Winter, a time to Reflect

19 July

Journaling that will support you

We are all 😷 in this COVID lockdown together which means our normal lives may have been put on hold or changed. This can mean that the routines that keep us on track are not available or they have to be changed. Would you like some time to reflect?

This Winter Self-Care Journaling is part of my Winter Self-Care Routine. Check out my previous blogs under this topic for a comprehensive Winter Self-Care Routine including a Winter Self-Care 🧘‍♂️Yoga Sequence and 🍴Recipe.

I hear so many people say to me “I want to journal, but I have never actually done it. I start but then just scribble and doodle and never take it anywhere to be of benefit for me.”

I recommend you try Journaling combined with my Winter Self-Care Routine.

Now is a great time to take advantage of the fact that you are not restricted by your normal routine (travel to work, dropping the kids off, going to the gym) and so on….

This means you can use this time to make positive supportive Winter Self-Care changes.

The Benefits of Journaling

💚 Journaling, allows you to track your symptoms or common thoughts in order to improve your wellbeing and set future goals

Often painful and/or negative thoughts can rise to the surface. This can be destructive because as humans we tend to continue to say the 🛑same negative things to ourselves over and over again. This could result in persistent negativity in your subconscious

💚 Journaling helps you prioritise any problems, fears and concerns and this means you can clearly identify and address any issues that have the potential to impact you negatively

💚 It allows you to move towards setting fresh new goals. This gives you the chance to reflect and decide what is important to you moving forwards

⏳ This can be a time to give YOU time for YOU, especially during Winter

*MY TIP: It can sometimes be hard to come to terms with our honest thoughts, about our life goals, work, career, family, relationships, fitness, health, our body, hobbies and the endless list of ‘things’ that are relevant to our lives. Journaling can be a useful tool.

📌The Natural Element methods to Journal and reflect this Winter:

Use this in combination with your Winter Self-Care Routine.

Shift your focus from any negatives and do a PIN in the morning to #pin point# your thoughts this Winter.

1. Start with something Positive in your life, what are you thankful for today?

2. What is Interesting in your life, and how does it affect you?

3. Negative, what has impacted you negatively and how has it shaped you into who you are today? What do you want to change to stop that negativity in your life?

📅 Start on a daily basis with small PIN points

*MY TIP: Start with small PIN points that are easy and achievable. Consistency is key here. There are many methods to journal (just google journaling) and no one method is correct or incorrect. You need to find what works for you. Remember there is no right or wrong, it’s what works for you.

My Process for Dealing with Negative Thoughts

5mins of Breathing

I often do this process but through meditation, so I start by sitting in a quiet but beautiful place and spend about five minutes just focusing on my breathing, being conscious of the flow of air in and out, and just acknowledging any thoughts that want to race into my head and then dismissing them.

Try to keep bringing your focus back to a slow long breath using the diaphragm to breathe deeply into the abdomen.

5-10mins Focus on one Repetitive Negative Thought

After the five minutes of breathing, I will then spend five to ten minutes focusing on one of my repetitive negative thoughts. I try and trace this thought back to when it first started. I might only be able on some days to go back a day or a week, but sometimes I find myself reminded of negative childhood thoughts. Often these are where our adult negative thoughts start.

2 mins Alter Perception and Plant Seed of Positive Association

After five to ten minutes, I then focus on altering my perception of this negative thought and plant the seed of a positive association with it. For example, I have negative thoughts about cooking, which dates back to my childhood where my mother, being a very good cook, was judgmental of how I helped her in the kitchen and that my efforts as a child were not praised but were criticised. It made me not want to cook. It made me feel hopeless and I stubbornly refused to help in the kitchen.

What happened?

After this I was able to plan how to change how I felt about cooking and producing beautiful meals. I started collecting cookbooks and making all sorts of weird and wonderful meals. Some good, some not so good. I did not give up but found that despite how I had related my mother to cooking and not being very good at it, I had learned a lot from her, and once I acknowledged that my cooking improved. I now love to cook and have done years and years of retreats with a major focus on whole food for healing. All the retreat participants love my food and truly feel the benefits of whole organic cooking. Check out one of my recipes below if you missed it 👇🏼

*MY TIP: Try to focus on only one thought in a meditation session. Don’t get distracted by many different thoughts that may enter your mind.

Keep a notepad next to you and jot down the thoughts that enter your mind so you do not forget them and can focus on them on a later day.

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Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts on my Winter Self Care Journaling and most importantly how you feel before and after in the comments below. Have you seen a reduction in your negative thoughts? tell us what worked for you?

Lisa x 🙏