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This is a sample of how to keep track of your journey.Also in the note field can be used to journal.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tips to stay on track
This is a sample of how to keep track of your journey.Also in the note field can be used to journal.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tips 1
TIPS AND TOOLS for your Daily Events
DATE:08/09/09
DURATION:2 HR
EVENT:READING
EVENT TYPE: DEVELOPMENT/EDUCATION
NOTES:
AT THE END OF THE DAY--TOTAL YOUR TIME: IN EACH OF THE FOUR EVENT TYPES
EVENTS TYPES: SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, DEVELOPMENT/EDUCATIONAL,ASSOCIATED WORK, ASSOCIATED PRACTICE
EXAMPLE OF NOTES: BOOK WHAT IS SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE BY PHILIP YANCY
DATE:08/09/09
DURATION:2 HR
EVENT:READING
EVENT TYPE: DEVELOPMENT/EDUCATION
NOTES:
AT THE END OF THE DAY--TOTAL YOUR TIME: IN EACH OF THE FOUR EVENT TYPES
EVENTS TYPES: SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, DEVELOPMENT/EDUCATIONAL,ASSOCIATED WORK, ASSOCIATED PRACTICE
EXAMPLE OF NOTES: BOOK WHAT IS SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE BY PHILIP YANCY
Journal Writing
Write an Autobiography Outline
Step 1
Begin an autobiography outline by writing the title, or working title, of the book at the top of a computer word processing file. This could be your name. Use a bold or underlined font to set it off from the rest of the outline.
Step 2
Write one or two sentences at the top of your autobiography outline explaining the reason you are writing it. Is it just a memoir or factual representation of your life? Or do you intend to focus on one aspect of life such as relationships, living with a disease or disability or your own spirituality? Deciding what the focus of the autobiography is will make the rest of the outlining process easier.
Step 3
Create a series of chronological sub-headings or chapter titles for your autobiography outline. These may include such things as: my childhood, teen years, becoming an adult, and middle age. You might also like to organize your autobiography based on locations if you moved often, or other criteria that have been present through most of your life. Give these sub-headings easy-to- understand titles and type them into the text file in bold or underline font.
Step 4
Write a few major points in your life under each sub-heading. These should ideally be indented or marked with a number or bullet. Include dates or ages with these facts. The use of the bulleted list tool in your word processing program is recommended. This part of the outline for an autobiography begins to chart which stories or information you will include in the final book. Do not include basic day-to-day events unless they impact greatly on who you are.
Step 5
Expand each event or fact in the bulleted list with dates, names and other data that explains what happened and why it impacted you and your life. This is the time to take into account the reason behind writing the autobiography that you explained in Step 2. Including details that you remember or research will help your autobiography outline be more easily translated into a quality book all about you.
unk Author
A Spiritual Autobiography is a form of journaling in which you look back at events in your life that are about your spiritual rather than material progress.
Techniques and Tips
ipsKeeping a journal is like carrying on a conversation with yourself--or with the Divine, if you prefer. As such, it is a commitment to spiritual practice. It is also a meditative process, and like all meditative exercises it requires discipline. But rather than thinking of this as the discipline to get up and run five miles every morning (which I couldn’t do in any event), try to think of it more as the discipline of working on your tennis game, or gardening, or yoga. It can be an enjoyable practice that yields rewards rather than a Bataan Death March. True, you may not feel like journaling every day, but as with meditation or yoga, you’ll usually feel better afterward. Most of the time, I hope, you’ll feel better during the process, too.
First off, you should have a journal that you can dedicate to this work. If you already have one that you use every day, that’s fine. If not, please get one—and it doesn’t matter if it’s a two-dollar spiral notebook or an expensive morocco-bound, gilt-edged classic or start your own blog. Of all the other kinds of journals I will be mentioning, the one I most heartily endorse is a dream journal. If possible, you might want to keep one in addition to your daily journal, just for the convenience of having it beside your bed at all times, and of having all your dreams in one place. If you don’t already keep track of your dreams, it’s well worth starting.
Different Journals for Different Events
Variety is a source of great pleasure in life. We think nothing of having different sets of clothing or shoes for different occasions and needs—formal, casual, sporting outfits, and so on. Likewise, although some people advise keeping everything in one journal, you will discover that journals serve varying purposes. There’s nothing wrong with using different notebooks for different needs, although you can always jumble everything into one if you feel that’s easier. Here are some examples:
Dream Notebook
I keep one journal for dreams only. I leave it next to my bed with a pen and flashlight, so it’s always ready. I don’t have to wake up with an astonishing dream and then try to remember where I last left my journal or my pen. Creative Dreaming describes a method for writing in the dark.
You can also buy pens that come with a small light bulb inside for writing in the dark. I date each dream and try to give it a title that describes the theme or action in three or four words. That way I can follow the progressions of my dreams more easily.
Daily Journal
Keep a journal for everyday writing: to get the kinks out each morning, let off steam, and sometimes come up with good ideas for writing. This is what Julia Cameron refers to as “morning pages,” which she prescribes for dissolving creative blocks. But you don’t have to be a writer or an artist to use a journal in this way. You can rediscover yourself through the creative process of journaling and as a break from ordinary reality. In the old days, some of us used to step outside the office and have a cigarette break, which did nasty things to our health. Today, you can take a journal break, and the worst physical side effect might be a little writer’s cramp.
The idea with this kind of journal is to stay in the moment and get in touch with what’s bothering you, elating you, disappointing you, paining you, challenging you, or inspiring you. If you feel stuck, write about feeling stuck. If you think the whole idea of journaling is stupid andf self-absorbed, write about that. You’re encountering the voice of your ego, which would prefer you don’t do this, or any, interior work.
A few words here about being “in the moment.” All the great spiritual masters regard present-moment awareness as a quintessential spiritual practice. And yet the present can include planning for the future, or reviewing what you did yesterday or the last ten years as a way of orienting yourself to the present. Otherwise we could never make plans or learn from our mistakes (and triumphs).
The key is to keep your perspective in the present as you scan the past and the future. Rather than sending your energy into the past through regret, use your journal to ask yourself what exactly happened, or why you feel that what happened was wrong, or why you still feel bad about it.
When you write in your daily journal, you can reach deep within yourself and be candid about your inner thoughts and feelings. A journal can see you through difficult times and help you savor the good times; it can be a storehouse of creative ideas, insights, and personal history, and a valuable ritual that adds richness and meaning to your life. Think of it as an artist’s sketchbook, where you draw brief outlines of scenes or objects to which you can return later to “paint” in more depth.
Relationship Journal
You don’t have to keep any of the other kinds of journals listed here unless you truly want to, or if you feel stuck with your daily journaling. For instance, you can use a separate journal to track an important relationship. It might be a romantic union, but not necessarily. It could also be a business relationship, or the re-establishment of a relationship with a parent, child, distant relative, with your ex, or an old friend.
The beauty of journaling your relationship is that you can go back later to examine its development over time. By charting its twists and turns, especially those moments when you or your partner acted out of sheer emotionalism, you may be able to find key points where the relationship either progressed or went awry. If it’s easier for you to keep this kind of journal rather than the Daily Journal mentioned above, then give it a try. People keep all kinds of other journals, such as gardening or cooking journals, or journals devoted to family history, a specific support group, or a spiritual practice they are following. There are lots of possibilities, and if you find that you enjoy journaling, you may want to try one of those eventually.
Other Strategies
A number of specific strategies may help you get started within the context of a daily journal when nothing seems to come to you on the day you sit down to write. One method is to do what most creative people do. Although you may not think of journaling as an art form, it does require a certain amount of creativity, the essence of which is to generate something from nothing. That is in itself the archetype of the Creator, based on Genesis and countless other creation stories and myths.
Creative artists are often thinking about their work even when they’re not sitting at the typewriter, in front of an easel, behind the camera, or with saxophone in hand. There are plenty of times during the day when your hands are occupied but your mind is relatively free, say, when you’re driving a familiar route, out walking or running, doing laundry, cooking, or raking leaves. Let this awareness grow in your mind so that when you finally have a few minutes to sit down with your journal, you’re ready to go. The great English playwright Harold Pinter used to marvel at how much work his subconscious did for him in between writing sessions, often having whole new plot elements and characters appear as if by magic.
It wasn’t entirely magic, of course. Pinter’s imagination had been actively engaged in creating characters, settings, plot, and dialogue. He probably thought about things off and on between structured writing sessions, but his subconscious mind continued to work as well, perhaps during the dream and deep sleep states. And so when he sat down to write, his unconscious had advanced the plot.
He still needed to put it on paper, just as Mozart, who claimed to hear complete compositions in his mind, still had to get them all notated. But the writing becomes easier for having done some subconscious homework. Finally, get in the habit of carrying a small, inexpensive memo pad with you, the kind that easily fits in your shirt pocket or purse. Jot down ideas or questions during the day, and use this as the raw material for your next journaling session at home.
Peter
Step 1
Begin an autobiography outline by writing the title, or working title, of the book at the top of a computer word processing file. This could be your name. Use a bold or underlined font to set it off from the rest of the outline.
Step 2
Write one or two sentences at the top of your autobiography outline explaining the reason you are writing it. Is it just a memoir or factual representation of your life? Or do you intend to focus on one aspect of life such as relationships, living with a disease or disability or your own spirituality? Deciding what the focus of the autobiography is will make the rest of the outlining process easier.
Step 3
Create a series of chronological sub-headings or chapter titles for your autobiography outline. These may include such things as: my childhood, teen years, becoming an adult, and middle age. You might also like to organize your autobiography based on locations if you moved often, or other criteria that have been present through most of your life. Give these sub-headings easy-to- understand titles and type them into the text file in bold or underline font.
Step 4
Write a few major points in your life under each sub-heading. These should ideally be indented or marked with a number or bullet. Include dates or ages with these facts. The use of the bulleted list tool in your word processing program is recommended. This part of the outline for an autobiography begins to chart which stories or information you will include in the final book. Do not include basic day-to-day events unless they impact greatly on who you are.
Step 5
Expand each event or fact in the bulleted list with dates, names and other data that explains what happened and why it impacted you and your life. This is the time to take into account the reason behind writing the autobiography that you explained in Step 2. Including details that you remember or research will help your autobiography outline be more easily translated into a quality book all about you.
unk Author
A Spiritual Autobiography is a form of journaling in which you look back at events in your life that are about your spiritual rather than material progress.
Techniques and Tips
ipsKeeping a journal is like carrying on a conversation with yourself--or with the Divine, if you prefer. As such, it is a commitment to spiritual practice. It is also a meditative process, and like all meditative exercises it requires discipline. But rather than thinking of this as the discipline to get up and run five miles every morning (which I couldn’t do in any event), try to think of it more as the discipline of working on your tennis game, or gardening, or yoga. It can be an enjoyable practice that yields rewards rather than a Bataan Death March. True, you may not feel like journaling every day, but as with meditation or yoga, you’ll usually feel better afterward. Most of the time, I hope, you’ll feel better during the process, too.
First off, you should have a journal that you can dedicate to this work. If you already have one that you use every day, that’s fine. If not, please get one—and it doesn’t matter if it’s a two-dollar spiral notebook or an expensive morocco-bound, gilt-edged classic or start your own blog. Of all the other kinds of journals I will be mentioning, the one I most heartily endorse is a dream journal. If possible, you might want to keep one in addition to your daily journal, just for the convenience of having it beside your bed at all times, and of having all your dreams in one place. If you don’t already keep track of your dreams, it’s well worth starting.
Different Journals for Different Events
Variety is a source of great pleasure in life. We think nothing of having different sets of clothing or shoes for different occasions and needs—formal, casual, sporting outfits, and so on. Likewise, although some people advise keeping everything in one journal, you will discover that journals serve varying purposes. There’s nothing wrong with using different notebooks for different needs, although you can always jumble everything into one if you feel that’s easier. Here are some examples:
Dream Notebook
I keep one journal for dreams only. I leave it next to my bed with a pen and flashlight, so it’s always ready. I don’t have to wake up with an astonishing dream and then try to remember where I last left my journal or my pen. Creative Dreaming describes a method for writing in the dark.
You can also buy pens that come with a small light bulb inside for writing in the dark. I date each dream and try to give it a title that describes the theme or action in three or four words. That way I can follow the progressions of my dreams more easily.
Daily Journal
Keep a journal for everyday writing: to get the kinks out each morning, let off steam, and sometimes come up with good ideas for writing. This is what Julia Cameron refers to as “morning pages,” which she prescribes for dissolving creative blocks. But you don’t have to be a writer or an artist to use a journal in this way. You can rediscover yourself through the creative process of journaling and as a break from ordinary reality. In the old days, some of us used to step outside the office and have a cigarette break, which did nasty things to our health. Today, you can take a journal break, and the worst physical side effect might be a little writer’s cramp.
The idea with this kind of journal is to stay in the moment and get in touch with what’s bothering you, elating you, disappointing you, paining you, challenging you, or inspiring you. If you feel stuck, write about feeling stuck. If you think the whole idea of journaling is stupid andf self-absorbed, write about that. You’re encountering the voice of your ego, which would prefer you don’t do this, or any, interior work.
A few words here about being “in the moment.” All the great spiritual masters regard present-moment awareness as a quintessential spiritual practice. And yet the present can include planning for the future, or reviewing what you did yesterday or the last ten years as a way of orienting yourself to the present. Otherwise we could never make plans or learn from our mistakes (and triumphs).
The key is to keep your perspective in the present as you scan the past and the future. Rather than sending your energy into the past through regret, use your journal to ask yourself what exactly happened, or why you feel that what happened was wrong, or why you still feel bad about it.
When you write in your daily journal, you can reach deep within yourself and be candid about your inner thoughts and feelings. A journal can see you through difficult times and help you savor the good times; it can be a storehouse of creative ideas, insights, and personal history, and a valuable ritual that adds richness and meaning to your life. Think of it as an artist’s sketchbook, where you draw brief outlines of scenes or objects to which you can return later to “paint” in more depth.
Relationship Journal
You don’t have to keep any of the other kinds of journals listed here unless you truly want to, or if you feel stuck with your daily journaling. For instance, you can use a separate journal to track an important relationship. It might be a romantic union, but not necessarily. It could also be a business relationship, or the re-establishment of a relationship with a parent, child, distant relative, with your ex, or an old friend.
The beauty of journaling your relationship is that you can go back later to examine its development over time. By charting its twists and turns, especially those moments when you or your partner acted out of sheer emotionalism, you may be able to find key points where the relationship either progressed or went awry. If it’s easier for you to keep this kind of journal rather than the Daily Journal mentioned above, then give it a try. People keep all kinds of other journals, such as gardening or cooking journals, or journals devoted to family history, a specific support group, or a spiritual practice they are following. There are lots of possibilities, and if you find that you enjoy journaling, you may want to try one of those eventually.
Other Strategies
A number of specific strategies may help you get started within the context of a daily journal when nothing seems to come to you on the day you sit down to write. One method is to do what most creative people do. Although you may not think of journaling as an art form, it does require a certain amount of creativity, the essence of which is to generate something from nothing. That is in itself the archetype of the Creator, based on Genesis and countless other creation stories and myths.
Creative artists are often thinking about their work even when they’re not sitting at the typewriter, in front of an easel, behind the camera, or with saxophone in hand. There are plenty of times during the day when your hands are occupied but your mind is relatively free, say, when you’re driving a familiar route, out walking or running, doing laundry, cooking, or raking leaves. Let this awareness grow in your mind so that when you finally have a few minutes to sit down with your journal, you’re ready to go. The great English playwright Harold Pinter used to marvel at how much work his subconscious did for him in between writing sessions, often having whole new plot elements and characters appear as if by magic.
It wasn’t entirely magic, of course. Pinter’s imagination had been actively engaged in creating characters, settings, plot, and dialogue. He probably thought about things off and on between structured writing sessions, but his subconscious mind continued to work as well, perhaps during the dream and deep sleep states. And so when he sat down to write, his unconscious had advanced the plot.
He still needed to put it on paper, just as Mozart, who claimed to hear complete compositions in his mind, still had to get them all notated. But the writing becomes easier for having done some subconscious homework. Finally, get in the habit of carrying a small, inexpensive memo pad with you, the kind that easily fits in your shirt pocket or purse. Jot down ideas or questions during the day, and use this as the raw material for your next journaling session at home.
Peter
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