"The more you use your brain, the more brain you will have to use." -- George A. Dorsey
It can be our worst enemy when we don't know how it works. Because then, our thoughts think us. Almost all of what we do, think and say comes from old patterns in our subconscious minds. This old thinking is typically repetitive and shallow. And because it's often negative and limiting, it sabotages our dreams.
So few of us know how we think, create, learn or intuit. We take our mental processes for granted. When we do this, we lose our creative genius - we barely scratch the surface of our immense mental capacity. So how do we break from these stuck, limiting patterns? With journaling! Think It and Ink It
Journaling is a process of quickly capturing our thoughts and feelings on paper. Unless we write them down, thoughts too easily disappear. We don't realize that we continue to think the same old thoughts, over and over again. You think about 60,000 thoughts per day. How many are you aware of?
Once we can see what we're thinking on paper, we can learn to think in different ways. When the information is kept in front of our eyes, we can group it, synthesize it, add to it and change it. We can consider our notes from different perspectives. As we work with the information on paper, we bring it back into our minds - this is how most of us learn. Journaling also enables us to both draw from and plant new supportive information into our subconscious.
More importantly, our minds work at about 1000 words per minute, but when we write, we slow down to about 100 words a minute. This allows thoughts to be recorded more deeply. It also supports a more focused, creative thinking process. We are able to see and sense between the written words. We can also see and sense the synergy and new interpretations of many words at once. That's why journaling brings up so many insights and fresh ideas.
To get even more out of your journaling, always review what you have written and write a short summary of 2 or 3 lines. Reading and reflecting helps us step back and see the information from a larger perspective. Summarizing it all into two sentences of insights notches up our perspective and anchors any conclusions more deeply.
Journaling will teach you how you think, create, learn and intuit. It will help you hold steady your fleeting thoughts, sensations and inspirations so you can give them more attention, reflection and meaning.
Get off the mental merry-go-round. Gain the control, momentum, synergy and big picture thinking that's possible when you learn to:
- Slow your mind so you can see how you think.
- Quadruple your learning by stimulating the senses.
- Create a bigger picture of yourself and your life.
- Change your perspective.
- Begin to think with all of your brain.
- Connect with your subconscious mind.
John Robson has been teaching journaling for over 10 years. He creates many of his own journaling processes and has recently published an E-book: Go deeper ... Reach higher ... Journaling for Self Empowerment, available at http://www.journalingtools.com. His Higher Awareness web site at http://www.higherawareness.com offers workbooks using journaling tools to help you KNOW Yourself and GROW Yourself. He can be contacted at mailto:john@higherawareness.com