Maintaining a Journal to Discover Yourself

Do you keep a journal to record your life journey? Maintaining a journal is an exceptionally good way of making sense of the things you go through in your life. You can tell your journal what you cannot tell other people and as you look back on past entries, your journal is a record of how every experience you go through in life, becomes a mirror that reflects how you have grown through those experiences. 

 

Many people feel they could not keep a journal. If you feel this way, and the reason is that you do not like writing or feel you can’t write properly, do not let this stop you exploring this excellent method of keeping track of the many thoughts and ideas that travel through your mind daily. Journaling is not about needing to write in any style or with grammar. You are the only one who will read the journal. It is your thoughts on paper 

 

Other people have found creative ways to use their journals. Drawings, photographs and poetry or quotes can sometimes depict the stories that you cannot write on paper. It is not the method you use that is important, but it is the concept of keeping a journal; it is the benefit it will be to you and your journey of self-discovery. 

 

Most of us hold our feelings inside, these can have both a stunting effect on our personal growth, and they can lead to health problems if the stress that usually accompanies them remains internal. Expressing thoughts on paper is the simplest way of learning how to express our feelings. Once expressed we can either look at them from a different perspective and deal with them ourselves or we can feel more willing to talk about them with others. 

 

Journaling for self-discovery need not be only for expressing our inner feelings and thoughts. As we travel through life, we inevitably have some great ideas. As we write these ideas down, we can return to them when we are in a position to either follow them up with action or to revisit them in the future. Without writing our ideas down, we often forget them and many of the gems that life offers us are forgotten when we try to commit them to memory. 

 

Once you create the habit of maintaining and writing in a journal often becomes a lifelong habit.

 

10 Questions to Understand Yourself

Do you understand yourself? Understanding yourself helps you to make decisions that help you to choose the best paths for you to take. Often the choices we make without understanding ourselves can be wrong decisions that create problems. Understanding our strengths, weaknesses, what gives us satisfaction and what causes us stress help guide our paths to those experiences that will provide us with the best possible outcomes for our choices. 

 

If you keep a journal these 10 questions may help you to know yourself and to get in touch with inner thoughts and feelings. They can help you make choices in your private life, your working life and in your relationships. 

 

1.  Describe what you believe is truly important in life. Describe anything you would fight for in life to keep and not lose.

2.  Describe what values in life best reflect what you believe are essential values that you treasure about yourself. Describe what gives you happiness and a sense of achievement and what upsets you and causes you stress and anger or frustration.

3.  Describe a dream you have about what you would like to achieve for yourself personally in life. Describe what affect this dream is having on your life currently and what you would hope it to have in the future.

4.  Who is a mentor or major influence in your life and how do they help you make decisions? Why are they an important influence?

5.  What would you like to achieve within the next 10 years in your personal life? 

6.  What do you consider are your special talents and gifts?

7.  What skills would you like to develop in either your personal or working life in the next 12 months?

8.  What would you regret not doing if you look back on your life in 20 years’ time? 

9.  What do you consider your greatest achievement in life until now? 

10. What do you consider is your greatest failure, sadness or disappointment?

 

Remember there are no right or wrong answers for any of these questions. As you answer them honestly and thoughtfully, the answers will provide you with a picture of you and a summary of your hopes and aspirations and the things you can learn from your past choices. Turn your answers into life goals and use them to help make decisions that will shape your future. 

How to Fall in Love with Yourself

Do you love yourself? Most people probably take a deep breath when they hear that question, but it is a valid and important question and one if we could all answer yes to, would change the way we feel about ourselves and give us self-confidence to achieve the dreams and desires we have for our lives. 

 

Someone once asked the question “how can we expect others to love us if we don’t love ourselves” and this demonstrates the importance of learning to love the unique person we are. It is accepting that we have own special place in this world. Feeling unloved and unworthy is a very lonely feeling. If you cannot find anything to love about yourself, you are probably struggling on the inside with a whole range of feelings. 

 

Learning to love yourself is possible. To love yourself, you must challenge the negative feelings inside that center our thoughts and self-wealth feelings on external things like how successful we are in our roles as mothers or husbands or how well we can sing even how good looking we are. While acknowledging their role in our life, our self-worth and self-acceptance is about the person we are, the person we are comfortable being around when everyone else has left and we are alone. If we are not comfortable with that person, we do not love our self. 

 

Take time to sit and write all the things there is to love about yourself. Be honest with yourself. Do not let negative self-talk stop the process. Try to do these five simple things every day and you will find yourself thinking differently about the private you few others see or know.

• Challenge your negative thoughts about yourself by having positive ones written down and read them aloud to yourself often. 

• Learn to self-care and do something every day that you enjoy doing. You deserve it!

• Look in the mirror and learn to love the person looking back at you and tell him or her often she is lovable and why.

• Fill your life with people who love you and tell you often what a special person you are. Accept their words and their love without questioning it.

• Add to your list about the person you are, the good thoughts you have about yourself and read them regularly. 

 

When you have positive feelings about yourself, you automatically begin to love yourself and hence you do a better job at whatever you do.

 

There Is More to You than You Think

The person you look at in the mirror who is looking back at you may not be the person you think he or she is. Most of our self-awareness comes from our perceptions of how we think we appear to others. Just how accurate our thoughts about ourselves are, is usually dependent on our life circumstances and the people and events that have shaped our memories and our perceptions of the things that have happened in it. 

 

Our self-talk tells us about ourselves and if we listen long enough to it, it will speak louder than family and friends who often affirm our strengths and abilities. Not all self-talk is bad. Sometimes it says things, which give us a premonition, and keeps us away from harm. 

 

Others have achieved a sense of acceptance of who they are and where they fit into the world. For many people however, the public image they portray to others may not be a true reflection of their inner feelings. Self-talk convinces many people that there is nothing good in them or their lives. This creates tension and sadness that can manifest itself in destructive ways. It can affect relationships and health if not corrected. 

 

How do people develop the negative feelings about themselves? Often, they are the result of someone we love or trust saying or doing something that makes us feel bad about ourselves. Even though what we may initially know that what we are telling ourselves is not true, over time we begin to internalize and then believe it. It begins to affect the way we think and feel about ourselves and how we appear to others.

 

Escaping the negative feelings means learning to love the unique person we are. It means learning to allow others into our lives again without fear of a repeat of the hurt or rejection. We can do this alone by consciously rejecting the inner voice and countering it with a reminder of all the blessings and successes in our life or we can do it with the help of a trusted friend or counselor. 

 

Finding the inner strength to face our negative thoughts about ourselves is the first step to discovering that we have hidden qualities and strengths we are often not aware of. It is a journey that no person will regret taking, once they embark on it. 

5 Factors that Are Necessary for Personal Enlightenment

The concept of ‘to enlighten’ is very similar to the thought of ‘turning the light on’. When we think of personal enlightenment, it is easy to think of it as a ‘turning the light on inside me’. It is about getting to know myself. There are five factors necessary for this personal enlightenment. Learning these factors will change our own lives and the lives of those around us.

 

1.  Believe that Personal Enlightenment Is Necessary for Self-acceptance 

 

Many of us do not like, let alone love ourselves. Self-acceptance is only possible when we are comfortable with the person we are, physically, emotionally and spiritually. When we experience the ‘light bulb’ moment in our lives, we are at a turning point. We can use this moment to grow or we can choose to turn it off and retreat back into the darkness of our former selves. 

 

2.  Believe that Personal Enlightenment Is Necessary to Change Ourselves and Our World

 

Those who choose to explore personal enlightenment are usually self-empowered as they learn to recognize and then unlock the power of the person they are or would like to be. These are the Nelson Mandelas, Malcolm Xs, and Martin Luther Kings of this world. Their journey to enlightenment changed them so profoundly, it empowered them to change their world. 

 

3.  Believe that Personal Enlightenment Is a Journey, Not a Destination

 

Although we may experience a light bulb minute, this is self-awareness, it is not enlightenment. Our life is a journey of experiences and personal enlightenment enables us to make sense of those experiences as we meet them on the journey. As we apply what we lean each experience helps us understand ourselves more fully.

 

4.  Believe that Personal Enlightenment Is a Force for Good and Not Evil

 

The world is a global community and each of us is its member. As we learn about and then gradually progress to accepting ourselves, we are more likely to accept others and enjoy who they are and encourage them on their own path of enlightenment.

 

5.  Believe that Our Past Influences Do Not Control Our Future

 

As we accept that our past life influences have no control over us, we can learn from its lessons and apply them to our future. Our past often holds us captive to its mistakes. Enlightenment frees us to learn from them.

 

Getting in Touch with Your Inner Self

How often have you heard the old saying “I’m too busy to think?” All too often, this is true for most of us. Someone has said if we are “too busy to think, we are just too busy.” Very few of us spend time getting in touch with our inner self and this is to our detriment. It is only as we go on a journey of self-discovery that we can make sense of who we are, and why we are here. 

 

For some people, this might seem too much like a spiritual search and nothing else. This definition is far too simple. Spirituality is only one small part of self-discovery. Our inner self is the person we are when no one is around. Many people are scared of being introduced to their inner self and busyness is a means of “not having time to think” because it can be scary to think. Many people do not like their own company because then they are forced to think about things they can usually ignore. This makes some people feel very uncomfortable.

 

Other people have learned something important. We are more than just a physical being. We are also an intellectual being, a spiritual being, an emotional being and a social being. As we get in touch with our inner selves, life takes on a new meaning. A simple question to ask yourself is “what it is you want from life, and what are you doing to achieve it? If you can answer this, chances are you are comfortable with yourself.

 

Answering these two questions helps us maintain our holistic health. It helps us process the bad times as well as the good times. It helps us clarify our values and the things that are important to us. It helps to give our lives meaning and purpose. 

 

How do we get in touch with our inner selves? There is only one way we can do this, and it really is as simple as getting to know ourselves. This usually requires us taking some time each day to withdraw from the busyness around us. This has to be an intentional decision. Choose a time each day that suits your lifestyle, and a resource to help guide your thoughts and spend time in introspective thinking. Journal your responses and see the difference it makes in your life.

The 3 Keys to Creating Spiritual Growth

The success of such films as “Eat, Pray, and Love” reveal that we are more in touch with our spirituality, than we are often prepared to admit to ourselves. Increasing numbers of people are deciding to take a path of spiritual discovery, exploring a side of our humanity that for many of us we have not thought much about. Yet when we do decide to accept that we are not just a physical body, we may choose to go on a path of spiritual self-discovery. Here are the three keys to creating spiritual growth that will guide that journey.

 

1.  Do not be afraid to think outside the box. Expand your mind to the unseen world.

 

This first key is self-explanatory. There can be no spiritual growth without acknowledging that there is more out there than the physical dimension of our existence. 

 

2.  Spend as much time considering how to care for yourself spiritually as you care for yourself physically.

 

We spend a lot of time and money ensuring our physical growth is healthy. We follow the latest fad diet and spend countless dollars and hours at the local gym, seeking to look our physical best. We try to choose a balanced diet and make good lifestyle choices. 

 

The second key to creating spiritual growth is to prioritize it in the choice of how we will spend our day and the things we choose to do in our day. Just as there cannot be good physical health if we do not commit to healthy living, there can be no spiritual health and growth if we do not commit to spiritual health.

 

3.  Reading about spirituality will not create spiritual growth. Healthy body growth results from exercising our bodies. Healthy spiritual growth results from exercising our spirits.

 

We have all heard the old saying “no pain, no gain” and this is equally true of spiritual growth as it is for physical and intellectual growth.

 

The final key to spiritual growth is to spend time exercising our spirit by asking ourselves the tough questions:

 

·      Why am I here?

·      Where am I going?

·      How will I get there?

 

Whether we choose a religious or other path to find the answers is a personal choice, but unless we are willing to consider these questions and what they mean to us personally, there can be no spiritual growth.

You Are a Part of the Environment, Not Apart from the Environment

Whether or not we identify with those who call themselves ‘greens’, all of us are becoming increasingly aware that our natural world is hurting and that all are responsible for its care and health. The current discussions on how to reduce carbon emissions is an indication of the fragile relationship that exists between humans and the environment. I am certain that, like me, you too are becoming increasingly aware that you are a part of the environment not apart from it.

 

We often act with no thoughts of the consequences of our actions. We are creatures of habit and convenience. Our busy lives and indulgent life styles often create blindness to the adage that ‘every action has an opposite reaction’. Actor and environmentalist Ed Asnor described it like this:

 

"We all moan and groan about the loss of the quality of life through the destruction of our ecology, and yet each one of us, in our own little comfortable ways, contributes daily to that destruction. It is time now to awaken in each one of us the respect and attention our beloved mother deserves.”

 

We are increasingly realizing the impact that the accumulated consequences of hundreds of years of industrialization, is having on the environment. If we are aware of our relationship with the environment, we will actively change our lifestyle and habits to protect the fragile world we live in. 

 

In the past, the ancient indigenous cultures of our world learned how to live in harmony with the environment. They learned to use its resources for their needs and not their greed. They learned to protect its resources and live in harmony with the seasons by only taking resources for personal needs at a time when those resources were naturally in abundance. They lived in harmony with the environment and the environment lived in harmony with them. 

 

Somewhere in time, we lost the concept of being a part of the environment and not apart from it. We, as a human race, began to see ourselves as somehow separate to it and our lifestyles focused on what we could take from the world around us and forgot what we should give back to it. The price of our actions is not only the destruction of the environment that we are a part of, but also potentially our own destruction. 

Knowledge versus Wisdom—There Is a Difference

The pursuit of knowledge in some cultures is synonymous with bringing honor on the family. Those who teach knowledge are highly respected. It is certainly correct that knowledge empowers people and there are countless examples of people who on gaining an education have influenced their generation in some way or have changed the course of their society or even their world. 

 

Yet, as virtuous as it may be to have knowledge, without wisdom, knowledge can be dangerous at worse, or a waste of time at best. Wisdom is best defined simply as applied knowledge. It is the ability to take what is known of the world and of people, things and places and to make choices based on that knowledge. Knowledge knows the facts about something, but wisdom knows best how to apply those facts to the real world and to add an understanding of right and wrong to that knowledge.

 

Without wisdom, knowledge can be dangerous. It can lead to character flaws like conceit and selfishness. Without wisdom there is often little concept of the consequences of using knowledge without consideration of others or the impact on places and things. Knowledge can often lead to subjective actions, whereas wisdom has learned to be objective and to consider that there are two sides to every story.

 

People who speak with wisdom are often highly sought after for their advice. People do not just want to hear knowledge that they can read in a book or learn for themselves. Life experiences and knowledge provide a strong combination that wise people are often possess and it is because they themselves have learned to apply wisdom to a situation that others seek them out for advice. There is a common belief that wisdom comes with age or experience. This has its basis on this understanding that in our life experiences we learn to put our knowledge into action in a relevant way.

 

Practically speaking, all of us can learn to be wise. We may benefit from learning from a mentor who can guide us to think deeply about our life, the things we know and learn and the circumstances and events that shape our lives. As we consider these things in relation to their effect on our own life and the lives of others and learn to apply them to other situations, we are on the road to true wisdom.