2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
One of the most useful tools for long-term self-development is a workbook, diary or journal.
The diary is designed to record your inner life in its development. External events can also be recorded, but the central place should be occupied by a gradually developing awareness of yourself and the world, as well as new meanings, values and relationships that you manage to discover.
This serves a number of purposes. First of all, you will be able to more clearly express your thoughts, feelings and observations. In addition, by writing them down, you more and more reveal yourself to yourself. By trying to write something down, you are undoubtedly doing more than just thinking or talking about it. As you write down, your thought becomes clearer and more definite, as you have to choose one point of view from several possible ones. This reduces the likelihood of involuntary self-deception, when a person, unknowingly, adheres to several opposite points of view.
By keeping records, you can more quickly identify the problem to be resolved or the dead end in which you find yourself - and thereby take the first step towards getting out of the situation.
Taking notes is also a powerful stimulant to the creative process
It is known that when a problem is to be solved, it is enough to write down a few thoughts about this in order to trigger the emergence of new ideas related to them. And these ideas, in turn, open up new approaches to the problem, new opportunities that a person has not previously thought about. If you learn to expand the horizon of your thinking in this way, you will be sincerely amazed at the depth of your ability to penetrate the essence of things. An ability that awaits its release.
As a method of self-development, the diary has other useful aspects. It allows you to express any destructive emotions that overwhelm you in a completely harmless way.
By learning to "let off steam" through the recordings, you will find a means of releasing internal tension and will be able to find out what caused the latter. In addition, taking notes is a good exercise in developing concentration, attention, and volitional control skills. For a timid person who is reluctant to express his thoughts in direct communication, this can help to reveal himself more freely. Thus, since the workbook is kept exclusively on personal initiative, which a person shows at the moments of conscious inclusion in the process of self-knowledge and self-development, it can become an important tool for the implementation of psychosynthesis.
In addition to textual materials, drawings and other images can also be entered into a workbook. They can be of very different kinds.
First, it can be images that appeared to you in dreams, fantasies or visualizations.
Second, diagrams, abstract symbols, and other visuals that can be used to graphically express ideas.
The latter contributes to the development of clear ideas and helps to share them with other people. And finally, there is the so-called "automatic drawing", which is done in a state of distracted attention or when attention is focused on something else - for example, when you, thinking about something, mechanically move a pen over paper. Such drawings reflect the work of the subconscious and can be used in order to gain a deeper understanding of oneself. Thus, they can become a full part of the workbook.
The following are the names of possible topics for consideration in the workbook. Based on your experience and needs, you might choose the ones that are most valuable to you. Of course, you can revise your choice at any time.
It is very important to date each entry in order to have a clear picture of your development in the future.
Dialogue with ideas: include the name of any area that you would like to delve deeper into - for example, parenting, mathematics, systems theory, ecology, etc.
Dialogue with other people: discoveries or questions related to interpersonal relationships.
Dialogue with events: your reaction to the most significant events in your life; note instances of obvious "synchronicity" (significant simultaneity of events, "collapse").
Internal dialogues: a variety of thoughts, reflections, premonitions, problems or reflections that are not included in other sections.
Dreams: description, context, associations, in-depth reflection on your dreams (which are easiest to write down immediately after waking up).
Thought images: visualization or experience of another sensory modality. This may include images that arise spontaneously or through the use of guided imagery techniques. They can be recorded using notes or drawings. It is useful to record the feelings and associations that arise in connection with this or that image or some of its parts (shape, color, etc.), note what it means to you, as well as its supposed interpretation, if any.
Imagination: fantasies, stories, situations, etc. that can trigger the imagination. It is advisable to limit this section to images that carry a certain creative charge.
Diagrams: graphic models of theoretical constructions (although they can be included in the section "Dialogue with ideas"). They will help you express your thoughts in a visual form, which can be helpful in gaining the skills to visualize your thoughts.
Meditation: notes on meditation techniques you have experimented with; initial objects of meditation, results achieved. Notice any intuitive insights gained this way.
I: notes about the defining features of your personality, answers to the question "Who am I?"; experience gained through "self-remembering" and the use of other methods of questioning about the essence of one's being.
Will: notes about the experience of applying volitional efforts, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Note all situations and related circumstances in which you deliberately used your volitional qualities; note the results of willpower exercises.
Self-development methods: experience of using methods that were not included in other sections. Record as fully as possible the circumstances in which certain methods helped (did not help) you, as well as your opinion about the reasons underlying the success or failure in the application of this or that method.
Peak experiences: "strong" or "deep" experiences of peace, joy, love, expansion of consciousness, enlightenment, etc.; the circumstances and results of these experiences.
Difficulties: weaknesses that you know about and that you would like to get rid of. Particular attention should be paid to the methods with which you are trying to do this. Also, record any pronounced negative reactions to other people - this can help you identify your not yet realized problems that are being projected onto others.
Time perspective: feeling of one's movement in time - from the past to the present and from the present to the future. You can mark the milestones of your life path, "forks" (the roads that you went or did not go), memories.
From the book "Workshop on Psychosynthesis. Twelve Classical Exercises" by Tom Yeoumens
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