In my previous articles “How to Start Meditating” and “How to Do A Body Scan Meditation”, I briefly discussed how journaling enhances your meditation practice. Now I am going to go more in depth on how journaling is an essential part of meditation. I will be discussing five ways journaling can change your life.
Reflection
This is one of the very first benefits I noticed from journaling after my mediation sessions. Like everyone else when I meditate, I have different thoughts go through my mind. Some of these thoughts are directly related to my goal for that particular meditation. Journaling gives me a way of organizing these thoughts into a coherent thought stream. After I have organized my thoughts, I am then able to reflect on them. Taking the time to reflect on them allows me to make sure I am satisfied with the way my life is going. If not, I am able to decide on what changes I need to make in order to become satisfied.
Goal Setting
The next step in making journaling an effective part of your mediation practice is to use it to start setting goals. As I mentioned above when we are not satisfied with certain aspects of our lives, we have to make a game plan to become satisfied. That means we have to set goals. Writing our goals down is the first step in making them a reality. It is also the first step in making a commitment to yourself to make your life what you want it to be.
Track Accomplishments
Keeping track of our accomplishments gives us the motivation to keep making positive changes in our lives. Trying to keep track of our accomplishments in our heads is not the most effective way of remembering all of our successes. As time progresses, we will eventually forget them all. When we write our achievements down, we are able to see them anytime we wish in black and white. Being able to see our triumphs at any time gives us a never-ending source of motivation.
Problem Solving
Journaling gives us the ability to analyze our options when trying to come up with a solution to a problem we are having. We are able to list both the pros and cons of each solution. After we have analyzed our options, we are able to pick the solution that best solves our problem. We are then able to feel confident we have made the best choice.
Understanding Yourself
In my previous articles I discussed how journaling allowed you to understand yourself. This encompasses how you were feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally. Reviewing these entries allows you to know what your thought process was at that particular moment in time. It also allows you to know how those thoughts made you feel. Understanding what you were thinking and how you were feeling helps you understand why you made certain decisions. This is where we come full circle in reflecting on the decisions you made and why you made them. This gives you a baseline to know how much progress you have made in making your life what you want it to be.
These are just a few of the benefits of journaling. Making it a regular part of your meditation practice will yield countless benefits. Journaling truly is a basic first step in getting the most out of your meditation practice.