What I've learned from 30 days of journaling

I've been chatting about my "morning pages" or daily three pages of journaling as part of my morning routine. When I looked back, I realized I've kept up the habit for over a full month now. So every morning, before I've even had my coffee, I sit down and brain vomit onto the page.

Most importantly, and I think something not enough people talk about...I didn't always want to do the work. That's right! There were mornings where I got up and grumbled and pouted and wanted to run away from my office without opening that book. I wasn't skipping to my journal with butterflies dancing around my head. If anything, the only animal I got was my cat weaving between my legs making me fall and whack my knee on the table. But I hopped for a second and kept going. Once I did put pen to paper, I never once regretted the time spent. 

I've also learned I'm super hard on myself. There is something about writing down all of your thoughts that makes you realize you're being a dick. When you have to put a negative thought down on paper, it makes you pause and rethink it. At least it made me pause. Taking the time to look at what is coming from my pen is humbling and inspiring, but most importantly, it's honest. And in being honest, I have to admit it when my negative self talk is not the truth. 

Every chance I get, I turn negative parts of my day into positive action plans. Personal pep talks are my journaling forte. I always seem to end with a written kick in the ass to myself. I recently ended a post with...

If it doesn't come to me right now, it will soon. I'm open to the opportunities that are about to flood my way.

That's the biggest difference I've seen in myself after daily journaling for a month straight. I'm more open to ideas. I'm more open to gratitude for what is going well, and I'm incredibly open to the possibilities I have in front of me to take advantage of.

Luck and instinct are two factors that have dictated an incredibly huge part of my life. I decided what college to go to the second I walked onto the campus. My hubby just happened to play the same instrument as me in the marching band. My passion for reading turned into a career as an author all because I reached out and told one of my favorite authors that she was hilarious and I owed her a beer for the laughs.

But luck and instinct, don't put in the work. I tend to drift, and let me tell you guys...perimenopause is a bitch on the brain along with the body. Journaling has forced me to take the smallest of babysteps in reviving the parts of my gray matter in charge of focus. I sit and write without stopping, and that makes me sit for at least five minutes and focus on what crazy shit is floating around up there. 

Now, am I saying all of it makes sense? *snork* Not at all. Hell, my handwriting isn't the best because I've spent most of the last few years working from a computer. So some of those entries aren't legible unless you close one eye and cross the other while saying a chant and smoking something only legal in some of the United States. That doesn't mean that the parts I can read aren't super important.

I'm not going to talk about all the crap I wrote down, mainly because some of it is crap, but some of it is super personal. Journaling is the best therapy. No one is going to read it but you, and that raw honesty is invaluable. Every aspect of our lives is the combination of our responses to external factors, and choices we've made. Some of my journal entries have forced me to look at the parts of my own life I want to change. I get to explore how I got where I am, and what I can do to make a different choice to change my path.

I don't do everything I suggest to myself in my journal. I'm not that evolved. But I've started making changes in my life that I never would have, had I not taken the time to reflect on the "Why".

Basically thirty days of journaling has taught me...I need to do thirty more. And thirty more after that. Journaling is now part of my morning, and it's not going away anytime soon.

Do you journal? Do you do it daily? Are you thinking about starting now? Tell me about your journaling habits or just send this office supply hoe a pretty picture of your favorite notebook. I'd love to see it.

~Roxy