Journaling: an exercise in self-respect

There are a million reasons to put off sitting down with your journal.

For that matter, any regular exercise for self improvement can easily start to seem like an imposition, an inconvenience, and worse, a promise that doesn't really have to be kept.

That's why resolutions so quickly get broken. And it may be the major reason why many people don't keep up with their journals, much as they would like to. Doing good for yourself is something that's easy to put off until another time, and another time, and another time, until suddenly you notice that years have passed.

Yet at heart, you are really committed to increasing your self-awareness, to improving your wellness and your soul's health. You truly do want to be a better, healthier, happier person. It's just that there are so many other things to do that are more urgent right now.

While you're so busy trying to deal with all the changes going on all the time around you, It seems that changing your own behavior is the hardest thing in the world.

Unless you remember one key thing.

If there was just some way to remember to love yourself, at least as much as you love all those hundreds of things on your to-do list, you would far more easily practice every day, whatever your chosen discipline.

You began the new habit or diet or discipline in the first place because you crave a better opinion of yourself. You want to realize a more alive, fit, healthy You. To shelve that goal while giving priority to everyday miscellanea is to abuse your self, to show a cruel lack of self love.

On the other hand, attending to your self's needs in a specific way on a regular basis results in increased well being just about every time.

Journaling is a process of self discovery that yields the greatest value when it is practiced faithfully over a period of time. But journaling never happens at all unless you actually sit down with your notebook and pen. That may seem a simple enough act, but in truth, we rarely stop moving long enough to do it.

So it's important to focus on the fact that journaling really does make your life better. Whatever objections the moment may raise, you want to remember to get out of your own way and to get back to the page.

What does it mean to get out of your own way?

You're swamped, you have a million things on your mind, but it's 8pm and that's the time you've designated for some kind of self improvement thing for some reason, which you can't remember right this minute.

As prescribed, you take a deep breath, sit, and breathe for a minute or two. And then you just ask yourself, "Okay, what's going on? What's happening?" in an understanding, soothing tone of voice. And after that, you begin to write.

And day after day, for a good while, that's what you do, until you remember that you do it because it's important to love yourself, and that when you do it you feel better. And then you start doing it with ease and eagerness.

If you approach your journaling as an exercise in self-respect, you can more quickly make it a welcome habit, one you look forward to and perform with wonder.