Today, we’re going to pull our awareness to the task of journaling for integration. There is so much stimulation to take in from the world. It’s constant. Some of it exists naturally and a lot of it is completely engineered by society. It stadily trickles into us and easily becomes fragmented and overwhelming. Often, the body moves forward, but the mind and emotions can’t always keep up. Journaling is a beautiful, free, and accessible way to working with ourselves as we take in what we need and let go of what no longer serves us. Integration is a process that calls for us to study not just the world of information around us, but the world within us as well. Both come together in the yogic Niyama of self-study, called Svadyaya. Together, we’re going to explore how to use these concepts to pull our awareness back and get centered. Before we get started, we must recognize that there is a difference between knowing something, and actually applying it to our lives.
The Process of Integration
We know that integration is important to living a life in line with our principles. Can we recognize that we play an active part in that? The first step starts here: To sit with oneself and see the truth. That is the task when we journal. In those moments, we are excavating what lives inside us. It’s okay. Sometimes, when we lose sight of where we begin and end in response to ongoing stimulation. When this happens, we lose the fundamental connection of congruence with ourselves and our chosen purposes. Take comfort in the fact that every day is a new beginning. Personal evolution calls for us to integrate, orient, and reintegrate routinely. One way that we can approach this inner work is by putting pen to paper. By journaling, we gift ourselves space for expression and contemplation without interference from fear, criticism, or retaliation. The inner process needs space and freedom and journaling can give it that.
-
Recognize Who You Are Today
- We meet the different versions of ourselves in new situations every day.
- Who are you right now?
- What is your current situation trying to teach you?
- Are you willing to let go of who you used to be, in order to be who you are now?
- Changes, both big and small, make huge impacts on your daily life.
- If we want to allow our experiences and growth to integrate into our lives, we need to give them some space to realign.
- Notice what is happening, in you, and around you on different levels. Life is layered and it’s hard to integrate if we don’t take the time that it takes to notice what’s really happening.
-
Notice
- How Are You?
- What’s going on in your life?
- Are you meeting or discovering a new version of yourself?
- Are old versions of self and habits holding you back today?
-
Journal
- Let the words flow. Pen in hand, we give voice to the most honest pieces of our soul.
- When we’re filling blank pages with our raw stream of consciousness, the processes of our integration are taking place.
- In this, we remember who we are, and recognize who were are becoming.
- By connecting with our thoughts, emotions, and energies, we release the unnecessary and realign in a rooted and tangible way.
- Our personal evolutions call for us to integrate, orient, and reintegrate routinely.
-
Integrate
- Study yourself. Embrace Svadyaya.
- Journaling is an incredible tool for this because it comes straight from the source: you.
Key Takeaway
Integration is a routine. Sleep hygiene, a clean diet, physical activity, meditation, and journaling for integration are just a few of the ways that we maintain fully integrated lives. Remember, it takes time, and the process is always moving forward. Even when we have goals, understand that it’s the maintenance that’s doing the really important work. When we live a life of integration, we take what we know in the mind and fuse it into our core way of being. Only then, do we really KNOW it in a way that actually impacts the life that we are living. All we have to do is date our journal daily, and keep ourselves in intune.
Journaling creates physical space for our inner voice, and it gives our active mind something tangible to fall back on for self-study. Understand that the human capacity for memory and perception is huge, yet always changing. Nothing is static here. The way that we feel today might not match up with the underlying thoughts that we have tomorrow. Try journaling for integration for a week and let me know what you discover. Keep exploring the 8 Limbs of Yoga and learn how they may benefit you in your daily life.
Dive Deep.
Be Well.