The art of journalling to get out of your comfort zone

IN THIS BLOG SERIES I WILL GO THROUGH SOME OF THE EXPERIMENTS AND EXPERIENCES I WENT THROUGH ( AND STILL GOING THROUGH DAILY ) ON HOW TO BREAK OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE AND WHAT MY LIFE IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS TAUGHT ME ABOUT IT.

I HOPE THIS WILL HELP YOU ON YOUR OWN PATH !

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How to take the plunge and do something that scares you ?

In the last post of the series I left you with the first step to get out of your comfort zone, which is awareness, because it all starts from there!

So how did it go? Did you find a situation that feels comfortable but it's blocking you from growth and expansion, or something that you're carefully avoiding because it makes you vulnerable and you haven't been ready to face it yet?

Great! Today I want to guide you to the following step to actually take the plunge and do something that really scares you :

JOURNAL ABOUT IT

This steps may seem trivial, but it's actually very powerful. I've always been the little girl always carrying a journal with me. Writing it's so healing for me and it has always been my favorite mean for self-expression and for figuring things out!

Writing a journal, even if for 5 minutes a day, has many benefits in my opinion :

• It's a brain dump, because you don't have to keep all your worries in the head all the time, and the action of putting pen to paper can be really relieving to free some head space to focus on the task at hand instead or simply take a rest from your to-do list
• I also believe that your handwriting reflects your emotional state and can give you clues about how you feel about something. For example I find that when I'm excited I write fast and words just flow on the page and sometimes it's hard to read my own writing . Other times instead I'm angry and I write short sentences, like in a poem, pressing the pen on the paper and looking for clarity taking out one emotion at time.
• Another advantage is that you can be totally honest . It's a discussion with yourself and no one else is allowed to read it ( well, in theory at least! ) , which means that you can literally write whatever you want, making grammar mistakes, using the language you want, just expressing yourself in a raw and real way, which is so amazing to bring up thoughts that you didn't even think you had! It happens a lot to me to write down things before I'm even thinking them, like there is a force inside me which comes out only when I'm journalling and then when I read back I discover new things about myself
• It helps process the information going through your head and get clarity on what is the real matter " behind the scenes". What does it mean? For me it means that sometimes when you start writing at first you just control your communication, you talk to yourself like you're starting a conversation to someone else, it's the small chat phase! For example you start by telling yourself what it's going through your day, what you did, who you met....and then the real stuff starts to unfold, and you write about what's really worrying you, what you're dreaming about, what would make things easier to solve a difficult situation.

This process of unfolding may take a few minute, or even hours or days, because while on the first day you start to mention the issue that it's bothering or an intuitive idea or project ,then your mind and body process it and you keep on going deeper and deeper as you write it down. Until you really touch the core of the issue.

WHAT HAS ALL OF THIS TO DO WITH YOUR COMFORT ZONE?

Well, once you have journaled for a while about the situation, it uncovers the real issue and you finally know what you can start working on. As I said in the first article , I advise you to start small, so you can learn the process and apply it to much bigger situations, because the change starts inevitably from something you do daily and then the positive effects expands to the rest of your life, at the end we're holistic beings so everything we do is connected!

So go on and give it a try! I know that holding a written journal is not for everybody, but just give it a try for 5 minutes this week and if writing dones't resonate with you, just try other ways, like speak out loud to yourself and register your thoughts, write things down on your phone while you're in transports, speak about it with a close friend just for the sake of sharing and getting it out of your body

Now it's your turn, Have you ever tried journalling? How did you find it? What are the benefits you have experienced? Or which other means do you use to explore and process your thoughts ?

I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts about it!!

With love and light,

Alessia