Transform Your Life ~ Through Journaling and Ritual

We All Have Bad Days

A few weeks ago, I hit a real low point.

It happens to all of us, no matter how spiritually advanced we are. Despite the number of Downward Dogs I may have done that morning, I was still not immune to having a bad day.

I felt overwhelmed. Anxious. I felt I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other and complete the tasks of the day, because my mind was reeling. The pandemic. The Black Lives Matter movement. The uncertainty and injustice of all of it. I felt powerless. It got to me.

The tears came with such force I had no choice but to hunker down and let them flow. My attention moved from overwhelm to intense feeling. All I could do was feel my emotions with every inch of me. I didn’t have words to describe these emotions, and I didn’t need that. I just needed to feel it all. So I did.

Support System Magic

Luckily, I have an amazing partner who witnessed all of this and gently suggested I take a little venture out to the river with a hammock, to feel all the feelings while the sun kissed my body with healing beams of love. I complied, and of course that was a genius idea.

I perched in my hammock, listening to the river flowing effortlessly underneath me. My pen moved organically in my journal under the warm embrace of the sweet sun. What came out on paper shocked even me! I wrote about the river, the sun, the priceless nature of that calming moment in nature. How I knew everything was okay.

The Use of Ritual

I took a black river rock, and infused it with my anxieties and worries. I thanked it for the lessons, and ceremoniously threw it in the river.

These simple actions changed the course of my day. I was able to enjoy the sun, the river, and my sweet partner. If it weren’t for my foundation of Ritual and Journaling, I would have spent that day crumpled on the floor of my house, crying and feeling my feelings.

Neither is right or wrong, or better than the other. It is so important to feel feelings, but they also need an outlet, so they can be expressed and so we can learn from them. In this way we can thank them and move on with our lives, rather than staying hostage to them, stuck in the quagmire of shadow exploration.

It’s not meant to last forever. Those shadows are meant to teach us lessons so we can move on, feeling and spreading joy once again.

Strategies For Breaking Through

My clients find their breakthroughs in the pages of their journals all the time, but not in the way you might think. I give them a simple prompt and structure, so journaling feels manageable. The breakthroughs always come days later when they read their writing to me. It seems to be the act of speaking their truth that really solidifies it.

Who is someone you could pick to be your journal buddy?

Someone who you trust implicitly, enough to share the outpourings of your pen into your journal.

Someone who you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt has your back, and your best interest in mind at every turn.

Knowing that opening up, trusting, and being vulnerable is powerful medicine.

Accountability

In this way, you can each open your hearts wider, becoming clear with yourselves and each other about what you want and need. What is working well and not so well in your life.

Once you read it out loud to another human, all of a sudden you’ll be a whole lot more likely to make changes. It becomes real once spoken out loud. And then, you have an accountability buddy who wants what is best for you, and won’t let you forget how to truly create it.

This can leads you to break through the limitations of your mind, to live the life you’ve always dreamed of, but never thought possible.

From My Human Heart to Yours,

Dia Rivers

Your Soul Therapist