Only a few days ago I stated here that I wouldn’t continue to post on the subject of journaling despite having found it to be a valuable tool in my own life. I am concerned that readers may not find it an interesting subject.

Yesterday, I went out to lunch with a reader facing a health challenge, and she asked me about journaling. Our conversation prompted me to revisit the subject. I decided to offer the following additional thoughts on the subject.

. . .

Journaling Helps Us Understand Hidden Patterns Of Our Lives

Reading old journal and outline notes helps me to see what richly layered beings we are. I recognize odd currents in my work, repeating words and images, patterns, as if we were each embedded with private themes, symbols that could help unlock the mysteries of our existence... Working with journals helps me to remember how vulnerable I make myself within the creative act and how vigilant I must be to stay honest.
      - Diana Abu-Jaber, novelist including Origin, The Language of Baklava and Crescent.

Journaling is a tool for cultivating a friendship with yourself, with your quiet interior. That friendship is the basis of resourcefulness. Your quiet interior is a place of wisdom and peace. The Journal can help you explore the patterns that have emerged in your life—the patterns that have helped, and patterns that have repeatedly been associated with setbacks.

Journaling can be used in conjunction with meditation to explore the choices we’ve made in the past, and the options that currently confront us. It can help:

• Find the organic purpose that is seeking to unfold in your life.
• Recognize the pattern that is present beneath the surface of our life, the connective thread of our existence.
• Establish a harmony with the inner movement of our lives. 
• Discover the goal of our life, the great experiment of each individual existence.

I’ve been keeping a journal off and on for 45 years. I’ll often go back and read journals from decades ago. It often surprises me that the challenges I had then are the same challenges I have now. These are recurring dramas that have emerged out of self-defeating patterns I haven’t come to terms with and dealt with. In friends that I’ve had for decades I see similar tendencies. Their specifics are different. Their recurring setbacks and challenges are different, but the point is that journaling can help us understand the current that underlies our lives, the patterns –- those that help and those that defeat us – and come to terms with them. Or overcome them, if the desire to do so is strong enough.

Journaling question:  What do old journal notes tell you about the patterns of your life? What do they tell you about how your challenges in life are changing, or remaining the same?