Many of the most brilliant humans across time have drawn and written out their ideas and dreams in journals, the magical pages that allowed them insights and inspiration. Journaling is an exquisite pathway inward. It invites clarity into personal truth and the joy of discovering it. 

A daily practice of meeting yourself on the page will expand your life beyond belief. Get to know yourself. Solve your problems. Express your fear, pain, and angst that linger in your mind, heart, and body. Write to release them and free yourself in the process. Note your greatest joys to celebrate the richness of your life. 

Journal for your greatest good.

There are a few things to consider, as you take up a journaling practice–how to begin, privacy, and the many benefits you can expect.

Begin.

It doesn’t need to be complicated. Grab a pen and paper or a notebook, or a beautiful bound journal. Of course, you can do this digitally. Many prefer the heart-to-hand connection of pen and paper. It is more important to journal than your chosen method of journaling.

Here are a few journaling prompts to begin with:

What do I want?

What can I do to achieve my dreams?

How am I doing?

What would I like to change?

What would I like to develop further?

Who and what do I love?

Who and what am I grateful for?

Become your best friend. Give yourself the gifts of compassion and acceptance. There is no place like home. Your true home is in your heart, mind, body, and soul. Meet your depth and truth. Through curious inquiry, you will find the way home–to you. Go inward. Express outward. Understand your purpose and your challenges. Find meaning in your circumstances. Discover ways to improve and finesse everything. Fall in love with yourself and your precious life. 

Privacy.

It is important to keep your journal as private as you wish. If you don’t want others to read it, don’t leave it where they can find it. Create boundaries with those you live with about your journal. It is yours. It is sacred. It is private. It is not their business, and they should stay out of it. Let them know. Then, do all you can to keep it safely yours. Lock it up. Hide it. Put it where it remains private.

It is sometimes suggested to not write what you don’t want read. Consider that as you put your pen to paper. However, the more honest you are with yourself on the page, the more you will benefit from the openness you have with your beautiful life in all its weird, wonky wonderfulness. 

Benefits.

Journaling is a great unifier. It unifies you with the depth and truth of yourself. At the page, you will meet and get to know yourself. You will experience your experiences and be able to bring greater context to them. Enjoy the utter beauty of self-with-Self time, spent lovingly, at the page. It is you with the deepest, highest soulful You, exploring your life. 

What if we are here for the purpose of knowing ourselves and experiencing who we are and then sharing that with the world? If that’s the case, the place to begin is in going inward to discover who we are with heartfelt curiosity and wonder. If we cannot be completely honest with ourselves, how can we be honest with anything or anyone else? The place of self-inquiry, when faced with the brutal and beautiful, awkward and awesome truths of our lives, is the opening to living fully. 

Write about your life and you will know it better. You will come to know yourself better. You will have insights and gain wisdom that you can generously share with others. You will remember your life more deeply. You will be able to finesse yourself and your circumstances with the clarity of mind that comes from journaling. You will find greater peace as you understand what longs to be understood. You will recognize patterns in your life–some you want to expand upon and others you want to minimize. You will come into higher levels of self-discovery and self-love.  

Open. Ohhh-pen. Oh, pen.

Grab a pen.

Open your heart, your mind, and find amazing treasures in writing about you and your life. Grab whatever you plan to journal in and start journaling. If this is a new pathway inward for you, great. If you are a seasoned journaler, great. Come as you are and write for clarity, insight, and the joy of knowing yourself at a deeper level. The more you know and love yourself, the more compassionate and kind you can be with yourself and others. Journal because to know you is to love you.