The Transformative Power of Journaling // Unlocking Self-Discovery

077. Today we're discovering the power and art of journaling. It can change your whole entire life and mindset!

Picture this: a quiet space, a favorite pen in hand, the blank page before you inviting self-expression and exploration. A place where you find yourself, where you become whole, piecing together the fragments of life.

I share my personal insights from my own growing relationship with journaling. We'll explore together how this simple act has not only shaped my podcasting journey but also brought me closer to my true self and to my faith.

Plus, we  delve into the concept of 'wholeheartedness' and how journaling can make us wholehearted individuals.

Intrigued? There's more. I'll open my life and journal to you in an upcoming online 'journal discovery' class. We will navigate the intimate process of developing a disciplined journaling practice and break through any barriers that may prevent your freedom in self-exploration.

So, if you're ready to harness the transformative power of journaling and cultivate a deeper sense of self, don't miss this episode. Your journey to self-discovery awaits.

Intro 00:01:01 practice of journaling 00:02:01 self-express and document your life 00:02:44 stream of conscious journaling 00:05:36 the ultimate me time 00:07:02 What does it mean to be wholehearted? 00:09:57 courage and resiliance 00:13:19 journaling benefits 00:17:30 it's not a quick fix 00:19:17 grow your faith, intuition, trust and clarity 00:20:22 Closing

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Transcript

Marijanel: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the show Today. I'm really excited about the topic. It's something near and dear to my heart that I've talked about many times in the past, and I want to light a fire in you for a daily practice that I have had for 25 years or so, if not more, and something that means a lot to me because I think it saved my life when I was a teenager. I think it was one of the main catalysts that kept me on the straight and narrow and helped me to mature healthily and become what I feel is a wholehearted person, or at least a whole person. That's becoming a little better every day. Welcome Marijanel show. So glad you're here. Let's get started with today's episode, and that is wait for it.

Marijanel: 0:50

The practice of journaling. In the past, I've released a series in the audio apps here on the podcast about journaling and how it saved my life. I told a little bit more of the story and also a few of my tips and tricks and best practices in the area of conscious flow journaling. Now, there's a lot of different kinds journaling out there, but conscious flow is my favorite and most practice form of journaling. I'm going to share with you why today? And light a fire in your belly, because I call this journaling yourself whole. What do I mean by that? I have talked in the past episodes about finding our place to shine, coming into confidence, resting in the seasons and coming into our time to shine and worth, our deepest place of self-worth and knowing that foundation. I liked I likened it to a foundation of knowing our self-worth and building our outside structure of success on that worth. This is speaking of wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness to me is just the depth of becoming our authentic self.

Marijanel: 1:59

I'm gonna touch on that in just a minute, but here, coming back to the power of pen to paper, you might think to yourself oh, this is kind of old-fashioned. I mean, we live in the digital age. Yes, you can self-express and document your life through voice memos and, if you know, writing is just really hard for you due to attention challenges or whatever environment you live in. I encourage you to self-express any which way you can. If that's through a digital means of typing in the notes on your iPad or whatever you can imagine, go for it. This is more than just pen to paper and you can choose to take what I share with you today and apply it in any medium.

Marijanel: 2:42

But I am personally passionate about preserving the very special significance of pen to paper because, as I mentioned, in today's digital age keyboards and touchscreens and all of this digi, digi, digi tech stuff is all around us it's our primary tools of communication and expression. And yet the act of writing, where you put that muscle and that that meaningful intention into the ink that flows on the paper, it holds such a special significant and is actually scientifically known to stimulate and affect our brain in ways that are just so incredibly unique and powerful. It engages our senses in every way, and so I'm personally very passionate about that pen to paper expression. And so today I'm going to be referring to pen to paper and referring to conscious flow journaling. Some of you may have heard it called stream of conscious journaling. I call it conscious flow, but it's essentially where you just let it all out. Whatever you're thinking or feeling comes out onto the paper in no particular order, and you don't censor or edit or critique or judge it. It's just what it is and in the end it's beautiful. It's just a beautiful self-expression of you, and sometimes it's hard to break through those barriers to let yourself be free enough to really conscious flow journal. But that's part of what I am aiming to through Marijanel mentorship is help you to establish the discipline of journaling, but also help you break through the barrier so you can use it in the most freeest self exploring way possible, and so one of the ways I'm going to do that.

Marijanel: 4:31

You're all somewhat aware, if you followed the show for a while, that I have been developing some journal resources and I've been very vague and mysterious about exactly what those are. But I can announce to you in you know, in full disclosure, today that I am filming what is an online class that I'm calling a discovery. It's going to be a journal discovery that I'm going to host online and take you through, first of all, the journey and and all the tools to develop your journaling practice. But I'm going to let you into my own life and my own journal in a very vulnerable way so that number one, you can get to know me, but also so that you can see how real one can really be and hopefully it inspires you to become authentic and real in your own journaling practice. I am actually filming that class, that discovery, this week. I have the filming date set, the crew is setting up and I'm, you know, going to get my hair touched up and everything, and then, by the time that this podcast airs, that class will be being edited and I will have more information on my website of how and where to find that resource.

Marijanel: 5:41

But meanwhile, while I'm working on all of that good stuff, I wanted to get here on the podcast and light the fire and remind you of you and the value of you and journaling yourself whole, and so I can't really share with you the power of the tool of journaling without talking about you, because it is ultimate me time. It's ultimate you time and you can go for pedicures, you can take a nice hot bubble bath, you can treat yourself to your favorite Starbucks or treat or whatever is special for you, but the ultimate me time is where you get to know yourself. Okay. So for me that has been a process of having a morning ritual. For me, it's the morning it might not be for you where you get real and open and honest and let it flow out however it comes out, and that is my ultimate me time where I feel like I have become a whole person, or every day I'm becoming more whole through the process of journaling and so that component of it becoming whole.

Marijanel: 7:02

What does it mean to be wholehearted? Even and you know it's that to me. I would describe that as being in a state where you live your most authentic life possible, where you live with courage and vulnerability and where you show up embracing your one's true self. Now, where can you even cultivate that? I mean, are we all that spiritually or emotionally in tune that we're just gonna know ourselves that good? Or do we do it by verbally talking it out with a good friend? Yes, that happens to me a lot of times. Through deep and insightful conversations I learn things about myself and I'm like, ooh, I'm gonna apply that or I'm gonna learn that.

Marijanel: 7:41

But I need to say, the best way I've ever had these personal aha moments has been me showing me and that happens between the pages in the safe, private place of a journal and that whole heartedness that I speak of is marked by someone connecting to their emotions and knowing their values, knowing their truest heart's desires. So see, inside of you there's created this deep knowing and desire of what you want in life and your purpose and your destiny. It's in there and a lot of times, through the environments we grow up in or whatever's happening in circumstances and past traumas or whatever. We lock it all in and suppress it, and maybe we've even been told untruths that say things like oh, you won't amount to anything or that dream you have is stupid, that happens, and we shut it all down and lock it inside. And the power of journaling is that that can come out and begin to flourish on the pages, but also you can begin to sort it out and understand yourself better.

Marijanel: 9:01

And so some of the key characteristics of knowing a whole hearted person, or spotting one, would be the authenticity the whole hearted individual embraces their true selves, living in alignment, as I mentioned, with those core values, beliefs and desires. Knowing my beliefs has been incredibly pivotal for me, even starting the mentorship programs, and even for knowing where I wanna go with my entrepreneurial life or with even impersonal relationships, because I know my belief system and I'm in tune with it and then able to set those boundaries. Several episodes back I talked about boundaries and going with your intuition. If you don't know any of that, you'll be wishy-washy in the wind and, trust me, I've been there before. But developing yourself through the practice of journaling helps you to come into that place where you no longer compromise your authenticity, you no longer question your value system and you can cultivate a deep sense of self acceptance and self love through this practice.

Marijanel: 10:14

It helps you to take courage, and this is another trait of being whole and being wholehearted, because you cannot be whole without courage, because you have to step into that vulnerable place to take risks and face the challenges head on with bravery, to do things afraid and to just, you know, pursue, to pursue the dreams without backing down. And whole individuals tend to have their um, they've let go of their judgments and failures and regrets and everything in order to pursue their dreams. So these are like some indicators that just show you what it's like to be whole, and they also carry emotional resilience. So what I mean by that is to be a whole, a wholehearted person requires emotional resilience, which means you're able to navigate and process the abundance. And then you're able to navigate the abundance and the abundance of the emotions that you have in the world, and you're able to navigate that without getting overwhelmed or shutting down. And, trust me, we all know how many different uh, the overwhelming sense of emotions and decisions that are out there in the world today. It can be very, very confusing.

Marijanel: 11:32

And the art of journaling really helps us to begin to label things and list things and understand what's on our mind and what's bothering us, even, and then to sort it and be able to make decisions based on our core values and beliefs. And you know, I feel that we are so decision fatigued I also I'm going to be sharing in the upcoming class about a strategy that I call the decision session having a journal time session. It is just about how, um where I teach, how I make decisions by journaling, and it is so, uh, you know, transformative in the sense that when you are decision fatigued and you can't sort out your thoughts and you're just like I don't know what to do, you can journal yourself. Through that, you can journal yourself whole, and so these tools are really invaluable. You can grow so much self-compassion. That's another mark of a wholehearted person is the self-compassion, because you know yourself and you begin to forgive yourself and you begin to show grace on your own mistakes and understand yourself better and like where it's all coming from. And there another mark is just living in the present. The wholehearted person really embraces the now and they let go of the past regrets and the future, anxieties and just lives here and now, in the richness of life as it unfolds. And so some of those are some of the traits or the marks of being whole which I truly believe that the practice and art of journaling can bring that forward in your life. It can help you to cultivate the whole heart that you're looking for.

Marijanel: 13:18

But some other journaling benefits, just a little bit more practical, is that it it really does help you to become reflective and that broadens and deepens even your relationships. And I find, personally I'm able to identify patterns in my life and see things that are like, perhaps like negative personality traits that I'm able to just like, put some self work into. And it really has been, as I mentioned, that I attribute journaling as a way that my life as a teenager was really just, you know, changed around and transformed, saved my life. That relates to emotional healing. Journaling can be such a powerful tool for emotional healing. It doesn't replace therapy or counseling. It never replaces that, but what it can be is another outlet to compliment and harmonize with your counseling and therapy, that it helps you to really sort through even what you're learning and how you're growing and it releases your pent up emotions helps you to process the trauma. It's a tool and navigate those challenging experiences, and so through journaling, you can explore all these emotions in a safe place.

Marijanel: 14:39

So you might be saying, Marijanel hey, , what if I don't feel safe? What if I feel like someone's going to read my journal? What if I feel, like you know what, I don't even feel safe for myself, like maybe I'm going to judge myself, I'm not going to like my handwriting, I'm not going to be happy with what I wrote. And you have fears. Those are really natural and in my upcoming class I'm actually going to address those one by one. If you hop back into the previous audio sessions that I have here on the podcast, I do actually address some of those here in the audio, but coming forward, I'm going to have some really pointed tips and tools for how to address all those fears and those obstacles that are holding you back.

Marijanel: 15:17

For me personally, one of the best things that my journaling practice has helped me with is to develop my creativity. Now there are some really practical hands on tangible ways that you can apply creativity to your journaling. For example, you can doodle and do art and collage and do creative writing inside of your journal. But me being one of the most highly creative individuals ever and I wake up every day with a zillion ideas and I love to do art I don't do a lot of art in my actual conscious flow journal. I do sketch things once in a while and I draw little symbols, but I actually and I actually don't even do a lot of creative writing. I might write a story here or there or document something, but I actually just make a big jumbled mess of thoughts and let myself be free. And what's interesting is that alone has still helped to cultivate and grow my creativity and self expression in a way that I just can't even put that benefit into words.

Marijanel: 16:28

I can't express to you how powerful of a tool it has been for me to discover new insights and possibilities in my life. It has really helped me to find my voice. Even as I have been developing my voice here on the podcast over the last couple of years, you will hear a significant difference from the very first episodes till now of the strength of my voice and what's coming out of me now. And I will tell you that all along this journey I have journaled. I have an entire journal just for podcasting and all of the podcasting challenges that I run into and ways that I'm thinking of changing or growing the show and finding myself and what I hope to do better, and it's a jumble of whatever comes out of me, but it has helped me to grow forward as a podcaster. In conclusion of today, if there's anything that I want to leave you with, it's that I want to light the fire, spark your interest of grabbing that pen to paper and letting yourself journal yourself whole, because this is essentially an invitation to a transformation for you.

Marijanel: 17:41

But it's not a quick fix, and I've said this time and again that in my mentorship programs. I don't know how to offer a quick fix because life for me has never happened quickly. Seasons don't happen quickly for me. Yes, there's times of acceleration, or a burst of something that's been waiting for a while will come forward like wow, that happened fast, but in a different context. I'm talking about this here. What I'm talking about is slow, deep growth, where I've spoken about those roots of a tree that are growing deeply underneath the soil and you don't see anything tangible on the outside and someone might just walk past that sprout and think nothing's happening. But the roots are growing deep.

Marijanel: 18:23

That is the process and journey of self-discovery through journaling as well. It's a quiet, safe place for you to begin to peel back the layers and understand you and develop you. You're going to begin to find out who you really are and what you really think about your values and beliefs. You're going to begin to reflect on your past experiences. And here's this, I didn't mention this yet You're going to learn to integrate and implement all of those life lessons and difficult times into growing forward. You're going to implement it into better things. You're going to learn to set intentions and engage in creative practices inside of that journal, and so this is an invitation to that, just here on the podcast, and make sure that you hop on my newsletter list and follow me for more.

Marijanel: 19:12

But meanwhile I encourage you to just grab that pen, like you don't have to wait for my class or some other you know big epiphany to start journaling. Here's a couple quick tips. Make sure you love the pen. Make sure you love the way that ink is flowing. For me it has to be a gel pen sharpie and it has to be like 0.7 or bigger, because I need it just to flow and not to be too skinny. Maybe that's that my eyes, you know, are going at the age of 46, where I need it. You know like I need it to be thicker and bigger and I write bigger these days. But whatever it takes for you to begin this practice, do it. Go by yourself the most beautiful journal that inspires you and put it somewhere where it's like right in front of your face all the time, and don't delay picking it up and writing, even if it's like when you're brushing your teeth. You know like you're brushing your teeth and you got to write in the journal. Just do what it takes to begin the practice and as you begin the practice, you're going to see yourself journal yourself whole. It is the ultimate you time. It is the ultimate me time. It is the ultimate place where you can grow your faith, intuition, trust and clarity. It's the birthplace of ideas and I'm so excited to invite you into this part of my walk and journey through journaling.

Marijanel: 20:35

Check out the links below. If you're here on YouTube, do all those things you gotta do hit the subscribe and the bell and the click all the likes or whatever you can find. A click that makes YouTube say I'm here, pay attention Marijanel Show and then over on the audio apps. I'd love it if you leave stars in a review. It helps the show to get known. It's a great way to support a podcast that you love. All of my links are in the description box below. You can find @Marijanel on Instagram and I so so look forward to sharing more with you about the power of journaling and releasing the upcoming class. Meanwhile, keep on in the full potential of you.