IS PERSONAL JOURNAL WRITING A SPIRITUAL TOOL? CAN IT OFFER SPIRITUAL DIRECTION?

You might wonder how writing about your experiences can be a valuable spiritual tool. Perhaps you think that spiritual direction is complete when you have found a teacher, a religion, a discipline using it to instruct, guide and re-enforce your inner commitment. As essential as these may be to you, Life’s questions and opportunities to grow in Wisdom are embedded in your daily living, and for you to feel truly involved with your spiritual development you must draw upon your particular life circumstance for clarity and depth. The introspective method of keeping a journal can place you in your living world where all of the questions about the meaning and mystery of Life reside. A life explored on paper will mirror and solidify internal processes. Honest self-exploration allows you to examine events, important questions, pride-filled difficulties, fears, struggles, doubts, resistance to change, attachments.

Through the centuries saints and mystics have used a diary format to record their inner experiences, their concerns and conflicts, their developing insight. Many of their writings have been a rich source of inspiration for us. Today journaling is considered to be a valuable self-help tool and even young people in school are encouraged to record their feelings as a way of making sense of themselves and the world they live in. Personal journal keeping is now very commonplace.

All forms of self-exploration on paper are helpful, however different approaches to investigating human experience yield different results. If journal writing is used solely to blow off steam, to complain, to vent self-pity, frustration, disappointment and the like, then the writing method serves simply as a temporary release. That approach usually creates a circular situation where, for example, “I hate my job, I hate my job I really, really hate my job”, expressed over and over again comes to nothing but the release of frustration without offering insight into the real problem.

Journaling can have different goals. Some writers use their journal as a way to keep a record of the events of the day, week or month. This method is more like a reporting of facts, often without emphasis on reactions and responses. Others have used the diary as a place to record their feelings along with events. Some journal writing explores the entire history of a life with the intention of “connecting all of the dots” in order to understand how the present is influenced by the past. Still other approaches use writing as a search for deeper meaning and for inner Wisdom which seem to lie beneath the surface of the everyday interpretation.

Journals are also used as a way to enhance spiritual awareness training, as a way to keep focused on the commitment to a particular discipline. These entries act as a spiritual positioning in a daily practice. Many writers dedicate each day with inner intention as they record their thoughts and feelings, their prayer life, their conflicts and insights

When the desire to understand the meaning of personal experience motivates journal writing, much can be learned about what living in this world really means. There are wonderful published works of individuals who, in the process of exploring their lives, have come to express beautiful prose and poetry, often using metaphor to capture an inner reality. Other creative forms such as the visual arts and music, theater and dance, fiction as well as non-fiction, philosophy and social movements have emerged from the result of intense personal journaling. And is all of this “spiritual”? Oh yes. Giving form to that which surfaces from an inner Source is indeed an ongoing manifestation of spirit expressed in human experience.

In the sixties, Dr. Ira Progoff, renowned depth psychologist and author, now deceased, developed a comprehensive way to explore the many dimensions of a life – relationships, conflicts, questions, past experiences, matters of faith, health, work, family life, spiritual reality. His Intensive Journal is a complete in-depth approach to the inner process of spiritual and psychological development. Ira Progoff is the grandfather of modern journal keeping and the effectiveness of his work made a big impact in mental health and faith communities. Over the years his method of exploring all facets of a life has been incorporated by many individuals into different formats. At A Journal Workshop will provide you with an in-depth description of his journaling process. I met this inspired Life teacher in 1970 and dedicated myself to learning his philosophy and methodology. My life deepened, my insight sharpened and my ability to organize and utilize the context of an entire life history has changed my spiritual and psychological direction. I began leading journal participants thirty five years ago and out my deep work and that of countless others in my groups, Wisdom led me to write Our Journey to the Sky – A Guide to the Process of Spiritual Formation and the companion workbook Keeping A Spiritual Journal.