Formal Reflection (my 10-minute journaling practice)

Journaling is something I’ve done on and off most of my life, however I hadn’t been doing it consistently for the past couple years. I’m constantly recording notes during the day comprised with feelings, insights, revelations, and anything that seems like wisdom I should remember or share.

I started journaling consistently again in December 2020. And it wasn’t really my fault. I have an old teammate to blame for this gift. I grew to appreciate this teammate, his purpose, responsibility, and sense of duty. A sense of duty that extended to everyone in his ecosystem. Everyone except for himself. He was burning out at work and burning out at home. We had to figure out a way to get him to shine some of his deep sense of commitment and responsibility to everyone else back onto himself.

He was getting emotionally hijacked often on minor issues and it seemed like his focus remained on the negative in every situation. I thought it would be helpful for him to spend some quiet time each morning journaling. This would give him space and time at the beginning of each day to process any latent thoughts or emotions and get them out on paper. Journaling allows us to unload that energy, so it doesn’t blossom at inopportune times. This gives us a better chance at not reacting emotionally or unskillfully when something rubs us the wrong way, and we all know there’s plenty to rub us. I also thought adding a little gratitude section to the journaling would help shift his perspective towards the good in his life and eventually in each situation, each moment.

I asked my teammate if he’d consider taking up this journaling practice with me; something we could do each morning and check in weekly to discuss our progress. Since that day in December 2020, journaling is a (mostly) daily occurrence and I do it immediately after my morning meditation. My journal entries have two parts (Gratitude and Letter to Self), and it all takes under 10 minutes to write each day. This has shifted my disposition towards calm, confident gratitude, and a deeper relationship with myself.

Gratitude:

If we can learn to be happy with what we have, we can learn a superpower. Marcus Aurelius spoke about this concept and (paraphrasing) said something to this effect, ‘if someone cannot be happy with what they have today, they can go out and conquer the world and not find happiness”. This notion is something useful to spend some time pondering. With such a consumerist culture driven to accumulate more, more, more, we can ask the question: when is it enough?

In Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, she quotes the coach of the Jamaican Bobsled team in the movie Cool Runnings: “If you’re not enough before the gold medal, you won’t be enough with it.”

How do we learn to be happy with what we have now, with who we are today?

How do we embody this superpower?

We can start by being intentional about examining what we have each day, the good in the present. We can take our attention and focus off what we don’t have; the stuff that we continually crave and chase after. We can spend a little bit of time sitting in gratitude and awe of what we have.

We are constantly focused on the negative space in the frame, that which we don’t have. What an insult to all the beauty we are blessed with and have amassed; to not ever look at it, appreciate it, and admire it. Many of us don’t even recognize it. We focus on what we think we lack and what we think we need.

Maybe we’re even focused on attaining what we think THEY think we need.

When does it end?

When is it enough?

When are we going to allow ourselves to be happy and grateful for this incredible existence?

We can start to chip away at these deeply embedded defilements with journaling.

The first part of my journaling practice always starts with the same two words: “Grateful for” and then continues for a paragraph about something for which I’m grateful. This section has evolved over the last 13 months of writing. The first month or so was comprised with mostly grand, overarching themes like clean water, roof over my head, food to eat, etc. These are things for which many of us are probably grateful or should be grateful. After running out of the larger, more communal things, I started looking for, and noticing more, acute instances throughout my days that fill me with gratitude.

I started noticing the person who stopped to pick up someone’s groceries that dropped. The angel on the plane who comforted a nervous passenger as we experienced turbulence. The woman who allowed me to skip her in the checkout line because I only had three items. My father catching himself interrupting and allowing me to finish my thought. The sweet smell of pine and juniper that accompanies the colorful and melodic birdsongs of a moody mountain morning. All these little bright spots of beauty started to glimmer and glow in a way they hadn’t simply because I was looking for them.

I had a gratitude journal to write, so I had better be on the lookout for things that made me grateful. And it made my days, weeks, and moments sunnier than they had been with this simple perspective. Gratitude is an extremely strong state of being. I’ve read that while gratitude is occupying the chair, ego, and many of the negative states of being cannot sit down. I have been happier, more optimistic, and kinder since beginning this journaling routine. I have deepened the training of my mind to be on the lookout and attentive to the good in life.

Letter to Self:

The second portion of writing in my journal each day is?the letter from my higher self to my inner child. Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to do some inner child work with an incredible teacher and a small group of lovely supportive souls. Inner child work can be helpful to many of us with its basic intention surrounding a deeper relationship with ourselves. Something so many of us lack.

As the first section begins with, “Grateful for,” the second section starts with, “Dear Josh.” In the beginning, this section felt a little odd, maybe forced or even disingenuous.

I could hear the negative self-talk getting louder:

“What if someone reads this? They’ll think you’re nuts. You think you can talk to spirits dude, a higher self? What are you going to say to this guy? Wait, he’s writing to you? Come on man.”

Then I remembered that was just my ego talking, trying to protect me from embarrassment. So, I thanked my ego and continued moving forward with my daily letters. These daily letters are written by my higher, all seeing and knowing self. The receiver of these letters is my inner child; the one who wants peace and love. The one trying earnestly to improve each day.

This idea really came about when I started to examine the way I treat myself versus the way I treat everyone in my life for whom I am responsible. This shined a bright spotlight on a big problem. If you’re a leader or someone who has people depending on them, maybe this will resonate with you. First, think about all the people who depend on you. All over your life – especially those you love.

Think about the way you care for, encourage, support, and forgive those in your care. Think about the loving and supportive way you speak to them. The way you help them back on their horse, the way you tell them it’s going to be alright, and how you mean it.

Now think about the way you speak to yourself. Take it a step further now and imagine the receiver of that self-talk as your inner child, little you at six or seven years old. Think about the way you speak to that child all day, every day.

Is it typically a loving exchange full of encouragement, support, and forgiveness?

Is it a bit harsh, filled with opprobrium and anger?

Could the tone you take with your inner child, yourself, be more productive?

Could it yield a happier you, one that begins to achieve those things you want?

To paraphrase the renowned teacher Joseph Goldstein, “the way we speak to ourselves is more important than the way everyone else in the world speaks to us combined.”

All these thoughts and questions hit me hard while reflecting during some quiet time near the end of 2020. I began to consider how I treated everyone in my household, my family, friends, teammates and then held that up for comparison against how I treated myself. I considered my self-talk and how far it was from the loving, supporting, and encouraging leadership I provided everyone else in my ecosystem. The disparity was alarming. This spurred me to take a more active role in reshaping my relationship with myself and the way I speak to myself. So, I began writing these letters from my higher self to my inner child and ensured that they were filled with the same love, support, and encouragement I gave to everyone else. Am I not worth it? Hell yes, I am. And so are you, my friend.

Over time, these letters began to write themselves. It started to become something automatic and just a stream of consciousness as my hand moved from left to right. I began to realize how much wisdom, courage, strength, and understanding was wrapped up inside of me, my higher self, which I was just starting to get to know. What a confidence builder, a needed booster some days. There’s somebody who has been watching me make mistakes and he is still rooting for me, still loving me, and still supporting me and showing me the way forward. Even after I slip, trip, stumble, and fall repeatedly. What love, what deep love available – right inside my little journal, my little heart.

This ongoing conversation with my higher self has resulted in a calm feeling of support that I enjoy as I walk through the challenges of the day. It feels like I can hear myself more clearly and understand myself better when it gets noisy. Some days, it gets very noisy and that’s okay because the truth lies within me. That’s proven almost every morning. And that stays with me when the path becomes obstructed with emotions of the moment.

This ongoing conversation with my higher self has led to being a better version of myself. When temptation arises, my higher self has a more prominent voice. I can summon my higher self for advice in the moment because of the continued, daily cultivation of our relationship.

Today, my decision making is more in step with what my heart desires and knows is right. This is opposed to making decisions to please someone, or some outcome outside of myself. If we don’t listen closely and intentionally enough to our own hearts, we cannot hear what they’re saying. And there are forces screaming as loud as they can, constantly battling for our attention, time, energy, and eventually all our life. The good news is that we know, our hearts know, what they want. All we must do is slow down enough, make space, and get quiet enough to hear them.