Not all of us enjoy writing. Journaling everyday can feel tedious and for some of you expressing your feelings and thoughts through journaling may seem unnecessary.

However, let me list out the benefits of journaling and Shadow work.

• Just how communication is important in every relationship, so is communication important in the relationship you have with yourself.
• Writing down your feelings and thoughts helps in creating an empathetic and healthy relationship with yourself so when you make a mistake, which is only natural of every human on the planet, your inner voice becomes one that is patient, accepting, forgiving and positive.
• Journaling enables you to understand what part and aspects of your life need attention and work on and which belief is blocking you from achieving your desire.
• By releasing your emotions out on paper, you release blocks and negative energy from your mind, body and spirit, which means you, are capable of self-healing, and how great is that!

All you need to begin is a diary and a pen, plays some meditative music and set an intention to start your daily ritual with journaling.

When you begin journaling, ease into it by making your writing easy and un-complicated, so that you can make it a daily practice.

An example for this is – My Goal is to walk 10,000 steps today or speak up in my meetings or have only x amount of coffee. Then write down the affirmations that back that goal up – I am healthy, I am willing, I love walking, I am making healthy choices, I am assertive, I am confident. Doing this every morning or evening would set your tone for the day ahead. Before going to bed visit the intention and the affirmation. Did you reach your target goal? If yes, great! Write how that made you feel, what you did do to achieve that target and what is your goal for day 2. If you could not achieve your goal, write about what happened during the course of the day and what caused the blocks in achieving your goal. This is shadow work, answering the following questions can help you.

How do feel when you don’t achieve something?

What is stopping you from reaching your goal?

What can you do to shift this?

What would the best version of your-self do to handle this and achieve said goal next day?

When you are able to put down the how, what and why into paper, you process everything that is conflicting within you and this helps in self-realization and self -growth. Do you see where this is leading? With an insight to your feelings and emotions, you’ve now created emotional awareness.

Where do I hold my pain? Close your eyes and sense the feeling in your body.

What am I rejecting about myself that I need to embrace?

What am I lying to myself about?

What am I ashamed of within me? Why?

What can I do now to make this easy and comfortable?

What have I learnt from this experience?

When you do the inner work and integrate your shadow self through journaling, you begin self-healing, you recognize your patterns, your subconscious beliefs and you begin to really get to know yourself. It is then that you can slowly begin to answer how to move ahead or break away from things, people, situations that hold you back and you begin transformation.

I wish you the best in recognizing and making many a breakthroughs in creating a healthy and successful reality for yourself.