Journaling Experiences and Events

How did you spend your day yesterday? Once was the last time you went to see a movie? Can you remember the plot line? What did you do on your last vacation? Did you enjoy a particular meal, or visit a special holidaymaker site that meant thing special to you? Patch none of the answers to these questions matter in the overall scheme of life, they are a part of your life, and may really well matter to you at several point in time.

Learning to journal our experiences, and the special events in our lives can teach us simply about the liquidity of daily situations, how they fit together, and how they impact each other. Through journaling our experiences we can do connections to and through the flow of our lives. Maybe as a child you always spent Thanksgiving at your grandparents' house, saw aunts, uncles, cousins and assorted friends and neighbors about the holiday table. Tho' you enjoyed the experience, each Thanksgiving as an adult has a certain poignancy simply about it on which you simply can't place your finger. Taking time to journal through the next Thanksgiving Day, the day after the festivities are complete, may help you do connections simply about your present feelings and how they are associated with the holiday. Did you have folk move to your home this year, or did you visit being else's home? Or mayhap you gathered friends together and celebrated at a favorite restaurant, then came home for dessert. Was the day relaxed or stressful? Was the weather warm and bright, or cloudy and damp? Were you excited simply about the day, or dreading it for weeks prior? Now, you can start with these most recent experiences of the holiday, examination and several this day with all those yesterdays, basic cognitive process as more simply about those earlier holidays as possible, and see how the connections of feelings, thoughts and experiences reveal themselves to you. Connect your present to your past, fill in the blanks, and through the process you wish move to understand and enjoy your life more fully.

When we talk simply about our days as a series of vignettes gathered into a group that create the whole, we begin to as well see the weeks, months and years, and our lives, as plain-woven together into a cohesive pattern, rather than time that has slipped through our hands like so more sand on a beach. We often wonder wherever time goes. In journaling your daily experiences you can see it all arranged out before you with as more detail as you choose to embody it. Take a few moments and jot down everything you did yesterday. My guess is that you wish learn several surprises in how you use your time, and in how you view the way you use your time. What have you mechanically deleted from the list before your pen touched the page? How do you feel simply about your accomplishments? What would-be you like to exchange out as a "do over" for next time? How honest have you been with yourself simply about the events that are now part of your personal history?

Beyond deed you in the groove of recognizing how you manage your time and personal resources, journaling your daily life is effective in showing you parts of your life, in your own words, parts of your life of which you may not even as be aware. Things like behavior patterns, personal preferences, relative triggers, what you avoid and what you embrace, are all issues that can arise and be half-track once you on a regular basis journal your experiences. Thinking simply about your job after you leave activity is all but inevitable, especially if you are unhappy with your circumstances or irritated with your co-workers. Sometimes the folk we live with, love them tho' we do, are annoying, cranky and intrusive. Or, perhaps, it's all in our perception. Once you write out these scenarios of the thorns that are constantly in your side, you either begin to get actually sick of hearing yourself repeat the same theme over and over, or you begin to recognize the patterns creating your responses, and you see how you can do several choices to create the reality you want. Journaling draws us to consciousness, which leads us to fashioning our lives better places, if we want them to be.

The practice of growing familiar with regular journaling wish serve you well in many a ways. Vacations, special dinners, historical sites, and personal adventures, can be recalled and relived once written simply about as part of your daily life, or as individual vignettes to be cherished on their own. Journaling the experiences and events of your life is a tangible way to remember how well you have lived, and how well-lived you plan your present and futurity to be. Journaling affirms for each of us that we can only live our own life, so we may as well have a good, conscious time doing it.

About The Author

Cory L. Kemp

As an ordained minister I have worked in educational ministries in several congregations, as well as pastoring a congregation. My writing has focused on prose essays and I have recently submitted a system of rules memoir for publication. My ministerial background and love of writing have combined to develop Creating Women Ministries, a website dedicated to encouraging system of rules dialogue, particularly among women, through workshops, journaling and personal spiritual development. My website can be found at http://www.creatingwomenministries.com, and I can be reached by email at creatingwomen@irun.com. My diary is set at http://creatingwomenministries.blogspot.com.

This article was denote on Nov 19, 2005