Hello, my dear friend.

Yoga & journaling go so well together. Journaling techniques have been used throughout history as a way to know ourselves better and to heal. It gives you the opportunity to really observe the nature of your own mind and to evaluate what kinds of thoughts and ideas are helpful and which ones are actually unhealthy, or simply self-limiting beliefs.

In fact, journaling is a core practice in many wisdom traditions, offering a way to deepen understanding and internalize teachings. Writing clarifies insights, making philosophy more tangible, practical, and personally meaningful.

Although it isn't necessary, journaling can be a wonderful companion to your yoga practice. It can help you understand the philosophy in ways that are personal, practical and meaningful to you.

It can also be used to develope your own home practice. If there's a yoga class that you like, try bringing a little notepad with you and jot down the poses, quotes or lessons the teacher focused on in class. It will help you remember them later and you can incorporate that into your own practice.

Here are some of the benefits of journaling:

• In can uncover thoughts and feelings - big and small - you didn’t know you had.
• It can reveal to you if you tend to rehash the same thoughts every day and begin to examine whether they are true or helpful. Thoughts that are not helpful become more obvious to us, giving us greater agency over them.
• It can help decluttering the mind and leads to greater clarity.

Different Jouraling Techniques

There are many different journaling techniques. Here are some common ones:

Brain Dump Journaling: A free-flowing method where you write whatever comes to mind without filtering or organizing. Perfect for clearing mental clutter and processing difficult emotions. This technique is often rather quick and a bit messy. You can even write in list form, such as bullet points.

Gratitude Journaling: I call this "Picking Up Your Daily Gems". This is a practice where you jot down things you're grateful for. This helps to shift focus to positive moments and cultivate resilience. It can actually help to train your mind to look for things that are good and helps overcome our inherent "negativity bias".

Stream-of-Consciousness Writing: Similar to brain dumping but with a more fluid, introspective approach, letting thoughts naturally evolve on the page without judgment or restriction.

Guided Journaling with Prompts: Using specific questions or statements like, "What is one challenge I overcame today?" Or, "What quality do you want to bring into the world today"?. Or, "what is one habit that no longer serves me and why?" This form of journaling is especially helpful when learning about philosophy because you can have prompts related to that concept and reflect on it.

Incorporating It Into Your Yoga Practice

There are many different ways that you can incorporate journaling into your yoga practice. You can do them together, where you practice yoga and take a little time to journal right afterwards, or vice versa. Or, they can be completely separate. It doesn't really matter.

If you're interested in trying it out, I do recommend you start small. Just try it for maybe 5 - 10 minutes a day and see if you notice a benefit. Please don't make it feel like a chore, just another thing to add to your long "to-do list". Try and make it enjoyable and with zero pressure. Instead of looking at it as something you have to do, think of it as an opportunity to ejoy quiet time, just you and your thoughts.

Perhaps try and get a pretty little journal, nothing fancy, but something that makes you smile. Curl up with a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy.

I hope you found this helpful. May you always find joy in your practice!

Namaste,

Deb 🙏