Integration

Journaling from Confusion to Clarity

Journaling from Confusion to Clarity

If you’re like me, you sometimes feel like you’re living in a fog, seeing the world with fuzzy edges and hearing conversations in muffled tones. When in this place of confusion, I rely on my journal to create direction out of the darkness.

Here are some basic tips to start of journaling from confusion to clarity.

Etch-A-Sketch Journaling

Etch-A-Sketch Journaling

Journaling helps us to clear our minds in order to focus on what’s ahead of us. Think of your mind as an Etch-a-Sketch and as journaling as your hands shaking off the past, in order to be awake in the present.

Breathe & Journal: Easy, Effective Meditation Moments

Breathe & Journal: Easy, Effective Meditation Moments

Meditation doesn’t have to be something formal, with rules and rights and wrongs. Give yourself the gift of the present, but just taking time to reside fully in the present. Giving yourself an opportunity to bring your attention to Now, helps energize and ground you. This is a great place to start a Journaling session. Ground yourself with these few deep breaths and this body awareness and answer the following,

Mortified: Share, Cringe, Laugh, Heal

Mortified: Share, Cringe, Laugh, Heal

Mortified is a worldwide storytelling event where adults tell stories about their lives by sharing their most mortifying childhood artifacts (diaries, letters, lyrics, poems, home movies)… in front of total strangers.

This past November 5th, I had the extreme honor of being chosen to bare my soul in pubescent prose in a room full of friends and stranger - though, after the raw reveal of reading my childhood diary pages, the supportive strangers truly felt like friends I just hadn’t met yet.

Journaling T.I.P. for mindfulness & self-compassion

Journaling T.I.P. for mindfulness & self-compassion

Writing about how we're feeling allows us to observe and manage our feelings as they arise, instead of being knocked over by them like a tidal wave. Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, try this journaling TIP:

Take deep breaths

Identify thoughts

Practice self-compassion

Learning by failure: life on the edge of the comfort zone

Learning by failure: life on the edge of the comfort zone

I’ve always learned by failing, like getting lost in a new neighborhood, in order to find my way around (pre-Google maps!). But, this can come at a cost to my self-esteem, as I’m constantly in what Brene Brown calls “Fu*king First Times”.

To get me through the feelings of being a stranger in a foreign land, I’ve had to focus as much as possible of my WHY. Why did I want to make this course/book? How do I wish to change the world/give back to my community? Focusing on my why (mostly) gets me through the rusty machinations of the unknown.

My WHY : Creating and delivering inexpensive and accessible mental health tools to as many people as possible so they can take charge of their own healing.

Mindful Integrity: An 8 Week DIY Mindfulness Course

Mindful Integrity: An 8 Week DIY Mindfulness Course

During times of great upheaval, there’s a sense that we should “to live today as it were your last.” This sounds really appealing, but what does it really mean?

Spiritually speaking, living each day as your last isn’t bestowing worldly possessions and checking-off bucket lists, but about holistic integrity. As Adlai Stevenson famously said, “it is not the years in your life, but the life in your years.” The following are topics of contemplation, calls to action and operating instructions for more mindful living. Try using one of these teachings a week as a focus for your meditation, as journal prompts, or for deepening conversations with loved ones.