Journaling, Your Portal into the Subconscious

Almost every morning I sit and journal. I used to scoff at the idea of putting pen to paper.

The word journaling carries a collective impression of being something teenage girls do

when they are writing about the dramas of adolescence. Bridget Jones did not help by

narrating her journal for two hours, one debacle after another. This is not what I mean by

journaling. Between 4:00 am and 6:00 am, it’s like a portal opens in my office and I have

access to more creativity and higher guidance than at any other point during the day. I

never know what’s going to end up on the paper when I’m done but it’s always brought me

into a deeper knowing, higher perspective, or revealed next-step guidance. For all of you

that are type-A, get-shit-done, goal oriented, can’t waste time just sitting and journaling, by

adopting this practice you will eventually learn how to accomplish more in 30-minutes of

journaling than you did 3 hours spinning on a problem.

This post is not about the brain science of journaling, there’s an abundance of information

out there for you to explore if you need that. To condense and summarize the evidence, we

can only focus our conscious mind on a small part of any given situation. Our conscious

mind is limited in its ability to hold onto multiple simultaneous thoughts, try it. You can only

think one thought at a time however, our subconscious mind is holding everything we’ve

ever experienced, every moment, all the time. When we journal (or some like to type on a

screen) we can access the subconscious, but we can also put ourselves into a state where

we receive higher guidance from our intuitive mind, this is where profound insights and

ideas can emerge.

This analogy may help you. Picture yourself turning on a hose and watering a bed of

flowers. The hose you are holding represents your mind, the water is your consciousness.

The hose is a long hose, and it’s hooked up to the main water supply, think of that main

water supply as your subconscious and intuitive mind. When you turn the water on you

have to wait before the water even comes out and then when it does, it’s spewing and its

inconsistent because the water pressure is adjusting. The water that initially comes out has

been sitting in the hose for a while, and if its 102 degrees in the middle of August, you can’t

even use the water for a while, or you’ll burn the shit out of your plants. It’s only after a few

moments that you can actually use the water. This is how journaling works. In order to get

access to the quality, clear, steady stream of your consciousness, you have to clear out

your water lines first. The more you practice doing this, the easier and faster you get to the

really good stuff, and the good stuff is SO good. You may have to literally write; I don’t know

why I am writing right now but I am clearing out my mind in order to clear the path for

answers to come through. Just write, don’t practice good penmanship, and it only needs to

be legible to you. You are clearing the hose out. If you knew the answers to your questions

were 100 feet down the line, you would write veraciously until you could get to that answer.

If you’re contemplating a major life event, or it doesn’t even have to be a serious issue,

maybe you have been holding onto an idea that you want to bring into the world, journaling

can help bring you clarity. Here are some questions that could help get you started.

- When facing a difficult situation ask yourself, what does this mean to me? This could

be followed up with asking why? five different times, to get to the root that reveals

what something really means to you.

- Related to work or business, I love this question. What rules are you ready to break?

This isn’t unethical or illegal stuff, this is bullshit rules our society has created or

rules you’ve created for yourself that no longer serve you. For example, it’s pretty

freaking clear you do not have to go to college to be successful. If you are looking to

anyone outside of yourself to give you permission to do anything, well... you have

some journaling to do.

- Lastly for deeper personal exploration, Where am I being the most held back? How

am I holding myself back?

Have fun!