Writing a journal is a wonderful tool you will use to observe yourself on your journey to a peaceful, self-confident, knowing you. Start by creating a pleasant place for you to write. Design the space so that you are comfortable, have privacy, and can establish a ritual. By doing something in a ritualistic fashion, you develop habits, and this is a habit that’s good for you. Feel free to use different colours and tools and minimize the editing that you do.

The use of colour draws upon both hemispheres of the brain and allows you to tap into the creative you. Guard the privacy of your journal as you do your own thoughts. Other key things to keep in mind are: Use your book to discover who you are and allow your journal to take you on inward journeys and use the knowledge not just to understand yourself, but to strengthen yourself. Keep in mind that your only rule is to date each entry. This allows you to see where you were at a specific point in time.

Sometimes we just don’t know how or what to write. Be creative, be prepared to do it as a commentary or perhaps you prefer to use a dialogue style.

First Exercise

Start with free-flow writing a one page autobiography of yourself. Just begin and let your mind wander from one thought to the next. Don’t stop until your page is done. Stop when you finish one page.

Draw a picture of the path you’re on and write down:

• What your life looks like realistically
• What it looks like symbolically
• Comment about where you’re going and where you’re coming from.

The next thing to learn is to ask questions. Ask lots of questions. The more questions you ask, the more answers you’ll get. Be patient and love the questions. They are pointing you in specific directions. The following are some questions to get you going:

• What just happened?
• What can I learn from what happened?
• What is the real issue here?
• What lesson is available in this?
• What am I really trying to do?

Asking is natural. We are inquisitive animals by nature. There are more answers than there are questions, so you can never reach a limit. The most important questions are the ones you ask yourself.

Second Exercise

People often fall into certain categories. Ask yourself which of these may apply to you:

• You need to be right,
• You feel superior,
• You dread rejection,
• You create drama and
• You cherish your anger.

Don’t be surprised if all of these apply to you. Examine the incidents of your life accordingly. Don’t worry about examining them all, just pick a few key ones and write down a description of what happened. Do this to the best of your current knowledge. Minimize the editing and judging. After your brief description, you can begin to think about which, if any, of the above categories you are and re-examine the incident from that perspective.

A great exercise is to put yourself in the other person’s place first and examine the situation from their point of view. Can you see why they acted or reacted the way they did? Were you clear in what you were saying? What judgments did you make that took you on the path you took? Whether you are aware of it or not, you make judgments all the time. And you make them instantaneously, without even realizing you’re doing it.

Whichever, if any, of the categories you may see yourself in, you have to understand these are not negatives. Everything has a positive and negative aspect to it. There are strengths you achieve by being any of these. However, there are also many obstacles you create for yourself at the same time. By examining and determining which kind of character drives your being, you can learn to keep the positive and overcome the obstacles they create.

As an example, let’s use the last one - you cherish your anger. The strength in it is that you are more likely to hurt those who hurt you, but the obstacle is that you are also more likely to hurt those who have not hurt you even more. There is a strength and obstacle to every personality type. Your journal can help you see your strengths and identify your potential obstacles and weaknesses and correct them.

Third Exercise

Devote a certain amount of time in your journal writing to write down your dreams and leave areas for meditation. Dreams are your subconscious mind talking to you through images. Dreams are like movies you play yourself. Don’t worry about concrete interpretations. Focus on the feelings the dreams create and record these feelings with the dream. Pick one of the images or messages for a meditation and use your journal to record the results of the meditation. Just write down what entered your mind. It’s important to not force anything. Let the thoughts flow and record them.

Fourth Exercise

Focus on your chakras and journalize about them. Maybe a physical situation that you are writing about leaves you unsure of its nature or meaning. Think about the chakra that governs it, think about its colour and whether yours is the same colour or does it need some examination? Concentrate on one chakra at a time. Feel free to draw a picture of it. Talk to it. Is it blocked? Is it functioning well? Can it advise you about a situation you’re not sure of?

Fifth Exercise

Do an exercise devoted to love. List in your journal everything you love. List in your journal everyone you love. List in your journal everyone who loves you. List in your journal all of the things that you get pleasure from. Too often we focus on what’s going wrong and not what’s going right. Look at the things you can be grateful for and spend some time with yourself being grateful. Remind yourself of the wonderful things you do have in your life. Too often we are overwhelmed by somethings.

This exercise helps you stop the feeling of being overwhelmed. From a positive state, you can go back and re-examine what seemed to be overwhelming, but now you can break it down into manageable chunks and deal with them separately. In this exercise, you can also make a list of everything you fear. There is no need to analyze. Just make an honest list. Take a look at the list and see if it’s something that can be looked at in a different way. What would happen if you applied love or forgiveness or understanding to the fear? Would that change anything or give you a new approach to take?

Every so often, you can take stock of where you are. Revisit the ideas of writing an autobiography. Has it changed? If so, in what way? Do you really see things differently or were you ignoring an important aspect of yourself before? Redraw your path. Note how it too has changed. Examine your goals and set them out. Feel free to use long term and short term or life goals and current goals. How is your progress coming? As you get to know yourself are your goals changing or revising? Are they the right goals for you?

Sixth Exercise

Learn to concentrate on what you want. Most people are really good at saying what they don’t want, but very poor at saying what they want. Ask yourself what you want. A test of whether it’s truly what you want or not is then to ask yourself how you will know you have achieved this. If you can’t figure out if you have achieved your desire and be able to describe it, the odds are it’s not what you want to begin with. Try to be specific. It’s easier to achieve a specific item than a general item. “I want to be happy” is a pretty general thing. You have to define what happiness is to you. Once you’ve done the first two parts of this exercise (decided what you want and how you will know when you have achieved it) ask yourself what the first step you have to take is in order to attain your desire.

A Final Note About the Journal Exercises

Follow the steps you take in your journal. As much as you learn from your successes, you will learn even more from your occasional setbacks. Document both your successes and your setbacks, how you felt and what you did or are going to do next. All these exercises are mere examples of the myriad of things you can record. You can do them numerous times and in numerous ways.

Your answers will change, your methods will change and the way you see yourself and learn to deal with things will change. While you learn to see who you really are, what you really like, what you need to drop or change and what you need to enhance, you will also be learning to do something that’s very difficult to do. You will learn to follow yourself. You will become a better listener - more intuitive, more confident and able to follow the leads you need, and have within you