The best way to change: Journaling, Meditating, and Reading.

 

The power of the 3:

Journaling, Meditating, and Reading.

In more than 10 years of journaling, trying all kinds of meditation, and reading all sorts of different books, I've come to the ultimate combination of the three to make all components work.

Journaling

Here's the best guide I have ever seen about journaling

Some of the benefits of journaling:

1. Builds pattern of thought - Helps to build a stable and fluent pattern of thought. Making processing thoughts a more rational and consistent stream, rather than gasps of inconsistent wind swirls. You will notice with time your thoughts are more organized as sentences that are easier to listen to and understand than before.
2. Builds self-awareness - Awareness of emotions, and awareness of actions and their outcomes.
3. Mirrors your mind to you -  when practicing it right, and with full honesty and zero censorship.
4. Helps process information and emotions - We constantly receive a huge stream of information into our mind, some of it we are not even aware of. The mind needs certain conditions to be able to process this information and extract the vital details and insight out of this mess. Journaling gives the mind those conditions to self-reflect and digest all that has occurred and all the feelings we are dealing with.

Why journaling in itself is not enough:

1. Shuffling the same cards - When only journaling, you only shuffle the cards you already have, being aware of your state of mind and the composition of your thoughts is only one step of a process to action and change.
2. Not gaining control over actions - When only journaling, you probably will discover that taking control of your actions is still difficult, even though you are aware of them and their consequences.
3. Getting into a loop - when the same thoughts lead to the same actions and the same life, it is not enough action in itself to turn all your thoughts in a loop, you could get caught up in their reality, and it is not the outcome you are seeking to achieve.
4. Imprinting, even more, those beliefs that lead you to an unwanted state - For example, as someone who was insecure, several months of my journaling contained self beating, curses, and every bad thing I thought of myself back then. This would not have stopped unless I've changed the input of information.

Reading

Some of the benefits of reading:

1. Letting new information in - every person in this world has some helpful insights to share, we are all humans that struggle with the same set of emotions, we all have minds and thoughts, relationships and hardships, we all have dreams and desires. It is natural for us to learn from one another and teach one another what we have learned. We are not living in tribes anymore so we don't have enough examples of how different people are in their living and how similar they are in their emotions. The culture of modern education is shouting that education is only in school and university, ignoring that we are emotional beings and that the most important for us to learn is about ourselves.
2. Getting new mindsets - you can shift your mindset by reading a book. In my opinion, it is the easiest way to make this kind of shift, rather than watching videos or listening to podcasts. Books are the purest way for a person to reveal his opinion and way of thinking in a profound and slow enough way for our minds to capture. A book is a well-planned lesson.

Why reading in itself is not enough:

1. Information Overload - In our daily life, the stream of information we experience is enormous. We receive information we want with a lot of information that we don't actually want. For our mind to process all of it and sorts out what is vital and what isn't, takes a huge amount of energy, and it requires certain conditions to digest all this stream. When only adding to this stream of information even more of it, the mind could shut it out, and no matter how much more you would stuff into your mind it won't get it. You would feel overwhelmed and fatigued because your vessel's full. The same happens when listening, at some point your vessel is full and there is no more place for input.
2. Not enough to transform ideas into action - ideas in themselves are not enough to take action. Your mind needs more than information to make change, otherwise it would have done it already.

Meditating

Here's the best explanation I have ever heard about meditating

Some of the benefits of meditation:

1. Practicing mindfulness and awareness - you practice being here and now more throughout your day, so you are more able to notice your actions, and, with practice, more able to choose different actions in a more mindful way.
2. Getting in a receiving mode - your mind runs at a turbo speed all day setting goals, wishes and worries as well. In order for you to be able to receive what you have asked for us to relax and allow the surroundings to fill your mind, be open to the outside world without resistance, without thought. It enables you to get yourself synced with the here and now, sync your mind to be here and now.
3. Letting go of resistance - when you are quieting your mind and body in meditation, you let go of all tension that has accumulated and release all resistance. From that point you are ready to move further, even more, you let go of unwanted weights and let yourself move forward and closer to your desired self.

Why meditating in itself is not enough:

1. Leaving a blank space with nothing new to fill it with/ or a short-time relief - When meditation without letting new information in with leave you with the same set of old beliefs that will lead you again to the same place of stress. Even if the meditation helped you feel better, all your thoughts and actions stayed the same and therefore will lead you to the same feeling of overwhelm.
2. Not moving forward - Meditation in itself does not stand for movement, it represents the absence of it. In order to get to a desired state an element of movement is needed. New information along with a processing aid. Shifting mindset is needed for change. Meditation will help to release the old one, but will not provide a substitute for it. Therefore, when only meditating, old beliefs and actions will stay where they are. But combined with new knowledge and a processing aid will help you to lift off.

 

When you wish to change, you need these components:

Having a good processing habit.

Letting go of resistance and getting clear space for new information.

Letting new knowledge in that will shift your mindset.

Your mind as a House

Imagine your mind is a house.

It is a house full of mess.

There are piles of trash mixed with some books, mixed with some helpful notes, mixed with spheres of memories good and bad, mixed with sealed boxes of beliefs.

You try to move inside this house and find this book that you know could help you, but you either cannot find it, or you get lost among the memory spheres that are scattered around and forget about the book you were searching for, or you get stuck in a middle of a pile of belief boxes, unable to see beyond them.

You wish to change, otherwise, you wouldn't end up here.

So you wish your house was clean, clear of any mess, and organized, so you could move quickly and find anything you wanted without getting punched in the face with an old belief box or accidentally stumble into a box of hurt feelings.

The right process to clean your mind and set it working:

Step 1:

See what's inside, get to know yourself, what does your mind contain? What thoughts swirl in your mind throughout the day? What do you say to yourself in your mind? What is bothering you? What your wishes are?

Step 2:

Get clean of unwanted information, get clean of unwanted experiences, encounters (reduce things like gossip, news, social media, fantasy books, movies and series). Stay mindful of the information you are exposed to, even though you are often not even listen, it still gets in the process stream, because you heard it/ felt it/ seen it.

Step 3:

Get helpful information inside in small portions consistently - As if you are feeding a starved child, every day a little more healthy food.

Step 4:

Give your mind the conditions it needs to process the information every day. Consistency is key. Journal every day to get your mind in order.

Step 5:

Practice mindfulness, awareness, and the ability to stop and relax your mind. Sometimes all you need to reclaim your mind's health is silence. Practice shutting up all thoughts 10-20 minutes a day with a meditation in which you are focusing on a certain consistent noise, and try not to drift away in thoughts, If you drift - come back again to the noise. With time your mind will feel more and more natural to relax and let go of all thoughts.

You have to consciously let your engine rest not only when sleeping.

When your mind is silent it opens up to receive. It opens up to receive new information, new emotions, new experiences, that are not piled onto your old piles, but are put steady on the clear ground inside your mind and are easier to digest.

Step 6:

Journal more -  when your mind is clear, old piles of information will surface up in your mind to be digested easily. Let your stream of thought out and into the paper without blocking its way, let all your thoughts and pictures out into the journal, thus helping your mind process all that has stuck in there for years to be pile by pile organize, digested, and all the trash to be thrown finally away.

Step 7:

Get clear about your questions - make a long list of every question you have about life, mind, change, money, emotions, stress, education, relationships, sex, children - anything you would like to know, anything you are curious about, anything that you would like to have a more clear understanding of.

Set your list of questions in from of you and see what burns most. What is the question or topic you are willing to explore write away?

Step 8:

Get intentional information about the topic you've chosen. Ask your question on the internet, google it, youtube it. look what people say about it? Maybe google what the Bible says about it, what the Dalai Lama says about it? 

Important - find out several points of view, not one, and find out which appeals to you the most.

Step 9:

Journal every day -  Let all your thoughts out and into the paper - to process information new and old.

Practice mindfulness with meditation every day - To let your mind rest and restart, to let new information settle on clear ground, to be able to choose your actions more easily.

Read and research about your questions all your life - Never stop educating yourself about what you are curious about, never kill your curiosity, instead feed it with knowledge.

Then again, help yourself process by journaling.