Take Time To Do What Makes Your Soul Happy
I’ve written in journals on and off through the years. The earliest one that I remember was a Nancy Drew diary that Santa brought back in the fourth grade. It had a lock, and a key, and everything!
I’ve journaled on and off since then, and really began to be relatively consistent in my early days with WW shortly after a meeting about the benefits of journaling, and not just in the tracking food sense. Self-reflection, stress relief, keeping my thoughts organized, setting and achieving goals, I’ve found that when I start my day off with a journal, my day is more mine somehow.
It’s true that some of the things I’ve written sound like wild-woman talk. Then again, better to write those things in a journal and reflect on the thoughts, rather than speak them and regret it. At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!
I was organizing bookshelves and amidst the books and photo albums, were journals scatter among them. Putting them all together, I surprised myself at how many I actually have (and kept!)
Skimming through the journals, especially the earlier ones, I find funny the things that I was worrying about back then. They all seemed to work themselves out. The things that I was spinning about on the day-to-day? I’d forgotten all about them, but in those moments they were, in some cases, so soul-stopping and limiting, I want to shake my younger self and say, STOP it! Press on! It’ll all work out in the end! The things I didn’t focus on more were the little, every day things, that I barely skimmed over in my daily brain dump. Interesting that those are the things that now? I recall fondly, and lovingly, and miss the absolute most.
To tell you the truth, the journaling is one of my favorite parts of the day. Interesting, too, I find that when life starts tumbling away, it’s also when I’ve been lax with my journaling.
It’s true that fitness and food are important to manage for a healthy lifestyle. For me, journaling is a big part of health…mental health. And somehow, when I can reign that in, everything else starts to follow.
