Journaling for Inner Growth
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Thank you very much for joining today. I'll speak today about journaling for inner growth and as the title was the art of spiritual journaling. So, there we'll discuss about how it can help us in inner growth also.
So, a quick introduction of myself with respect to journaling. Since my childhood, I loved to write. More than that, I would say I loved words.
One of my hobbies in childhood was just picking up a dictionary and memorizing words, understanding the various shades of words and how they relate with each other and how they can be used in different contexts. And I started, I used to write essays and other things. I dreamt of being a writer and I started publishing articles in magazines and newspapers as I grew up.
However, the idea of writing for oneself or writing for inner growth, that was something which I had discovered quite late in my life. And I feel that that is one of the regrets of my life because it's a very powerful tool. So, now I journal almost every day.
If I don't journal in particular days, I try to journal more on the next days whenever I can and I find that it grounds me. It realigns, among the many benefits, I will talk about the various benefits also, but it basically, it realigns who I am with who I want to be. So, let us look at journaling.
So, I will talk about these three things, how journaling works and how a spiritual framework empowers us in journaling. And then I will talk about specifics about what to journal about, whom to address the journal to and a few specifics like that. So, currently, I am planning to do, eventually do a book on the topic of the yoga of writing, how writing can help us in inner growth and that is about inner journaling, about journaling for inner growth.
So, now, broadly speaking, writing can have various purposes and we all write, but all of us may not be authors. So, here, if you can look at this, say somebody might write formally for publication, that means they may write books or articles. Then somebody might write for communication.
We have, we all write emails and letters. Sometimes during, for functional purposes, during discussion, we make, we make notes and then therefore introspection, we might journal. So, most people, when they think of writing, we usually have this top category in mind that a publication, oh, I have to write to publish something, maybe formally as a book, which is fine.
But apart from that, we all write. In fact, as there was a fear with the advent of, with the advent of phone technology and especially video, video calling and phone calling, that writing would become obsolete. However, with text messaging, more and more of us are writing and people keep, keep, keep typing, keep typing.
So, writing has seen a resurgence, although, of course, some people critique that writing online or writing in messages is not really writing, because there is often a lot of informal usage of words and often rules of grammar or rules of writing are not followed. But ultimately, writing is meant for conveying a message, whether it is through a book or whether it is through a text chat, as long as messages are being conveyed, and that is fine. So, although many of us may not consider ourselves as writers in the formal sense of the word, in the top category of publication, but we all write, we all write emails.
In fact, all the physical letters many of us may not have written for a long time, but we all write emails. So, we all write messages on Facebook. So, we are all writing and then, of course, if we are wanting to do a discussion, we may, it is a serious discussion, we might make some notes of what the other person is saying, the notes of what we want to speak.
And this is more of a tool for not just communication, but recording the communication. So, I would say most of us do the communication always, constantly, discussion we might do occasionally, publication we may, some of us may aspire to do it, some of us may have done it to some degree. But there is this one introspection for journaling.
So, now let me put this in terms of audience once again, if we start from introspection. So, here you are writing for yourself. In the writing purpose, in the second one, we are writing so that we can communicate.
This is more of a tool for understanding and communicating. So, generally what is the notes prepared for discussion, we might not share that with others, people may not understand it. So, writing for one, writing for oneself, writing for communicating with others, writing for communicating with others, here the discussion, then writing as a form of communicating with others.
There are two different things, writing as a preparation for communicating, for talking or whatever, or for understanding what others are talking, then writing for talking with others, and writing for talking with a broad mass of audience. So, if you start from introspection and go counterclockwise, you will see that the audience is increasing more and more for each of these. So, today we will focus on the leftmost, that is writing for introspection.
Now, the word introspection literally mean intra, intra is a variation of intra, which is inner. So, we have international and intranational. Intranational is not that common a word, but it means within a nation, we just usually use the word national for it.
So, intergroup dynamics and intragroup dynamics, it means within. So, intra refers to within. Now, spection comes from the word speck.
So, speck has spectacular, spectacular means that is which is worth seeing. Glasses are in some parts of the world called as spectacles, those which help us to see. So, introspection means inner seeing.
So, looking within ourselves and journaling can be done for looking within ourselves to understand ourselves better. So, now, with respect to these four kinds of audiences we discussed, writing can be analyzed into two different aspects of it. There is the art of writing and there is the craft of writing.
So, we could say compare writing with carpentry. Now, if somebody wants to make an artistic, say, wooden cabinet, then initially they have to have some basic knowledge of the craft of writing. Okay, if I wanted to hold this much weight, then I have to make sure that the supports, the feet of the cabinet are this thick, this strong.
If I want it to hold this much, this kind of stuff to be kept on it, I have to make sure that this is made of this material or not that material. So, craft refers to the mechanics of what needs to be done so that things work. Now, art refers to, we might have a particular kind of finish, we might have a particular kind of design to the whole thing.
So, we could say, in some senses, the craft is more important than the art. If we make a very artistic cabinet or we make artistic chair or artistic table, but as soon as you put something on it, it collapses. Well, that's not so much of use.
So, even in works of art, craft is required. Similar writing, craft refers to, there has to be some basic knowledge of grammar, of punctuation, of sentence construction, and then we can use writing as art. If somebody doesn't know the grammar at all, and then they say, this is the way I write, this is my style.
Well, that may not be very helpful in communicating with others. So, here, why am I talking about this? Based on the kind of audience we are addressing, the craft aspect of writing may become more important than the art. Say, if we are reading an email from someone, then within the email, we may not be really concerned about the artistic aspect, but a craft aspect, what is this person saying? I want to understand it that much at least.
Now, with respect, some of us, as soon as we start thinking of writing, we may start thinking about, oh, the rules of grammar and all this. It might seem too much of a burden for us. But, so, as I said, craft centers on grammar rules, art centers on self-expression.
And in general, if you are writing for others, craft is as essential, if not more, than art. So, we need to learn various rules of language for clear communication. But when we are writing for oneself, when we are writing for journaling, we do not have to worry much about grammar.
Craft is not that important. Our purpose is self-expression and self-expression for self-awareness, to understand ourselves better, to get more in touch with ourselves. So, here, as long as we can understand what we are writing, or even if we do not, we ourselves, maybe after a few months, do not understand what we have written, does not matter.
Even then, we wrote something that will help us at that time. And so, sometimes we may write something formally also, and maybe a few months or a few years later, we will not be able to understand it. So, at least at that time, self-expression for self-awareness.
I will explain how this works, how self-expression can help in self-awareness. Normally, we may think that once I have self-awareness, then I can express myself. Isn't it? Okay.
If somebody says, what are you feeling right now? How are you feeling right now? We are thinking of whether to continue in a particular relationship or put it in a pause or to end it. So, how are you feeling about this right now? We might say, I do not know how I am feeling. That is why I cannot decide.
If I knew how I was feeling, I would be able to decide. So, we might think that self-awareness has to come before and then self-expression can be there. Well, not necessarily.
Why not? Because words serve two purposes. Usually, we think of words as tools for expressing our thoughts. And this is the, we could say, the outward function of words.
I have some idea and then I am looking for the right word to speak it. So, you know, say two of us, we meet some person and then we had an interesting interaction with that person and then we want to talk with some of our other friends. You know, I met that person.
Okay, the other friends ask, how was that person? We start thinking. Yeah, it was interesting. Now, interesting is not a very informative word.
It can be a stand-in for many things. So, it is interesting because of what? And we are thinking and then I have a friend, you know, they were all, they were audacious. Oh, yeah, that is the right word.
Okay, so now what happens is, here we have some thought, we want to express our thought and then if we get the right word, that is so good. So, vocabulary can help us sometimes to express our thoughts better. And this is a normal function we think of for words.
And sometimes if somebody is articulate, then we feel that they just, they just speak the words which we wanted to, but we were not able to. Many people, they may go to some psychologist or some mental health care provider, not because they have like serious mental health problems, but they may just need someone to hear them. And several of my friends are psychologists.
They say one of the fundamental attributes that they need to cultivate is like a non-judgmental acknowledgement. Okay, just let the person speak, let the other person articulate themselves and we help them to articulate. So, what happens there is, as a person is speaking, they are discovering their thoughts.
Okay, this is what I am thinking. Sometimes a person may try out one word. Oh, this does not work and try out another word.
That is one way, but this is much deeper. Let us look at this a little bit more. So, words can, so dual use of word is sometimes we seek words for our thoughts.
I already have a thought and I seek words for it. I am feeling angry. No, I am feeling annoyed.
No, I am feeling perplexed. I am feeling irritated. I am feeling infuriated.
No, I am feeling indignant. Yeah, that is right, indignant. I feel not just angry, but I feel this is extremely unfair the way this person has behaved.
And I am feeling indignant. Oh, that is a precise word. So, we seek words for our thoughts.
Sometimes, however, we seek our thoughts through our words. That means words are not just, say, in the first vision, words are like, we could say pipes, pipes by which we have some thought inside. We put that thought in a word and we, it becomes like a capsule or a pipe through which it becomes a conveyor of meaning.
So, the meaning is there, some thought is there within, it convey, it is expressed outside. But in the second case, words become like flashlights. So, we seek our thoughts through our words.
So, each word is like a flashlight. And when we put that flashlight in words, if that word corresponds to the flashlight, or if that word, there is a flashlight, imagine it is a flashlight, that if the flashlight shows us something interesting, it just shines forth. If the flashlight does not show us something interesting, you know, you may have something like a metal detector.
When a metal detector, it detects a metal, then immediately it rings. So, we could say this is something like a detector inside. So, we seek our thoughts through our words.
So, we use a particular word, if that is accurate, then it resonates with us. If it is not accurate, it does not resonate. So, this is how words can help us understand ourselves.
So, words are not only for helping others understand us, they are also meant to help us understand ourselves. And that is why words can even heal us. So, that is, how do the words heal us? There is a whole form of writing called journal therapy, which helps people use journaling as a tool for overcoming addictions, overcoming unhealthy behaviors of any kind.
So, we could say that there is a healthy part within us and an unhealthy part within us. And I will come to that when we discuss about the spiritual insight that can inform journaling. But the idea is words can act as wisdom capsules that the healthy part within us gives to the unhealthy part within us.
We all can sense a part which is impulsive, which is rash. There is something within us, if we just keep acting on it, it can ruin our life. A part of within us may say that, just yell at that person, went out everything that you are feeling.
We cannot always went out everything that we feel, that can be destructive, not only for the other person's emotions, but it can be destructive for us also because sometimes our feelings do not reflect who we are, sometimes the feelings reflect who we are. So, there is unhealthy part which is impulsive and there is a healthy part which analyzes, which calms us. So, words can become like wisdom capsule that the healthy part of us gives to the unhealthy part within us.
Now, what I would like to do is, we will do a journal sampling and we will have about five to seven minutes. If you need a little more, we can have it, but we can keep it as seven minutes. And there are basically four tasks within this journaling and even if you can do one of these also that is enough, but now journaling can be in various ways it can be done.
I am doing this as a simple form of journaling which requires no preparation for anyone and which can help all of us. So, this is journaling in terms of time. So, if we look back at our life.
So, we look back at our life. So, look back at 20 last 24 hours in your life and think of some good thing that happened and among the good things that happened, look for the best thing that happened and then look for some bad things that happened and among those bad things, look for the worst thing that happened and then note what and why. So, why was this so bad? Okay, this was such a good thing happened.
Now, why was it so good? So, now what happens by this is we understand ourselves better. All of us have our own subjective, we could say systems of valuation and some things say if a passerby insults us, uses some bad word for us, we might not feel hurt by it, but if somebody very close to us, they speak some bad words to us, that might hurt us terribly. So, this is our own system of evaluation wherein the people close to us may hurt us more.
So, if somebody has spoken something that has hurt us, why is that? Maybe it is because they are very close to us and their opinion matters to us. Maybe it is because what did the subject they are speaking about is very important for us. It is a very important part of our identity or maybe the particular word that they used that reminds us of somebody else who used similar harsh words against us.
And so, it is not specifically about that person, but something about our inner wounds. So, it is not just what, but what and why. So, in general, if you are looking at life, certain things happen to us and certain things we do.
So, here we are talking about the things that happen. So, something good that happened, something bad that happened. Now, when I say the best, it may be where some of you find that actually deciding what is the best is very difficult or deciding what is the worst is very difficult.
Sometimes we have such terrible days that so many things go wrong. Okay, then just choose one which comes to your mind, strikes your mind the most and choose that. But there is one more thing.
In our life, as I said, events happen to us and we also do actions. So, there is another aspect to journaling here in the same exercise, that is, the good things that we did and the bad things that we did. So, look at the last 24 hours and think of the best thing that you did.
Okay, you know, that was a very difficult interaction, but I think I acquitted myself well over there. I didn't, although that person tried to provoke me, I didn't get provoked. Something like that, good thing that you did or some bad thing that we did.
Now, among the bad things, if you can determine what is the worst thing that you did, you can note it down. And also, when you note down what is the worst thing, do not just use it, do not just use a label. Why did I do that? Because I am insensitive, because I am irresponsible.
Now, try to go deeper and look at what was the situation that made you do that. We do not want to use journaling simply to confirm the labels that we have assigned to ourselves or the labels that the world has assigned to us. Oh, what is the worst thing that I did? I overslept.
And why did I oversleep? Because I am so lazy. Well, that is not a very helpful thing. I overslept because maybe I turned off the alarm or when the alarm did not work or I was actually tired or maybe I could have kept the alarm a little further away, whatever.
So, do not use this to just confirm your labels. Try to go beyond the labels to understand yourself better. So, I will repeat and then our time will start that we are going to journal about the last 24 hours to look for four things.
The best thing that happened, the worst thing that happened, the best thing that you did and the worst thing that you did. And if you can, we will have around seven to eight minutes. So, you have two minutes for each of these.
And after that, whichever part you would like to share, you can share from within that. And even if you do not share, this is for yourself. And do not just note what, but also note why.
And do not worry too much about getting the best, just best or the worst, whatever comes to your mind in that category, that is good enough. So, your time starts now. Thank you.
Oh, is there a comment or a question? Yeah. Okay, sure. Thank you for joining.
Is the first part the best and worst thing that happened to you? Is that within 24 hours as well? Well, 24 hours is a reference. You know, we could go back to 10 years or 15 years also. But if you feel, if you would like to go back a little, both are within the last 24 hours.
So, this is basically like a daily journal. This is a tool which you could use for daily journaling. But if you would like to write something about which happened one week ago, that is also fine.
But here the idea was, you could have some ready framework for doing daily journaling if you wanted to. So, thank you very much. So, I think whatever you have done now is good.
You may want to continue this afterward, if you like. So, I would like some of you to share three things. First is, how did you find this aspect of journaling or journaling in this way? What are your thoughts about what you just did? Second is, if there is something in what you journal that you would like to share? And third is, if this, doing this exercise after what you heard, if it raised any questions that you want to, that you would feel need to be addressed.
So, what was your experience, your emotions, your thoughts about what you did? Then the content of what you did, and then any clarifications. So, if you'd like to speak something. I really found this exercise to be extremely useful.
I'm the type of person who doesn't write. Writing has always been one of the most difficult things for me. I'm a straight A student, hard core.
But for some reason, English and writing has always been hard. I think my throat chakra and my expression has always been a little bit blocked. So, you can't even, nobody probably can even read this.
But what I found very interesting about the exercise is that what I experienced the worst of me, what has, sorry, is what caused me to do the worst. Like not caused me, it was the source of what my reaction was the worst. You know, it's what caused that.
And so I thought that was like, really, like, I didn't really think about it when I was writing it. It wasn't until after I kind of looked back and realized that the reason I did the worst thing was because I was hurting immensely from what I had experienced, which was the worst thing. And then on the other side, like my best thing that ever happened to me is actually what caused me to do the best thing that I've ever done.
Immense joy from my first experience that it led me to make a change in my life that I think was the best for me and my family. And so for me, this exercises showed me where I've come from, what kind of life it was causing me, how this epiphany of joy changed me to be able to change myself into now, instead of living in this bad life, that I feel like I've been transitioning to this happy place of abundance and the growth. That's beautiful.
And so I don't, sorry, I don't think the necessarily things are very good. Realization. Yeah, very good observation.
Yeah. Please complete what you're saying. I was gonna say, I don't think that the necessarily the events themselves, you know, I think we all have traumatic stories that they matter so much.
I just think it's more of the process of being able to realize what caused you so much pain, being able to come to terms with those emotions. Being able to realize that's what's causing you to act out and to be, you know, to live in a negative space and to see that there's so much more beauty and joy in this life. And all you do have to do is make a choice, a different choice.
And it could be, you know, that light could be yours because we are necessarily, that's what we are. We are a part of that light. So that was mine.
Thank you. That's beautiful. Thank you very much for sharing that.
You know, I'll just make one quick point about what you said that when I started journaling, usually, it was many years ago, I would find that these two would correlate almost every time. The worst thing that happened would lead to the worst action on my day. And similarly, the best thing that happened would lead to the best action of the day.
Then over a period of time, I don't know whether it was conscious or subconscious, I started separating them. Okay, this is the bad thing that happened. And then my reaction was also bad to that or not as good as I would like to be.
But then I started analyzing more of those events which were triggered by outer situations and those which are triggered simply by my inner impressions without outer situations. So, I think apart from the specific correlation that you got, which is very insightful, I feel that over a period of time, we understand ourselves better in terms of to which kind of situations we are more vulnerable externally, which kind of situations we become more vulnerable internally, and then we can equip ourselves to deal with it. So, thank you for sharing this way.
Anyone else? I can also share something if you like. Yes, please. I was thinking, this is a little, I hope it's not too personal, but I was taken back in time when I was 14 years old, as I was writing in terms of one of the worst things that I did.
And my parents had recently been separated. And I was in boarding school in India, this really kind of harsh boarding school. And a lot of my friends came from very wealthy backgrounds.
Anyways, it was really probably the darkest period of my life. And I just got, you know how in India, you can acquire alcohol quite easily even as a minor, right? And so, because I was going through a dark phase of my life, my best friend and I, he was like, we should drink together. I'd never drank in my whole life.
And he had a little bit more experience. Anyways, we got super drunk. And to the point where I wrote a very angry letter to my father.
And it was a very, very angry and sort of like anger filled letter as a drunk 14 year old, who was going through like, you know, a very dark phase in his life, upset because his parents are getting separated, and I couldn't do anything about it. And then I was thinking about the best thing I ever did, or the happiest thing I ever did, which was really to take up the path of spirituality and start studying Bhagavad Gita and Eastern philosophy. And I was trying to find a correlation between the two.
And the thought that came to my mind was, I felt that the darkness I experienced as a 14 year old, the level to which myself, my young self would enter into dark and negative space, it scared me a little bit. And I felt like my move towards spirituality was really my desperate desire to remove such darkness from my being and to move into the light, you know. When I was 19, I actually got that phrase tattooed on my body that I will seek light through darkness.
And I really feel like I saw how low my mind and my character could go in terms of hate and anger and frustration when my parents were separated. And my move towards spirituality was really a desire now when I look back to kind of never want to experience that kind of lowness again, and really grow beyond it. And I felt like spirituality had the best answer, the yoga tradition, meditation.
So this exercise really helped me kind of see how the best thing I ever did was actually directly inspired by probably the darkest part of my life. It's beautiful. Yes.
Actually, this can help us get a long term perspective also. So I talked about journaling as a, this can be used for journaling on a daily basis. But this could also be used for journaling as a broad look at our life.
And then to discover patterns in our events and our choices. That's very helpful. Thank you, Hrisham, for sharing that.
Thank you. Anyone else? I'd like to share. Yes, please.
I really enjoyed the exercise. I think something that stood out to me, I'm Rachel, by the way, I don't think I've introduced myself. I think something that stood out to me was like, since we're writing about something kind of like bad or negative, and then something good, I realized that like, it felt really good, actually, to write about something negative, because I feel like, I don't know, like, I kind of do this, I did this thing for a while where I was like, I'm not gonna write anything negative.
Like, I only want to focus on the positive things. And I think like, there's just like a lot of stuff on social media, like, you know, like people talking about, like, focusing on positivity, and like manifestation, and like all of these things, that sometimes it's, I feel like difficult. Like, I shouldn't be focusing on the negative, but I realized like, kind of doing the exercise that like writing about that negative experience kind of like released it.
So like, that was the most powerful thing for me. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Currently, as was mentioned that I write on the, write every day on the Bhagavad Gita.
So currently, I'm exploring a topic called the power of negative thinking. Usually, we talk about the power of positive thinking. But why negative thinking? Because in some ways, the three broad possibilities, sometimes there are negative possibilities that we need to prepare for.
Something say, if at any time, we were saved because of, there's a fire and there was a fire extinguisher that saved us. Then that somebody thought negative, okay, a fire might occur over there. That's why they put the fire extinguisher there.
So, thinking about negative possibilities helps us to prepare for things. Sometimes there are negative realities in life, and we need to come to terms with them. We need to gain some acceptance of what has happened.
And that so, the problem is not considering negative possibilities or analyzing or contemplating negative realities. It is a negative mentality, where one is controlled by that. That means, one can't stop thinking about it, even when one needs to and wants to.
So, okay, a fire may occur. So, let me keep a fire extinguisher here. That's channeling the power of negative thinking.
But if I keep thinking, whatever fire occurs, whatever fire occurs, whatever fire occurs, and that's all I think about, that's when it becomes destructive. So, not all negative thinking is destructive. And especially with respect to the events that happened to for us.
See, even negative emotions are integral to emotional health. How is that? It's just like physically, pain is integral to physical health. We don't want pain, of course, nobody wants pain in general.
But pain indicates two, three things. One thing is indicates that maybe something unhealthy or unsafe is happening to us. If we start feeling something, we're sitting on a chair and something that's piercing your body, is there an insect there? Is there a nail there? So, pain indicates something unhealthy happening.
And there are diseases where people don't feel pain. And that's extremely dangerous situation. Because the painful stimuli are still coming to them, but their body has become desensitized to the pain.
They get damaged, but they don't realize that they're feeling that pain, that something damaging is happening to them. So, negative emotions could also, negative emotions are something similar. Okay, that means this particular situation, when I felt bad about it, that means this may not be healthy for me.
So, it indicates something unsafe or something unhealthy. Now, of course, that's not the only situation. Say, if you're doing a workout, at that time we feel some pain.
Now, that pain may not be unhealthy. That pain may be something which we need to work through so that we can become fitter. So, of course, not to excessive degree, but to some degree.
So, the point is that just as we don't have to be paranoid about physical pain. Physical pain can be a messenger. Okay, don't do this.
Or physical pain can be, okay, you're doing this, but don't stretch yourself too much in doing this. Similarly, we could say emotional pain or negative emotions can also be a messenger. So, in that sense, we can learn from the negative emotions also without necessarily being like somebody who's a masochistic, who goes out and seeks pain.
But we don't seek it, we don't run away from it also. So, thank you for sharing that. Does it make sense what I said? Yes, thank you.
Yeah, thank you. So, Sue has made a comment over here, pain lets us know we are alive. Yeah, that's true.
And I think it makes us aware too, right? Because sometimes you're not even aware that something is happening within you. But then the pain makes you aware to kind of like take action sometimes. That's true.
Very true. We could be something nihilistic about thing, nothing matters, we say. But pain ultimately matters.
We cannot just rationalize away our pain and it forces us to come to terms with reality in our life. Thank you. Yes, Harisham.
Well, I was just going to say, Tiffany just raised her hand. So, let's see if she has a comment or a question. Yes, please.
Okay, so mine was a comment. Initially, the question was what we felt when we wrote something to that effect, right? So, my perspective of it would more or less be when it comes to writing down the negative, because I think I'm probably opposite to everybody else here, I'll quicker write down everything that I did that I believe that I did wrong throughout the day. So that way, when the time comes, I do it more, I do it proficiently.
That's probably because of the job that I'm doing or whatever it is. But anyway, all right. So, with that now, I think that will more or less help me keep my day more as you are looking for.
I don't know. Good. But it's not really good.
But something to that effect. And then negative leads to positive. And then with me now, I prefer to show gratitude for everything that I do throughout the day.
So, I would more or less write that down as one of the things I did not do throughout the day. So, if I didn't show gratitude for like, for every time I would be like, shucks. Then I would write down and be like, yes.
And then from so on and so on, I would just gradually develop myself to just being grateful for everything that happened. And that's me right there. That's good.
Thank you. So, for sharing that. Actually, toward the end of the journal, we'll talk about the idea of a gratitude journal also, but you mentioned that this is a very, gratitude is a very positive and powerful emotion.
And sometimes the events of life happen so fast and they often so turbulent that even the good things that happen, before they have registered within us, something bad starts happening. And then we forget about the good that has happened. So, if you make a conscious effort to be grateful, then that can help us, that can help us quite a bit.
So, yes. And sometimes it's difficult to be grateful for the bad things that happen. But sometimes what I put is that even if we can't be grateful for everything in life, we can, even if we can't be grateful for all the things that happen in our life, we can be grateful in all the things that happen in our life.
I'm not grateful that this particular bad thing happened, that I got this health issue or I had this job problem or whatever. But in that situation also, I can be grateful because there are other good things in my life. So, even if you can't be grateful for all situations, we can be grateful in all situations.
Thank you, Tiffany, for sharing that. We have a couple more comments here. I just want to say thank you for this exercise because it was really wonderful because I got to reflect on the last 24 hours.
And I actually do enjoy writing. I've always wrote. But over the past few years, it's been hard to do so because I know when I pick up a pen and paper, it gets real.
And I haven't been really wanting to feel anything, per se. And I got to see that, again, that usually, for me, the best part of things come from the worst of things. So, if I could just read what I wrote, that would be great.
Yes, please. Okay, thanks. So, for me, the best came from the worst.
I woke up feeling extremely anxious, heart pounding out of my chest, and racing thoughts. And I immediately did the worst thing, which was beat myself up for feeling like that. I told myself I knew better, and I'd done enough work and practiced enough spiritual tools to not feel this way again.
And then I immediately did the best thing I could do for myself, which was reach out. I called my manager, and I told her, I feel awful. I'm anxious.
I'll come to work if you need me, but I prefer to stay home. And she totally understood and said, stay home. I texted my therapist, and I told her how I was feeling as we've been working together for five years.
And she sometimes knows my patterns better than I do. I texted my friend, Denise, because I just needed to talk. I told my mother how I was feeling.
And the unthinkable happened. Instead of them telling me I was being crazy again, they did their best to provide comfort. Denise offered to take me to a temple so I could pray.
She reminded me to meditate, to talk to God, and to just breathe. My therapist spent an hour on the phone with me and broke down for me that grief and trauma never really leave, the pain only lessens. The only way to heal is to feel, and that's something that I tend to avoid like the plague.
But look at how much progress I've made because I'm actually feeling and reaching out. My manager texted me to check in on me and let me know that I wasn't weak for feeling the way that I did, that it happens to everybody. She still deals with things from when she was four years old, and I was going to be fine.
And that was the best part of my day, knowing that doing the work and practicing spirituality doesn't mean it's ever over. It just means that I'll get better. Thank you.
Thank you very much for sharing that. It's a lot to process and you know you have, it's good that you have both the outer resources and the inner resilience to face this, and good that you have friends that can help you both to get help from a therapy perspective, from a spiritual perspective. Thank you for sharing that.
Jitendra, is it okay if I make a comment on Vinny's sharing, and then there's a few more people who have their hands raised. We have a little bit more time. You can keep, are we really holding you back on your presentation, the rest of it? No, I think we can go ahead.
I think here, there's also, yeah, please go ahead. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, there's quite a few hands that have been raised.
So, yeah, I think Kenzie made a good comment also over here, which went, I think, about really trying hard not to start crying. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, the courage to acknowledge the darkness.
Thank you for sharing that. There's this, Carl Young made a very striking comment. He said that modern people can't find God because they don't look low enough.
That's a novel you would think about looking for God high enough. So, what he meant by that was that God can refer to the broad spiritual reality within us. So, sometimes to find God, we need to look low enough.
Look low enough means we really need to look at the darkest side within us. And when we look at the darkest side, as many, as several of you said, from the darkness comes, actually, the darkness may be what pushes us toward the light, may make us what seek the light. So, yes, what Harisham also mentioned about confronting the darkness, and then that helps us to move toward light.
Yes, thank you. Yes, Harisham, we wanted to make something about Vinny's comment you wanted to say. Yeah, I wanted to share something about Vinny's comment, but also I just wanted to share that this is a really nice session.
By the way, I think your exercise has sparked a lot of deep thought in people. So, I really appreciate the exercise you've shared with us. But Vinny, I wanted to share one common reflection of what you just said, but you know, that takes place amongst men versus women.
I don't know the exact number, but the number of men who commit suicide is disproportionately higher than their feelings and sort of what they're going through with their life in terms of struggle. So, I was appreciating how when you recognized and you felt some anxiety, you just reached out. You called your, I believe, your manager, your therapist, your mom, your friend, and then support started pouring in in different ways.
Like you said, you know, everybody was, they didn't say you were crazy or anything, they were just checking in on you, like, how are you doing and how are you processing all of this? And your therapist broke some things down for you. So, I think that's a really universal lesson that all of us can take from that, you know, in the journey of our life, we are going to sometimes fall down to our knees, but you know, we don't want to remain there. And the best way to do it is reach out and have somebody just grab our hand for a second.
Because the beauty of that is that we'll have to do that for somebody else someday, you know. So, it almost becomes like this beautiful chain where sometimes somebody holds our hand and then sometimes we have to hold somebody else's hand. But if we never know what it's like to have our hand held, then we may never know how to extend that hand for somebody else, you know.
So, reaching out is actually a very powerful way to be able to reach, especially because it reminded me of this statistic that, you know, the reason why so many men commit suicide is because they don't always have an outlet. So, thank you for that comment. Karen has a comment.
Did you have anything you wanted to say in reflection about what I just shared, or should we go to the next comment from Karen? Yeah, it's a very striking point. Please go ahead. Thank you for sharing that.
Okay, I think I've gathered my thoughts. I'm pretty sure I've gathered my thoughts, okay. No guarantees, but there's just been so many powerful reflections today.
But one thing that just this brought light to is how much I think, you know, the fact that spirituality is becoming mainstream, and yet it's still always focusing on what's positive. Like, always, like, oh, what's positive? What are you grateful for? And those are all great things. But I feel like we're just brushing, like, what is it like junk under the rug, but it's still there, you know? Like, we're just, like, making it all pretty.
Like, if you wanted to visualize it, like, I'm cleaning my house, and I'm just putting, like, doo-doo, like, under the rug, and it still smells like doo-doo, but it looks pretty, or whatever. Yeah, bedazzling our junk, exactly. So, like, we're just not dealing with the things.
And I think this journaling is cool because, yeah, normally I write down what I'm grateful for, and it's all, like, nice and, you know, positive and, like, high vibes. But the fact that if we don't, like, deal with the yucky, then we are not going to be able to raise ourselves as high as we could. And the second thing that I kind of came to conclusion with is, like, on a physical level, okay, so here's the thing.
Like, I get microneedling done, right? And it's, like, ridiculous, like, the process of it. Basically, it's, like, these tiny little needles. And this esthetician, like, is shoving needles, tiny little needles on your face.
And it's, like, getting it makes your face all bloody. And during the process, you're, like, ew. Like, why would you do that? Like, you're, like, damaging your face.
But what it does is it sends, like, signals to your body to have, like, that natural healing mechanism kick in. And it kind of made me feel like that's similar to the process of, like, dealing with our negativity, whether it's through journaling or meditating or whatever. It's kind of, like, like, bringing awareness to the damage or whatnot.
And then it, like, kicks in our natural healing mechanism. I don't know. That was it.
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I would like to respond to your first point, that sometimes spirituality is also too much about positive thinking without dealing with issues.
It's true. You could consider like going to a doctor and the doctor, if the doctor gives us only pain medication without giving any curative medication, then, okay, the pain medication will help us feel better. But it won't actually heal what is inside, what is the problem inside.
So, within spirituality also, sometimes when there is too much of positive thinking without actually addressing the deeper issues, then it's just like having pain medication or painkillers at the psychological level. So, yes, that is also when a person is sick and in pain, pain medication is important. But pain medication alone is not enough.
So, yes, spirituality has some things which make us feel good and they are helpful. But along with that, there's also spirituality also is meant to provide us tools for facing ourselves and then for healing ourselves. So, if it's only the first, then it's not substantive.
So, both have to be there, both the pain medication and the curative medication. Something that helps us to feel good and then something that helps us to confront the dark within us so that we can become better. Thank you.
We have one more comment and this one is from Italy. And before she goes, I just wanted to respond very briefly to Karen's very nice reflection on how, you know, this idea of like shoving the darkness underneath the bed as the process of cleaning. And I was just going to add that, you know, perhaps this is where we have to draw the line between, say, positive psychology and a genuine process of spirituality because real spirituality will always be ego effacing, you know, and the ego, the false ego is what contains all that darkness that Karen was referring to.
Whereas positive psychology can teach us how to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts, but it may not alter the deep foundational sort of false sense of identification that we have with this world, you know, which is really what's producing and also just the ignorance of not knowing who we are. So, just wanted to make that reflection also that, you know, this is where we have to distinguish positive psychology from like real spirituality and ego effacement, which should be happening in the real spiritual process. Italy, you have a comment or a question? Would you like to go ahead and share it with the group? Hello, my name is Italy and I might seem a little distracted because I'm doing schoolwork and people are coming in and out of my dorm, but I wanted to say that what I'm going over is from what has happened within the past 24 hours to get in the best.
And I mean, I saw the people doing this. I was like, okay, I guess I'm more encouraged to do so now. A good thing I would say, it's not as deep and as personal as everyone else and I'm not ready, I guess, to publicly or to hear.
I'm really like really, really nervous to talk about more personal things, but I can relate a lot on what Ben and Karen have been talking about. And yes, okay, let me. So, a good thing today I did was, or within the past 24 hours, was walk back from a workout.
Working out is really hard and then when you're done, it just feels so alleviating and it's just like, wow. And especially since the weather is kind of cold here in Texas now, with the cold front, it's just more, you know, walkout steamed and it's just like, good, good moment. And the best thing I did today was take a nap and dream.
I love to dream because it's just nice. A bad thing I do is recently within the past two weeks, I just keep sleeping late, like 1am, 1.30am and it really messes with my schoolwork and my schedule, aside from work too. And the worst thing I did today was not wake up on time for work.
I did not have classes today and I had a 10am and I didn't even make my 10am. I slept past my alarm, which gave me low motivation to like kickstart my day. Woke up on time for practice.
I play soccer for school. Yeah, so that's my good, best, worst. Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, sometimes it's difficult to face what has happened and to share, articulate it. So I appreciate the candor in doing that.
Thank you. So, okay, so I'll just make two concluding points and then we can finish. See, journaling can give us spiritual insight.
It can help us understand ourselves better, our inner world better. At the same time, journaling can gain from spiritual insight. Gain from spiritual insight means if you have already read something spiritual and that has helped us gain some kind of spiritual framework, then journaling can help us to apply that spiritual framework.
So, this is a detailed subject, but I'll mention one example of what I'm saying over here, how journaling can give us spiritual insight and it can gain from spiritual insight. So, we discuss often from the yoga text, the Bhagavad Gita. So, one of the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita is that there is a lot happening inside us.
So, this whole box you see is the self. Within the self is the soul, the core of who we are. And then there is a healthy part within us and there is an unhealthy part within us.
So, the healthy part is called, we can call it the intelligence. It can be different names used for it. The unhealthy part is called sometimes the mind.
So, many of you mentioned that some bad thing happened and then there's a bad reaction from that side. So, how things work is, see here there's going to be tempting, provoking, agitating, angering, any kind of situation comes in our lives. So, now when that situation, the provocation has come for us, somebody might insult us.
So, by temptation it can be anything. It can be with the temptation to get angry. So, a provocation comes in our life.
Now, if the unhealthy part within us takes over our counteraction, then usually what we have is a reaction. But if the healthy part within us is what response, then what we have is what we can call as a response. So, within us when the provocation comes, who responds? Who is in charge? Is it the healthy part or the unhealthy part? That determines whether our response will be healthy or unhealthy.
So, now when we react impulsively, what happens is, the unhealthy part takes complete control and the healthy part, the intelligence is put far behind. So, somebody does something to us and then we hit back at them and that ends up making things worse. So, now, as I said, I'm not going to go into the details of this, but just a quick framework to explain this.
And if this happens repeatedly, the unhealthy part might form a label for ourselves. I am a short-tempered person. And then it becomes like a self-fulfilling script.
Every time somebody provokes me, I become angry and then I react angrily. But what journaling does is, journaling is a time when as an introspection, we go inside. So, what happens when you go in journaling is that we increase the distance between us and an unhealthy part.
Okay, there's this unhealthy part, there's a mind within me which is impulsive and that's my mind speaking. You know, I want to beat this person, I want to yell at this person. Okay, who is saying this? This is not just I saying it, this is the unhealthy part within me just saying it.
So, what happens by this? Once some distance is created, then we don't have to act on it. Okay, that's not, there's a part of me which feels like that, but that's not the healthy part of me. I don't have to act on it.
So, what journaling does is, it creates an inner distance between us and our unhealthy thoughts. Sometimes when we are feeling angry, if we just repress the anger, it will burn us. But if we just express the anger, it will burn the other person.
So, what we could do instead is, just journal about what makes us so angry and just pour everything out. What will happen by that is, at least we gave some vent to the anger within us that will calm us down. And then maybe an hour later or maybe a day later, revisit the whole thing, what you wrote down.
Then you will be able to see, okay, well this part, I'm just generalizing too much over here. This I'm using too harsh words over here. This is an important point.
This is a valid point. I need to address this. They need to explain why they did this.
So, you will yourself be able to process it better. So, journaling, what is inside? It gives us a safe space outside to examine the contents of our mind. And then by examining the contents of our mind after they have been put externally, we can process them.
So, in between repressing and expressing is processing. So, if you can learn to process, then afterward we can decide, okay, this I can neglect it and no need to bother about it. But this is a persistent issue, it needs to be dealt with.
But we can express in a way that does not further provoke or inflame or make things worse. This is how journaling can help us identify and rectify the influence of the unhealthy part within us. This is just one sample of how spiritual insight can help, be helped by journaling and can help journaling.
I will conclude now. So, use journaling. So, there are two parts about what to journal about and whom to address the journal to.
So, but we could use, different people use their journaling for illumine your inner world and to inform your outer world. Illumine means understand what is happening inside. And inform your outer world means make your outer choices healthier, better.
So, in this way, journaling can become a tool for inner growth and for spiritual development. If it can help us understand our inner world and then act with greater maturity in our outer world. So, I will summarize what I spoke today.
We talked about journaling as the art of spiritual journaling. I started by talking about, often we think of writing as meant for publishing, but writing can also be for introspection, four kinds of target audiences for writing. And then discuss the dual use of dual aspects of writing is as art and craft.
So, with respect to journaling, we do not have to worry too much about the craft, the grammar. It is focused on self-expression for self-awareness. The reason that I talked about words serve two purposes, not just to express our thoughts, but also to discover our thoughts.
We did the exercise of looking back at 24 hours in our life to look at the event that happened, good and bad, and the actions that we did good and bad. And all of you shared some very good thoughts and your realizations from that. And then I talked about how spiritual insight, how writing can give us spiritual insight, and how writing can gain from spiritual insight.
And then I gave the example of how that can happen. And overall, journaling can help us to illuminate our inner world and to inform our outer world. So, thank you very much for your attention and participation.