Every few weeks, I share provocative ideas about culture, consciousness, and creativity, alongside beautiful artwork, in my newsletter. I also host the Hurry Slowly podcast, teach online courses, and practice energy work. Learn more at: www.jkg.co
What are you noticing? 🕵️ 👀 ✍️
Over the last few months, I’ve been slowly reviewing those journals and taking stock of all that has unfolded. This is, for me, the most powerful aspect of cultivating a journaling practice: To have a record of what has happened so that I can see — and remember — what I have moved through, what has changed, and how I am growing. It is easily one of the most powerful practices that I engage with to increase my self-awareness, for a few reasons:
To be clear, I’m not necessarily talking about a diaristic kind of journaling. My practice is not simply scribbling about my feelings and/or what happened in my day. Sure, when something particularly dramatic or challenging or emotional happens, I do write about it to process those emotions and move the energy. But a lot of the content is simply notes on life:
If I had to sum it up, I would say that my journaling practice is simply answering the question: What are you noticing? again and again and again. And through that noticing — as well as making a regular practice of reviewing what I’ve written — a deeper awareness naturally arises. Effortlessly. So if you could use an “effortless anchor” in this moment, I would invite you to consider a light journaling practice. Just sit down a few times a week and ask yourself the question: What am I noticing? And take notes. It’s that easy. — A few quotations that reverberated as I reviewed my past two years of journals: “Love is life force.” —June Jordan “Patience is a kind of hospitality.” —Francis Weller “Humor is built on the relief of recognizing how difficult things are.” —Sasha Ravitch “Whatever we create ritual for, we need not live as melodrama.” —Caroline Casey “Healing is about the constant adaptation and creativity necessary to tune and retune our nervous system to Source.” —John Beaulieu “Everything you imagine is an investment.” —Anonymous “The aim of all human striving is to establish an all-embracing harmony with one’s environment, to be able to love in peace.” —Michael Balint “Happiness never comes through answers. It only comes when we’re so tired of answers that we just decide to live the questions fully.” —Richard Rudd “It takes a lot of courage to be who you are, and I pray that you never wish to be anyone else.” —The Ancestors “Forgiveness unlocks time.” —Anonymous
LINK ABOUT IT In defense of despair. A beautiful piece from Hanif Abdurraqib: “I remain more committed to honesty than I do to optimism.” How Silicon Valley got rich. And how everyone else can get rich too. A fascinating essay on the redistribution of wealth. I am very much enjoying watching Elle Griffin write her book We Should Own the Economy in public. Radiolab's Lulu Miller shares a bunch of amazing facts about the scrappiest, most adaptable, shapeshifter of the animal world: coyotes. Navigating by aliveness. A nice reflection from Oliver Burkeman: “An excellent question to ask yourself – when you’re facing a tough decision or wondering if you’re on the right track – is: “Does this feel like it’s taking me in the direction of greater aliveness?” We endlessly muse on the future of AI, but what inventions are we not expecting? Link ideas from: Austin Kleon and The Audacity.
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Jocelyn K. Glei
Every few weeks, I share provocative ideas about culture, consciousness, and creativity, alongside beautiful artwork, in my newsletter. I also host the Hurry Slowly podcast, teach online courses, and practice energy work. Learn more at: www.jkg.co
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