Through getting to know our self, our shadow side, and our inner world we begin to see clearly how we can heal ourselves. Self-reflection is how we can learn to see what we can change in ourselves to directly affect our external world.
The Benefits of Journaling
Now journaling has more to it than just outlining the contents of your day. Journaling can be incredibly life-altering when you meet it with intention. Louise Hay, the spiritual author and speaker teaches that our emotional state and our belief system directly affect our physical health.
By cultivating emotional awareness through journaling we take care of our physical health in more ways than just reducing stress. We end up writing for emotional balance. This then ultimately brings clarity into your mind and into your life.
Take In The Good
This technique from Rick Hanson can be adapted to include journaling and actually extend the benefits of the practice. The technique itself he calls taking in the good.
It involves anytime you feel joy, gratitude, or enjoyment bubbling up inside you and taking the time to create space for that feeling. That means not missing an opportunity you could feel more enjoyment in if you leaned into it.
For example, standing in the warm sunshine when you might normally walk past it, stopping to smell the flowers, or even really feeling the joy of a compliment a friend gives you. When you take in the good of these feelings your intention should be to also amplify and extend it.
Bringing this technique into journaling means you will naturally extend the good feeling which creates change throughout your brain due to its neuroplastic nature. In time this creates a structure in your brain that promotes good feelings and naturally focusing upon the joy.
Shadow Work Journaling
This journaling, the journaling of shadow work requires us to be radically honest with ourselves. When we explore our trauma, deep feelings, shame, and the thoughts we commonly suppress.
This journaling can be guided through emotional journal prompts or written freely when you feel triggers of deep emotions come up. You become aware of the roots within your motivation or why you feel the resistance you do feel.
When you unapologetically write out your thoughts and spill them out on paper then through your self-reflection you can begin to heal the previously wounded aspects of yourself you may be carrying.
This shadow work brings us to ultimately be writing for emotional balance and an integration of our conscious and subconscious mind.
Chakra Journaling
Using the instance of journaling for the chakras you can understand that emotional awareness journaling can be used to find the underlying belief systems you have that are at play for effecting something.
You can use this to form emotional awareness journaling for relationships, self-image, work, and anything that you feel you are struggling with. When you apply journaling to the chakras the topics you will write about relate the chakra you will be working with.
We have emotional journal prompts for each of the chakras you can follow to discover more about yourself as a whole and build emotional awareness throughout your entire chakra system. Here are the emotional journal prompts for each of the seven chakra:
