The Gift of Journaling

I have kept a journal for as long as I can remember.  I poured over the blank page and filled it with my inner voice, my emotions, my insecurities, my dreams, my desires. There were times when I felt like the words couldn’t be written fast enough and times when I felt like they couldn’t come at all.  All in all, my journal gave me comfort, a place to be heard, and a tool that would serve me for years to come.

As I have matured in my life and journaling, I now approach my time with the pen and paper as an opportunity.  Below, I share the gifts I have received from a regular journaling practice

1. The gift of acceptance - When we take the time to write down our experience, we are practicing a radical form of self love. We are saying to the universe that we feel worthy of being seen, being held and being allowed to have someone stay while we express our deepest emotions without judgement, abandonment or exploitation

2. The gift of reflection - Journaling offers an innate opportunity for the sacred pause and an introduction to cultivate curiosity into our deep rooted mental constructs and unconscious habits. While we engage in the act of writing, we can begin to uncover some of the ways we perceive the world and our internal and inherited beliefs. We can begin to observe how and with what attitude we engage with the world and our emotions based on how we speak to and about ourselves and experience in the journal.

3. The gift of insight - When we reflect with an open and intimate interest into our journaling, we can begin to disidentify with its content slightly, creating a little bit of space to explore the nature of our body sensations AS we are writing. Journaling with mindfulness to body sensations as well as reflection on emotion with a kind attention brings a unique ability to uproot the cause and effect of some of the beliefs, perceptions and concepts we navigate life with.  

For example, as I am writing about an occurance that happened in my personal life, applying close attention to the sensations in my body, I notice by heart begins to beat quickly, I recognize that I am angry, or humilated, or scared and my journaling becomes less about telling the story and being a victim and more about the direct experience of the moment. My journaling shifts from blame and shame to attending and befriending how I feel at the moment. I also notice that this pattern of physical sensations, emotions, and beliefs is something that happens often while I am journaling.  This insight is invaluable and provides me with a place to practice, cultivate and manifest one of my deepest desires which is unconditional love and understanding.

4. The Gift of Manifestation- The longer we stay with the moment to moment experience, while continuing to journal, the more we are strengthening the manifestation potential of what we desire the most.  Journaling gives us the power to embody and direct the qualities we want to feel from our environment towards ourselves for ourselves,  thus consciously creating this energy to show up for us in our lives.

Metta Magic

Lately I have been practicing metta on a very regular basis.  Metta is typically defined as loving kindness and strengthening the part of ourselves that can open to whatever arises in our experience.  And whatever arises is so spontaneous, we have no idea when, where, what or who is going to show up. It's hard. It's hard waiting, listening, being present, being patient. I want to know, fix, manage, anticipate, get ahead of etc..

I feel lucky to have my practice, my practice that teaches me that this wanting, striving, hoping, avoiding, is universal. It is THE universal suffering of being a human.  There is a quote I heard recently about how hard it is for humans merely to be separated from the divine source. How this separation is the original disconnect so to speak, and just our being born into this earthly plane is enough struggle to explore through our practice - to get to the place where we feel whole again.

To feel whole - a concept I have been exploring since as long as I remember.  When I was 10, I remember putting on my mother’s lipstick, looking in the mirror and staring at myself, and her and saying.. “I am ME, and you are you.. Isn’t that crazy? I am me and you are YOU”. This being separate has always been somewhat of an enigma.

Over the years I have learned, through myself, through others, through books, classes, lectures and ultimately just by pausing and feeling it all that the belonging, the connection I so desperately was seeking is available inside me. And not as something I can understand or do something to get, but rather something I can continue to create and choose to embody. At any time. In any place. No matter the circumstances.  The belonging is there in the attitude, in the attention, in the willingness to stay and practice the metta through reflection, meditation and continued kind and courageous action.

love,

alana

Caring for your creative energy: learning to nurture and respect the subtle feminine energy.

How can we harness our creative energy in a way where it can be transformed into a tangible contribution?  I struggle with this question constantly.  It’s a natural feeling, the wanting, the uncertainty, the fear around wondering if it will ever happen or if we even have the energy at all.  But the deeper truth is that we are creativity.  Humans are a product of creation and therefore ARE creation. It is boundless and sourced within us.  

1. Believing it’s in abundance - Intention and faith are the cornerstones of creativity and cultivating fulfillment.  

2. Recognizing the fear and anxiety around the idea of creativity as opportunities to cultivate its potential

3. Turn towards these emotions with a loving and patient attention - rather than becoming hostile around these emotions, recognize them as unpleasant yet allow them to remain in your presence without shaming or blaming. If you notice, shaming or blaming is occurring, turn towards that and practice the same kind attention

4. Cultivate stillness and let the energy flow and properly marinate - it is skillful to allow the energy to live inside for a time.  Resist the urge to externalize as the energy begins to heighten and alchemize

5. Apply inquiry and curiosity to the flow.  Is there a specific emotion that continues to arise? Can you name and drop into the body, and notice where it lives? Can you develop an intimate attention and relationship with the physical without abandoning or judging?  

6. Once you become familiar with this sensation and it becomes less aversive to your awareness, you can begin to inquire deeper into its root, perhaps the first time you felt this physical sensation.  

7. Often these roots are deeply protected and can take many weeks and months to uncover, but once uncovered with a friendliness, care and patience, we can begin to nurture them with a new mature awareness, thus providing the perfect fertilizer for our creativity to grow