May 16, 2021. Paris.
hi beautiful souls,
i don’t have much to share this week. it’s been a strange week, full of intense and opposite emotions. i’ve been working on my little online shop, with so much excitement and eagerness, so much joy and love. while witnessing the world getting divided again, feeling unsafe and unfair and stupid. i feel like i need some space, some silence, some surrender. i feel like i need to practice receiving myself exactly the way i am a bit more than usual.
i know it’s been a challenging week for many, and probably you need some silence too, some space, some surrender, and a lot of self-acceptance.
my teacher Tanya used to say that there are three things you need to work on in life. the first one is self-acceptance. the second one is self-acceptance. the third one is self-acceptance.
can you accept exactly the way you feel especially when you don’t feel how you want to feel?
i’ll share a newsletter i wrote a few weeks back — that i felt like reading again: what if there was no side to take?
and i’ll answer this question i’ve received through the Dear Me column:
can you speak more about journaling? i always try to journal... and i give up after a week, or most entries are just what i ate for breakfast and which coworker annoyed me. how can i really get the most out of it?
journaling is my favorite self-practice and it brings me joy to know that you’re trying to get the most out of it. it is a challenging practice and in the beginning, you’ll need some discipline, you’ll need to keep going no matter what, to keep trying again and again and again.
i believe that journaling is about writing how you feel, getting to the roots of your feelings and understand where they come from. you can totally start by writing what you ate for breakfast and which coworker annoyed you, then ask yourself how you felt about it. switch a bit the focus. instead of writing about facts, write about feelings.
i ate an apple for breakfast becomes when i ate an apple for breakfast, it felt like…
if a coworker annoyed you, that’s a totally valid entry too. ask yourself why. why did he/she annoy you? how did that make you feel?
writing your feelings will help you feel them. we tend to minimize a lot what we go through, we tend to shut down our emotions. when you write about how you feel, you let go.
a few months back, i wrote some journaling tips and it feels like it’s still all there:
create a ritual. i love rituals, i think rituals are very important, they give what you do meaning and some grounding. go buy yourself a beautiful notebook and a pen with which you love to write. don’t use your notebook for anything else than journaling. keep it in a nice and safe place, like a little treasure. when you’re about to journal, close your laptop, turn the tv off, put your phone away, tell the people around you that you need some time alone. create yourself a quiet and peaceful self-space.
set a frequency. journaling is a practice. and like any other practices, you’ll get better as you practice it. the beginning will seem challenging, you won’t know what to write, why, how. journaling means facing yourself - your thoughts, your emotions and your sensations - and facing yourself is never easy. you’ll need some discipline to start. set a frequency and stick to it. maybe every two days? or twice a week? set an appointment with yourself and honor it.
set an intention. ask yourself why you want to journal. try to distance yourself from the benefits of journaling and find your own deeper motivation. we tend to set intentions with things we want to achieve or do - i want to be more centered or i want to heal my traumas. try not to do that. ask yourself how you want to feel. how would that make you feel to be more centered or to heal your traumas? and walk toward these feelings.
write for yourself. journaling is not a writing process. it is a self-practice. it doesn’t matter what you write, if it’s not well written or if it makes no sense. nobody will read it.
be honest. at some point, your journal will become your little safe space inside of which you’ll be free to be exactly who you are. build this safe space, build a trustworthy relationship with your journal - and with yourself. write exactly what you feel, how you feel. do not lie, do not pretend, do not make excuses.
ask yourself why. and this is my most important tip. there are many different ways of journaling. most people i know practice gratitude journaling, it never worked for me. my journaling practice is based on asking why. start by asking yourself how you feel, and then why you feel how you feel, and then why again and again.
how do you feel?
why do you feel how you feel?
why what made you feel how you feel made you feel how you feel?
there is this method that says that you need to ask yourself why seven times to get to the insight. i’m not sure that’s true. you’ll feel it when you’re touching the core belief. some days, you’ll be able to ask why just one time. some other days, you’ll ask why fifteen times. there is no rules.
trust the process. you’ll understand when you’ll be ready to understand. don’t try too hard. self-work is a lifelong process. every step of the way, you’ll learn new things about yourself. you’ll grow, and transform, and change. there is nothing to achieve, no goal to reach, there is no finish line. you’re travelling through yourself and this travel as no other destination than yourself.
i hope it helps. feel free to share your experience with me anytime.
i send you all so much love, and peace, and patience.
until next week,
Camille
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