I’ve written about my habit of daily journaling and the eight categories into which I generally organize my life, and would like to further explain the daily practice I have for the emotional category, about increasing one’s emotional state.
First, I prefer to journal early in the morning. My routine is to get up relatively early — with an alarm now, to force myself to pay the price in the evening and, I hope, to get to bed earlier. Eight hours of sleep is essential, and I admit that after half a century (roughly) of trying to deprive myself of sleep, or more accurately, telling myself that sleep was “wasted time”. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” said Vince Lombardi, and it has many other deleterious negative effects.
I get up, start making coffee, and drink at least a full glass (16+ ounces) of water while it’s brewing. Hydration is also essential, and the nonsense about “eight glasses per day” (i.e., 64 ounces) is, in my opinion and experience, woefully inadequate. My goal is generally a gallon (128 ounces) per day, although I drink almost nothing but coffee, tea, and water. (Soda does not hydrate, given that its hydration quality is offset by its sugar and/or artificial sweeteners, and its caffeine.)
With coffee in hand, I go outside. Being outdoors is highly valuable for one’s emotional state, for a number of reasons: fresh air, sunlight, a change in temperature, and, perhaps, a reminder of the greater world.
(A counter-exercise is to consider the way that prisoners — including prisoners of war — are tortured: being kept completely indoors, with no natural light, deprived of sleep, and with no social contact. Those are intentionally done to break down the psyche, and they have the same effect even when self-imposed.)
I do some yoga — various sun salutations and basic poses, such as the warrior series — and then meditate, where I simply close my eyes and focus on my breathing, allowing myself to start the day by settling myself and to focus on my own center.
(Note the focus on my own center: that means: no cell phones, email, texts, blogs (even this one), tweets, Facebook feeds, or (ugh) “news” programs. It is a disservice to start the day by immediately reacting to others. One should begin by finding one’s ground, then more proactively making contact with the world.)
After meditating, I read, usually one spiritual book (I’m currently reading The Power of Now, and the Bible straight through), and a non-spiritual book (currently Liar’s Poker). Then I begin to journal, as I’ve written about previously.
When I reach the “Emotional” section of my journal, if not before, I stop and think of one act that I forgive. That can be something either someone else or I have done, and by “forgive” I mean that I “formally forgive it”, that in my mind it is officially classified as such — and I don’t write it down. Also by forgiveness I mean that I will never again talk about it with anyone else, and that I will not let myself dwell on it ever again.
I also think of five things to be grateful for. I don’t over analyze this — the point is to do it so quickly that it isn’t a heavy, conscious effort. Some things might be grand in scope and importance — the era and area in which I live, people significant to me and why I value them — or they can be trivial, such as minor good things from the previous day, such as a meal or the opportunity to converse with someone. As with what I forgive, I don’t write down what I’m thankful for, since the point is to make it more conscious and flowing than forced and complicated.
Why five acts of gratitude and one of forgiveness? That wasn’t deliberate at the beginning, but as I’ve read more about the ratio of positive:negative interactions, it makes sense that I’m giving myself a 5:1 ratio of gratitude:forgiveness, i.e., keeping my self-reflection to be positive overall.
That’s it. The keys are: outdoors, meditation, forgiveness, and gratitude.
If your experience is like mine, you might find yourself as I have, where it’s become easier to think of what I am grateful for, and more difficult to think of things to forgive, which I believe is a more positive state overall.
Thank you for reading this post, and I wish you well.
increasingsanity 