How To Journal

How to journal. I am not fond of blogs, comments, books, articles, etc. that have a title of “How to ….” My intuition says that nothing is that simple and clearly stepped. Nevertheless, here are some of my thoughts about journaling. You may want to journal a chronicle of the day’s events such as May Sarton’s beautiful journal At Eight-two, a journal. It is a lovely read and as I approach that age, I am enjoying reading about her activities at age 82. You may, however or in addition, want to journal some of your internal workings. When I do this self-reflection journaling, I often use the acrostic FACE. I journal my fears, angers, control issues and expectations. I have these inner situations or ‘voices’ going on internally almost every day and journaling helps me to bring them to the light of consciousness where I can look at them with some sense of evaluation. When I can bring them to my consciousness, I ask myself, and it is usually part of the journaling, “How realistic and healthy, is this thought, feeling, etc. and, do I want to entertain it or even follow it with words, actions, etc.?” If my journaling is to be a spiritual journal, I like to follow the Daily Examen and journal (1) how have I been grateful today and did I express my gratefulness to whomever as well as (2) where did I think I experienced God today and what made me think it was God?” Journaling is a good discipline for looking within as well as around my life’s activities and discerning “How am I doing