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 but when I’m done it’s always brought me into a deeper knowing, higher perspective, or revealed next-step guidance.

For all of you type-A-ers, get-shit-done, goal oriented, can’t waste time just sitting and journaling, I want to invite you to consider that by adopting this practice you could eventually learn how to resolve 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 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 brain, and it’s hooked up to the main water supply, think of that main water supply as your conscious mind and 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 in Kansas City, 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 the question why?...you may keep asking why (like 5 times) until you 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!