Life Changing Journaling

And Exploring Resistance to Claiming Your Dreams

Hi friends,

I know some of you are keen journallers, and find the journaling prompts I share each week beneficial. (You can find them all in the Members Therapy Tools Page.) Journaling has been proven to improve mental health time and again, for experiences like depression and anxiety, to develop self awareness, lift our mood, and gain clarity in our lives and relationships.

If you aren’t a journaling fan, you may still like this one - read on for this useful tool!

I feel overstretched this month, with my jewellery business heading into my busiest season, my Substack newsletter commitment, and multiple big changes in my personal life. My daughter is heading off to Uni for the first time this weekend, my parents are downsizing our family home after 35 years and its very long and stressful, and I have an annoying health issue to process. When you’re self employed, you have to pay all your bills yourself, and make it happen.

Can I really do all this?

Do Affirmations Work?

The jury is out with me in terms of affirmations. Because much of my therapy work was at a deep level of change, affirmations can seem superficial. We now see them everywhere, on mugs and memes and yoghurt pots, so perhaps they lost their value. I do still like to stumble across them, and always send out uplifting quotes out with all my handmade jewellery.

‘When it rains look for rainbows, when it’s dark, look for stars.’

When we struggle with low mood, navigate terrible life events, or watch our dreams sink into the abyss, how can a few sweet words help? Affirmations aren’t for everyone, and can even feel insulting if you are going through painful times. 

Toxic positivity is the worst shun for someone who is depressed. If someone tells you to ‘cheer up’ you are perfectly justified to direct your worst swear words towards them. Pressure to be positive all the time is unrealistic. It leaves us under a shroud of denial, as we bury our true self down with our grief and pain. We can even develop a false self as we battle to hide our unprocessed pain away.

Affirmations done right can have a profound impact on changing the filter you see yourself through. We can shift unhelpful stories, which filters down into the rest of our psyche, allowing our truer self to open again. Negative beliefs about ourselves and what is possible for us can be adjusted with brilliant results.

Affirmation Journaling (If You Want to Change Your Life)

I was reminded of this way of using affirmations while reading Jamie Varon’s book, Radically Content a few years ago, which I first encountered in my therapy training almost 20 years ago reading Shakti Gawain. The right things find their way into our paths sometimes. Jamie Varon shares that she suffered from depression for many years. She then spent time each morning journaling affirmations she wrote to herself. (Self constructed affirmations are always the best ones, according to Shakti Gawain).

Jamie reports that affirmation journaling shifted her out of depression and transformed her life.

Try Affirmation Journaling to:

• Give voice to our authentic selfs.

• Be clear about whats possible for us.

• Own our dreams.

• Clear out negative false stories and our minds’ negativity bias.

• Set our direction in the short and long term (from getting through a day, to a year to a life).

• Stop hiding ourselves under a bushel.

• Challenge and banish self doubt.

• Open those pathways we need to go forwards in the way we want.

• Gives confidence to believe in yourself and get through, or do the thing.

• Actually build foundations for the future you want, so that you can then create it.

• Affirmations bring a possible future to the present.
  

Journaling Your Affirmations

• Think of 3-5 affirmations that encapsulate what you want to create now, hold in mind your dreams, your wishes, your ability to do this. Keep them short and focused, with positive words that include the outcome of what you want ( for example I will be happy, not I won’t be sad, or I will succeed, not I won’t fail). Shakti Gawain suggests writing them in the first, second and third person which, certainly for me, embeds the message more deeply and in a 360 way.

• Do one full page for each affirmation.

• As you write, absorb the meaning of the words. Stay present with the impact of the sentences. Don’t skip over or write too fast (as I did at first!)

• Do it daily all this week and let me know how you feel. Then keep it up over time, if you are heading for a goal and are prone to self doubt or notice unhelpful patterns creeping back in.

• You can reinforce with the same affirmations in your mind when you are out and about.

My Current Affirmations

I can manage multiple projects at once. Kate can manage multiple projects at once. She can manage multiple projects at once. I run two thriving businesses. Kate runs two thriving businesses. She runs two thriving businesses. I can face challenges with ease. She can face challenges with ease. Kate can face challenges with ease.

Working with Doubt and Resistance

You may run into doubt and resistance - we all have it. Thoughts like:

Impossible! Why you? There’s no point. This is ridiculous. No-one else has ever done it. Too many other people have done it. This isn’t for you. Too big for your boots again! This is too woo woo. People don’t need your shit. Another pipe dream! Whatever, Kate. Just give up. You’re worthless, though.

Work through doubt and resistance on a separate page. Notice. Be curious about it. It’s fascinating! These blocks are useful to reveal. You may stumble upon real blocks and gaps you need to address, which is useful insight. You may find the words ring in your ears from someone in the past.

For example, if you wrote you are ‘I am fit and healthy’, when in fact you have been making unhealthy choices, your awareness will help you change those choices to make it a reality further down the line. You can tweak your affirmation to be realistic, like to ‘I make healthy choices every day.’ When I did this journaling today, I found I needed to tweak mine a little as I went.

It’s Over to You!

Think of an affirmation sentence to try now, and give it a go! Write it in first, second and third person. Let us know your affirmations in the comments. Then I can witness and support you, saying it ‘out loud’ will also help embed it into your new attitude, and make it real for you.

Thanks for reading. Will you click the heart if you enjoyed it? And do share this post if you think someone else might like it.

With love and gratitude,

Kate

Further Reading:

Jamie Varnon - Radically Content