to see how your perspective of things fails to serve your higher good. You may find that you often use the term “alone,” “misunderstood,” “regret,” or “selfish.”

If you are journaling daily, try to review your entries once a week.

WHAT IS THE CALL TO ACTION (TASK)?

If you are writing in your journal daily, go through your journal once a week (maybe less often if you’re writing more sporadically) and reread what you wrote. See if you can find any patterns, “positive” or “negative”.

If you felt great all week, what about that week made you happy? Can you do more of that? Were there a lot of rough moments in your week? What triggered those rough moments? Can you do less of that? LOL.

It’s all about you being able to get back to you…. consciousness! It’s about connecting the ego and soul and that entails dropping or bringing awareness to the conditioning, expectations, beliefs, or sabotaging thoughts, etc., that are happening in and through your life.

And you can start that journey by deciding to journal through breakthrough!!

Thinking of trying this out? Have you tried this out? What are your thoughts? Please, share them below.

P.S. Not into freewriting and would prefer to work with journal prompts? Check out The B.O.L.D. Project Journal: a 31-day self-exploration through journaling.

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