JOURNALING BLOG POST FOR DECEMBER 22, 2014

JOURNALING BLOG POST FOR DECEMBER 22, 2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS BLOG POST

A THE PRIVACY OF A JOURNAL 

B AN ANGRY WORLD. ARE WE ANGRY? WHAT TO DO WITH OUR ANGER.

C CARRY YOUR JOURNAL WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES, TO ALL PLACES, SO YOU CAN STEAL TIME TO JOURNAL (A JOURNALING HOW-TO)

​D PLAN YOUR JOURNALING​ (WHEN TO JOURNAL, THAT IS)

E JOURNALING PROMPTS
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WELCOME TO A JOURNEY

Written December 21, 2014, Sunday, 235 p.m.

Hello there and welcome to the "JOURNALING STUFF: A JOURNALING RESOURCE 2014 EDITION​" and "RYP JOURNALING BLOG TO BOOK SERIES, VOLUME 1​." 

I'm glad you have grabbed this book to peruse. You're in for a real treat. After all, journaling is a combination of many things; it's life-changing (transforming), a blessing, a catcher of dreams and wishes, a place to remember, an exploration, and a place of refuge. Journaling is one of the most rewarding activities, and experiences, you can add to your life. It has hundreds of purposes. We'll explore these as we walk this path together.

I'm looking forward to our journey and I hope you are too. We'll travel through some of the mountainous lands of our present, swim the murky waters of our past, and gaze upward toward the stars as we dream and ponder our future. 

Our journals will be our guides while we are on this quest or journey. However, they're a great deal more than that. Our journals are also our life companions and friends, memory keepers, problem solvers, therapists, accountability partners, storytellers, storykeepers, planners, goal setters, dream catchers, idea explorers, history makers, creative stirrers, and list keepers. Our journals are better than any GPS! 

I hope you're ready for the journey of a lifetime. Other than time spent with God and time spend in exercise, there's nothing more beneficial than journaling. Of that I'm convinced. The one thing I can guarantee is if you journal, your life will never and can never be the same again. 

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A THE PRIVACY OF A JOURNAL 

A journal is private and can be kept private. 

You do not have to hide behind a mask, put up walls, or be anything you are not in your journal. It is where you can be fully you--and is your safe place. 

Do not worry. Your journal is safe, private, and can take anything you throw at it. 

Your journal is private. 

Share some of your journaling with others, but keep some for yourself and God. You do not have to share all of yourself with everyone. In fact, don't. Some things are meant to stay and remain private. Your journal is good for that.  

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B AN ANGRY WORLD. ARE WE ANGRY? WHAT TO DO WITH OUR ANGER.

We seem to live in an angry world.

Are we angry?

Are you angry?

Am I angry? No. I am not. I may get angry and frustrated at times, even stressed. The injustices of this world can make my head spin on its axis a few times. However. This is a big however, let me add and stress. There is something I can do when I am angry. I can turn to my journal.

Anger is an emotion.

Every emotion is something we can choose to feel.

Every emotion is something we can choose to control, rather than it control us.

Emotion is a choice.

Anger is a choice.

How has the world, or any person, ever become better through anger?

It is okay to get angry. It's what we do with it that counts. 

We are not to go to bed until we are not angry. We are not allowed to do wrong things because we are angry. It is okay to get angry or be angry. BUT, we MUST not allow it to linger, and we must deal with the anger IMMEDIATELY so it does not deal with us. If it deals with us, we will lash out at others and no one deserves this, not even our worst enemy.

Anger is an emotion we can choose to control and not allow it to control us.

We are bigger, more mature than our anger. 

We can choose to do something constructive with our anger.

If I watch the news, or read it, I guarantee without fail I will get angry within five minutes. This is my push button that makes me angry. Really angry.

So, what constructive thing can I do with my anger? How can I turn my anger into something useful and bring out the good, positive,and blessing, rather than the ugly? How can I turn my anger into something useful?

I journal.

And, so can you.

AN ABSOLUTE RULE ABOUT JOURNALING: Every time you feel anger, journal first, before you do anything or say anything else. Every time.

Anger spilled forth and into actions or onto others is never good. It never helps. It is never beneficial. It is never a blessing.

Anger is ugly and it can cause harm we never would intend normally.

So, we need to journal when we feel anger.

I can vent, rave, fury in my journal. I can be ugly. I do not have to hold back. I can get it out in my journal--and not do something foolish I'll regret later through my anger haze and fury.

My journal protects me and others. (Stop. Re-read that.)

Journaling gives us a safe place to work through our anger.

Remember: Journaling brings perspective.

Venting my anger in my journal frees my mind of the ugly stench of anger. It frees my mind to allow useful, beneficial things in my mind.

Causing harm to property, self, or others is NEVER the answer. NEVER. This is only for small minds, small lives, for those who choose ugliness instead of blessing and beauty. This shows foolishness.

I never want to act a fool or be accused of being a fool. I never want to flirt with foolishness. I know this is a slippery slope. This is why I turn to my journal first. 

Every single time I have acted a fool, it has been when I failed to journal something through first. Every time.

Now, let me stress about anger venting in my journal. IN my journal. 

Any time I need to vent in my journal, I grab a timer and set it for ten minutes. Then, for ten minutes, I am as ugly as possible. I vent it out. I throw up on paper. Then, when that timer goes off, even if I am in the middle of a sentence, I stop. I refuse to allow something to control me beyond this. I choose not to allow something to bug me beyond these ten minutes. I am bigger than the issue. It is not bigger than me. I am the adult and am mature. I will not allow something to control me, and let it spill out on others. I deal with the issue in my journal instead.

Then, I make a list of at least ten blessings. If I am really worked up, I try to list twenty-five or more.

Then, I try to journal something else. A journaling prompt may come to play here. I try to turn my anger into something constructive.

Then, if I am still worked up, and cannot move on, I repeat the steps:

1 10 minutes of ugly venting in my journal.

2 Count my blessings.

3 Journal about something.

And, I keep repeating them whenever necessary. 

If I wake in the night with something on my mind that I cannot let go, I do this.

Rarely do I have to do this twice. Even more rarely do I repeat this three times.

I make my anger useful. CI allow it to make me count my blessings and find a way to bless others in spite of what made me angry. This is what my journaling allows me to do.

If more people would do this, there would be less crime. There would be fewer therapists. and, there would be a more peaceful world. But, I cannot control any of that. But, I can sure control my reaction of anger. I am bigger than my anger. I choose to control it, rather than allow it to control me. I journal it out and through.

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C CARRY YOUR JOURNAL WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES, TO ALL PLACES, SO YOU CAN STEAL TIME TO JOURNAL (A JOURNALING HOW-TO)

Written December 18, 2014, Thursday, 251 p.m.

I am not kidding. NEVER, ever, ever go anywhere without your journal or a way to journal.

Journaling ideas will come to you in a blink of an eye, usually at the most inconvenient times. Have something to capture it so you do not forget it. If you do not have time to do a full journal entry, write a sentence or two down and the moment you can, expand upon it.

Carry it with you everywhere, at all times.

When you take a shower, have your journal in the bathroom.

If you sit on the toilet, are at a red light, are sitting in your car, are in your living room, are in your kitchen, etc. Have your journal. Opportunities to journal, and ideas to journal, will pop up when you least expect it. Do not lose the moment by not having a way to journal.

Also, do you want to know how to get the most out of your journaling? It's through journaling more. How can you journal more? Through stealing time to journal. And, the only way you can do that is to carry your journal with you everywhere you go and at all times.

STEALING TIME TO JOURNAL

What is stealing time to journal? It's journaling a sentence or more, a minute or more, throughout your day. It's claiming the moment. It's not allowing a moment slip by. It's capturing your life on the page.

I steal time to journal in these ways, and more, so find what works for you. I steal time to journal between activities or while doing activities in which I can also multitask. Some examples are: I journal whenever I am waiting. Do you have any idea how much time we lose every day, throughout the day, as we wait on something or someone? For instance, waiting for something to cook, when on hold, when in a waiting room, when standing in a line, at a red light, while on the toilet (sorry, but it's true, and is useful), when waiting for the water to get hot, waiting for the coffee to brew or perk, waiting for someone to finish getting ready so we can leave, during breaks, etc.

We may not get much journaling done when we steal time to journal, but one sentence journaled is a great deal better than not.

That being said, when I focus on stealing time to journal during those waiting periods, I get on average an extra fifteen minutes PER DAY done of journaling. It's the most useful tool I have in my toolbox for journaling and through these moments, I have stumbled across big things in my journaling, which I then write more about later.

So, carry your journal everywhere with you and steal time to journal each day.

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​D PLAN YOUR JOURNALING​ (WHEN TO JOURNAL, THAT IS)

Written December 18, 2014, Thursday, 303 p.m.

I am not a planner--usually. I find planning some things stifling. Some things, though, planning is necessary. Journaling is one of those times.

WHEN SHOULD YOU JOURNAL?

Every day. Preferably several times a day.

Again, the more you journal, the more you will get out of it.

Are you a morning dove or a night owl?

I am a morning person. I am the type where I get more done by noon than most people get done in their entire day. That being said, past three in the afternoon, I am mostly useless. So, knowing that, the very first thing I do in the morning is journal--and it is when I get the most journaling done. I would say I do about seventy percent of my journaling in the morning.

Then, I make sure to journal in the evenings as well. This accounts for about twenty percent of my journaling.

Then, I steal time to journal throughout my day, which is about ten percent of my journaling each day.

Most days, though, I try to journal some every hour. On the weekends, I may not be able to do so, though.

I also try to journal some before I go to bed.

Sometimes, I journal in the middle of the night.

All of that is me.

So, what about you? Journal the most at the time you are the sharpest and most productive. And, experiment. Try to journal throughout your day.

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E JOURNALING PROMPTS

Summarize your life in one sentence.

Summarize your life in one paragraph.

What's your biggest dream?

What dreams have you had that have come true?

What is your favorite time of day? Why?

What is your favorite season? Why?

What is your favorite holiday? Why?

Where do you hope to be in five years?

Where do you hope to be in ten years?

Where do you hope to be in twenty years?

Where do you hope to be in twenty-five years?

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