Keeping a daily log of your inner life can be a deepening experience. As you start to take note of what felt meaningful to you each day, you invite new self-awarenesses and bring the edges of your unconscious mind into detail and clarity in your writing. Detailed in the classic book, At A Journal Workshop by Ira Progroff here are a few suggestions for keeping a daily log of the meaningful inner and outer events of your life.
At the end of your day, sit in stillness. Let yourself feel the inner movement of your life. In silence with your eyes closed, let yourself go back in memory for a day. Prod yourself to remember as many specific details as you can. If you remember you dreams or fragments of thoughts as you were waking write them down. How did you feel when you woke up? Recording the fragments of your night before in dreams, feelings and thoughts, helps you to see how your night moves into day.
As you begin your day what emotions, desires, anxieties, hopes and plans began your day? Was there a basic emotional tone or body feeling? As you began the tasks of the day what where the thoughts that came unbidden to your mind? What feelings and fantasies moved through you without you wanting them to be there?
What kinds of relationships came about in the course of the day? Were they loving or frustrating? Do not judge your emotions. As you describe your emotions, you will find that the external movement of events fit around them, and the pattern of the day takes shape around your feelings.
"To follow the movement of our emotions allows us to retrace the formation of our lives from the inside. Thus you will begin to recognize how your day unfolded from within yourself." Ira Progoff.
Do not censor or edit the content of your day. Do not exclude the things that you feel ashamed of or emphasize the things you feel proud of. It is important to stay strongly neutral as you record your day. The aim is to record an un-edited expression of your inner experience. Let the words flow with no editing or censorship. As you record each 24 hour block of your life experience you start to sense into how the movement of each day forms the movement of your life.
Once you have finished writing, close your eyes, breathe deeply and let your whole being absorb your day. Write any additional thoughts our memories that come to you. Let yourself absorb the movement of your day as an integral piece of your life.
