Seeing the Deeper Nuances
Keeping a daily log of the inner and outer movements of your life can be a profoundly deepening experience. Whatever you strongly notice in your outer life will tell you something about your inner life. As you start to take note of what feels meaningful to you each day, you bring the edges of your unconscious mind into conscious awareness.
Detailed in the classic book, At A Journal Workshop by Ira Progroff, I offer you a few suggestions for keeping a daily log of the meaningful inner and outer movements of your life.
Depth Journaling Process
"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
1. Before bed, sit in stillness and contemplate your day. Contemplate the emotional movements of your day. With your eyes closed, also revisit the outer events of your day. What details stand out most in your memory?
2. Start by remembering the beginning of your day. How did you feel upon awakening? Recording the earliest fragments of your dreams will help you to see how themes of your night moved into your day-time themes.
3. When you began your day, what emotions, desires, anxieties, hopes and plans coloured your morning? As you began the tasks of the day, what thoughts came to your mind? What feelings, memories, and emotions moved through you?
4. What kinds of relationships did you encounter in the course of your day? Were your relationships loving or frustrating? What emotions did you feel as you encountered people throughout your day?
5. 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 neutrally curious as you record your day.
5. Let your words flow with no editing or censorship. As you record each 24-hour block of your life experience, you will start to sense how the movement of each day feeds into the larger themes of your life.
6. Once you have finished writing, close your eyes, breathe deeply and let your whole being absorb your day. Write any additional thoughts that come to you. Let yourself integrate the movement of your day as an integral piece of the larger theme of your life.