The Victorious Mind: How To Master Memory, Meditation and Mental Well-Being by Anthony Metivier

Author:Anthony Metivier
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780648751915
Publisher: Advanced Education Methodologies
Published: 2020-05-19T21:00:00+00:00

7 MEDITATIVE JOURNALING:

NAVIGATE YOUR WAY TO CALMER SEAS

Why write in a journal?

Although it might not seem like it, journaling is a form of meditation. If nothing else, it can be enjoyed as a highly beneficial supplement to your practice that speeds your progress. As I share the different kinds of journaling I have used (and continue using), you may find that the difference between the presence of will and the absence of free will becomes clearer, if you’re still struggling with the concept.

The power of journaling first became clear to me when I read 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute by psychologist Richard Wiseman. In this book, Wiseman presents evidence demonstrating that people who journal not only remember more but experience time differently—they feel like they have more of it. Journaling helps make time feel less scarce, which makes sense. When you reflect on where your time went, you behave differently and make different choices. Plus, if you use journaling to help yourself focus on more positive thoughts, you can create feelings of happiness and well-being. After reading 59 Seconds, I developed a simple habit of writing down 10 things I’m grateful for every day. Some people like to be specific, others just write single words or sketches. My preference is to use keywords like “water,” “food” and “home.” You might benefit more from greater specificity in sentence form, such as, “I am grateful for Tim, Allie and Stephanie and their dedication to my cause.” I usually just write Tim, Allie, and Stephanie and mentally reflect on the specific things they do, but you should split-test and see what works best for you.

In 59 Seconds, Wiseman also explains the science of habit formation, findings echoed in many other books. If you really want to develop a habit that lasts, you need to commit to approximately 90 days. There are different numbers thrown around, but this one seems the most likely, both based on research I’ve read and my own experience.

In my own practice of doing journaling consistently since 2011, I write on real paper with a real pencil, based on the strong recommendations presented in Wiseman’s research. Typing, or merely thinking about your gratitude, just doesn’t seem to create the same results. This lack of impact likely stems from the fact that writing by hand uses approximately 150 muscles, each of which connects to pathways in your brain. The more muscles you use, the more of your brain gets activated, allowing the exercise to create more impact.

This next point might be far fetched, but I cannot help but think that the brain is also more receptive to an interaction with organic material. We know that lack of access to nature harms us and can lead to depression and other mental disorders, and that spending time in nature is restorative. In our modern world, interacting with trees in the forms of paper and wooden pencils might reconnect us with nature in a basic way that typing into computers cannot (even if the traces of nature are tiny).

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