It’s always a challenge to know one’s true self, but I
believe that writing is one of the best exercises to do so. However, I was
skeptical when I was told that I had to keep a decorated journal, which housed
the inner workings of my mind (feelings, adventures, bad jokes, secrets, etc.),
but as I began to write something was immediately apparent to me. This was a
liberating experience, no matter the day rain or shine, I was able to vent my
feelings and what I was going trough day by day without fear of judgement and
without the need of company, I was in a way, my own therapist. I will admit
that at first it was very hard just to write without thinking, just letting the
pen flow, as I have always been taught to be very meticulous with my writing
and to proofread (I always cross out errors, it’s practically a tick of mine).
But little by little I was able to follow my thoughts with my pen, not as
quickly, but I was able to write down most of what I thought about. Earlier
writings were very vague as they featured what I did during the day and not
much else. But later on, I was able to delve deeper into the inner workings of
my mind by finding the jugular in the everyday occurrences of my life. For
example, in one entry I was writing about not being able to see LeonardoDiCaprio’s film The Revenant,
something that seems very casual. But, then I would connect this film, which
gave Leo his Oscar (about time), to my best friend whom I haven’t seen in about
a year due to some peculiar circumstances (this was a sad entry, by every
means). In the end, I was able to flow with my writing and it helped me derive
meaning from the simplest of decisions to more life altering decisions.
Another component of my journal entries was the life
compass. This exercise was a quick one, but it was a sort of status update to
my current well being. It made me think twice about how I was “balanced” in
that space and time. It was interesting to study my mood quickly as it helped
me pin point which areas of my self I had to improve for the day. For example,
some days I would not sleep enough and I wouldn’t be concentrated in class,
which in turn made my mental capacity lower and this would make me anxious and
leave less time for me to be spiritually in sync and all of this combined made
my emotional side a wreck. However, my average life compass value was a 7.777777778 (which rounds up to an 8) out of 12 which is not bad,
but I believe I could have made this better if I would have worked harder on my
spiritual self which was proliferated with 1’s. To better this I would have
connected more with nature and go more to church to connect with my original
religious upbringing. On the other hand, my highest area was my emotional area
as I have been very content with my self and my relationship with my
significant other. My mental area was my second highest, but it was mostly
affected by my physical area which is my third highest (mostly because of lack
of sleep and exercising less often).
Legend:
Grey: Emotional
Yellow: Mental
Orange: Physical
Blue: Spiritual
It cool that you liked the experience and it seems like you learned a lot from it. I find that the whole exercise was very therapeutic as well, you can learn a lot about yourself when doing these kinds of things and its good to express oneself even if it is on a sheet of paper. That simple action can be liberating and help reduce stress and well as cause self reflection and evaluation to better improve yourself and see how you feel up to a certain point in your life. I got 8's a lot, just like you and lacked in spirituality. Nonetheless, my most prominent trait was mental not emotional. Hope you see your best friend soon and such.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you mean about how peculiar it was at first to write down in the journal, its awesome that you could delve deeper into understanding yourself while still being in tune with the happenings around you while writing. I hope to one day be able to do that, sometimes it was hard for me to connect with myself, mostly because at my center I'm still not really sure who I am; I spent a lot of my life changing to please other peoples ideals of me and its only recently that I've begun to rectify those errors so its still touch and go on being myself while writing. I empathize with your sadness while writing about your best friend, I can by no means understand the circumstances which have led to your lack of communication but I can understand that kind of melancholy/despairing feeling one gets when you can't speak to someone you care about for longs periods of time.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to see that even thought in the beginning you were skeptical about the journal activity, as time went on you started to actually enjoy it. It was the same for me, at first some of the anti-rules were hard to follow but as I got into it, it became easier. Also, you obtained a good average number on your life compasses.
ReplyDeleteIt's very interesting when you say you were your own therapist, I completely agree. This assignment made us see more about ourselves with our feelings and ideas. It's good that you saw how many connections occur during your process of writing day by day. Also, the life compass was a very simple task but very meaningful. It's nice to recognize our lowest feeling for future reference in our life.
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