[This series of posts called “Journaling for Men” is designed to help everyone, and especially men who may be unfamiliar with journaling, learn how daily journaling can help them improve their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It brings together ideas from two of my recent books, Redesign Your Mind, in which I describe how you can upgrade and redesign “the room that is your mind,” and my most recent book The Great Book of Journaling, co-edited with Lynda Monk, in which we gathered contributions from scores of journal experts and enthusiasts. Please enjoy this series. I hope that you’ll begin to include journaling as part of your daily self-awareness and self-care program.]
In her chapter in The Great Book of Journaling, Beth Jacobs describes four simple techniques for deepening the journaling process. She explained:
Here are four techniques for purposefully developing mindfulness skills within your journaling process:
- Ask yourself questions in your journal. That simple reminder builds mindfulness as there is always insight available for the digging. If you are stuck, begin with “What am I experiencing right now?” You might add the traditional mindfulness categories of: in body, feelings, mind states and general phenomena, which includes things like weather, the season, current events, interpersonal dynamics, etc. Then it always helps insight to add the somewhat jarring question: “What am I avoiding right now?”
- Try to catch bare perception in your journal. This isn’t easy, but close your eyes and take three deep breaths and then open them and try to notice the first edge of perception you take in. It may be the line of a chair, a color, the air temperature or a sound, but try to notice how perception starts in fragments. Then make a thought about your perception. Form some language like “I see this blue curve” or “those clock ticks are making me crazy” or “ouch, my back hurts.” Hold the thought in your mind and then simply repeat it. Repeat it again. Now write it down. Then, write what you think about your thought. Notice how far you’ve come from your original moment of perception. This exercise breaks down what happens millions of times a day automatically in our minds and helps us see how much we typically add to sensory experience.
- Switch your mind up. In this exercise, try four two-minute free writes on the basic topic of your momentary experience right now. First just write. For the second one, become very visually focused and literally watch yourself write. For two minutes write while watching the letters emerging from the pen tip or keyboard. For the next two minutes, listen to your writing. Very distinctly but silently say the words in your mind as they appear in front of you. Then focus on your breathing for a few minutes, feeling at least three deep inhalations and exhalations deep in your abdomen. Then try to write for two minutes while maintaining breath awareness in that simple way. This exercise helps you see how techniques of focus alter mind experience and written production.
- Catch your thoughts. In this exercise, you don’t try to write coherently but you try to catch thoughts, impressions, sensations or memories that arise spontaneously as you try to stay focused on breathing. Start in the same way as the last exercise by focusing on abdominal breathing for a few minutes. Try to see the empty space of mind as objects of mind arise and then try to jot them down in a few words. Note what arises against the background of breath focus. You might end up with a list like: sadness, quiet in ears, the kids, too much to do, gray paint, stiff shoulder, sadness, stiff shoulder. You might also end up with an idea for a poem.
In whatever ways that you purposefully play with mindfulness ideas, you can know that mindfulness is there for the asking. Ultimately mindfulness is less about working than about dropping and releasing, less technique and more acceptance.
Give Beth’s techniques a try. They might work beautifully for you!
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