Ready to transform your healing journey? Let’s dive into the magic of journaling and shadow work! Journaling helps you clear your mind, track your growth, and boost creativity. But have you tried shadow work? It’s about exploring and embracing your hidden self, fostering deep healing and self-awareness. Both practices are essential for personal growth and inner peace. Want to learn more? Follow me for tips and insights on how to make the most of these powerful tools!
I’m going to teach you the top five reasons why I journal and the difference between journaling and shadow work. So we have three layers of this beautiful brain of ours. We have our conscious, we have our subconscious, and we have our unconscious.
Now, shadow work is really for the unconscious, for those thoughts that we just can’t get into, but we know they’re there, the things keep happening. And then we have our subconscious, which is really the behaviors that are driving our self-sabotage, the things that we keep doing and we’re like, “why are we doing this?” And then we have our conscious, things that we are very aware of. For journaling, I think of it as spiritual wellness, something that you need to do.
#1 Helps Clear Your Thoughts
We don’t want to dump trauma on people. And we all have things that happen from day to day. So it’s really good to get clear on your thoughts by having a morning or evening journaling ritual where you just write down what’s happening. I do it in the morning. I like to start my day with the top three intentions. And the reason I do this is because if I don’t know where I’m going, I’m going to end up squirreling everywhere. So, I get real clear with my day, what it’s going to look like, and if there’s anything that I need to address with shadow work.
#2 Balance Your Nervous System
The second reason is I like to have a balanced nervous system and journaling does that. It allows me to access parts of myself that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to connect with. It puts me in that state of getting out of that “Oh my God, the world is ending and the walls are caving in,” to more of a rational state of mind like, “Yeah, everything is figure-outable, right?”
#3 Reach Your Subconscious
The third reason is there’s something powerful that happens to your subconscious mind when you’re journaling. You can access points by writing pen to paper. I’m not talking in auto voice to text on your phone – pen-to-paper accesses things when you can learn to automatically write where you’re not thinking with your conscious mind and you’re just letting that pen flow. I promise you, promise you, you will be amazed at the things that come up where you’re like, “there it is, right?”
#4 It’s a Great Way to Vent
Fourth thing, I think it’s really powerful. It’s just like you would call a bestie to tell her about your day. You can be clear about the past, present, and future – and not get stuck in the past. I think, for a lot of us, it’s really easy to carry guilt and shame – and that’s a hell of an emotion to walk through, right? And when we can journal, write down, and process – we can heal more profoundly. That’s really magical.
#5 Healing
And fifth, there’s something just healing about writing. It’s powerful. It’s a lost art if you will. So, I encourage you to start a little journaling and shadow work routine. But if you’re not quite ready for shadow work yet, start with journaling and get in the habit. Eventually, once you get in the groove of journaling, I highly recommend shadow work because it changed my life.
Want to learn more about shadow work? Check out this post to learn about shadow work, what it is, and why you need it. You can also find natural healing with reiki! Learn more about reiki energy healing, and try a free self-reiki session here.