276 I'm Begging You to Start Journaling

0:00David:I am begging you to start journaling. And I know how that sounds because journaling feels like one of those things everybody tells you that you should do. You write down your thoughts, you keep a gratitude journal, you write down your goals. And I think because we've heard all of that so many times, we've completely underestimated what journaling actually is and what it's capable of doing. I actually believe there's no tool or process more powerful for your personal growth than journaling. And the reason for that is that journaling hits more points around personal transformation than almost any other simple or even complex process that I've ever seen. It works on your mind, it works on your emotions, it works through your body, it changes the way that you process information. And if you approach it in a particular way, it can even become a form of communion, a way of accessing insights and information that seem to come from somewhere beyond your ordinary thinking mind. So in this episode, I want to explain why journaling is so powerful, what's actually happening when you write, and then I'm going to teach you the specific 10 to 15 minute journaling process that I use myself. This practice is so potent that if you told me you were going to burn all my tools and processes and frameworks and let me keep only one, it would be this one. So let's get into it.

David:Welcome to A Changed Mind, a journey into the topics that matter to you most, from the neuroscience and spirituality of mindset and personal growth to ground groundbreaking strategies for health, wealth, and relationships, to open and honest conversations about pressing global issues such as the environment, censorship, corporate capture, and democracy. Each and every episode reminds us of the certainty of the goodness of the future and provides the teachings, tools, and timeless wisdom inspiring you to create real lasting change in your life and in the world. If you've been desiring a sanctuary for your spirit, a place to go to tune out the distraction, negativity, and doom and gloom, So that you can tap into the deep power, the vibrancy, and the potential you have inside, you're in the right place. Welcome to A Changed Mind.

David:All right, guys, here's what I really want you to understand before we get into this. Most personal growth practices, they work on one, maybe two dimensions of transformation. Meditation, for example, changes your relationship with your thoughts. Therapy can help you understand and process your emotions. Visualization helps you develop a relationship with a future that hasn't happened yet. Prayer connects you to something greater than yourself, but journaling is unique because it can do almost all of these things at the same time. Journaling recruits nearly the entire transformational system at once, and all you need is a pen and a piece of paper. That's why I think this practice is so ridiculously underestimated. So I'm gonna give you 5 different unlocks that journaling facilitates, which is why I think journaling may be one of the most powerful personal growth practices ever, and then I'm gonna show you exactly how to do it. So unlock number 1, journaling unlocks access to the subconscious mind. So the first reason journaling is so powerful is that by writing with your hand, you're slowing down your thought process so that you can gain access to the real information that sits behind the speed of your mind.

David:Okay?

David:Think about what happens when you're journaling in an intentional way. You're writing the first word of a sentence, and you don't always know what the last word of that sentence is going to be until you get there. And there've been plenty of times where I start writing a sentence with something like, I don't feel like, and my mind will say something like doing any work today. But by the time I get to the second half of the sentence, my hand writes, anybody cares about me? Wow. That's an insight. In fact, what I found is that oftentimes the false problem is what the mind articulates. In this case, I don't feel like doing any work today, but the real problem, the reason I feel like procrastinating is because I don't feel like anybody cares about me or cares about the work that I would do today. Now, when you write, you open up the channel for that quiet subconscious whisper to express itself within the space that you've created by slowing down. That's very different than when you speak. If you ever notice when you're speaking with a friend, before you start speaking, you generally know where you're finishing. You may not know every single word that you're going to use, but you know the thought. You know what you're trying to say because you're functioning inside of the processing speed of your inner computer, which is your mind. But when you're writing, your hand can't keep up with the speed of your mind. And so there's this space that opens up. There's almost a communicating or a connection between you and the space. And in the space, there's new insights. There's new information. It's where the part of you that's been dominated by the mind has a little room to breathe, to express itself. You know, a lot of times when I journal, I'll have revelations and breakthroughs within things that I wrote, almost as if someone else was writing them. I'll literally read something I just wrote and think, where did that come from? I didn't know that I knew that, or I felt that, which is interesting because you could argue that someone else was writing it through me. And maybe you call that your subconscious. Maybe you call it intuition or an inner child or a higher power, but by slowing down the mind, I made myself available to information that I wasn't available to access before. And I wouldn't say that writing bypasses the mind. I think it sort of sits next to it. It sidesteps the mind. And there's a big difference. You're still conscious. You're still there. You're still writing, but you've slowed down the machinery enough that something else has the possibility of coming through. And I think that's one of the reasons people will journal about a problem that they've been thinking about for weeks. And suddenly write down the answer, right? The answer may have been there the whole time. They just weren't able to hear it because they were thinking too quickly to be able to. Unlock number 2, journaling programs your brain and the field. So the second reason writing is really powerful is because of the movement of your hands. In fact, at a recent event that we had, we encouraged everybody at one point to get off all their computers, pull out a pen and pad, and start writing. And there's a reason for that. There's actually neuroscience that shows that when you write something by hand, you're engaging much more of your brain than when you're typing it or simply thinking about it. You're involving the movement of the body in the creation of the thought, and you're building connections in your brain associated with what you're writing. In other words, you're not just thinking the idea, you're impressing the idea onto your actual neurology. You're building the memory in a really, really concrete way. And I think there's something much deeper going on here as well, because writing is intimately connected to spelling. And I know this is going to sound a little strange to some people, but the ancients understood the power of symbols, of spelling, and spellcasting, right? The ancients used very specific geometry and symbology in the form of runes. The word rune comes from an Old English root meaning secret or mystery. And historically, in occult practices, they were associated with magic. So across ancient spiritual and magical traditions, from Egyptian esotericism to the Vikings, even early Christianity, people treated the act of inscription as something powerful. Writing wasn't always understood as simply recording something. It could be a part of a prayer, a ritual, an intention, some form of creation. And I think there's something really interesting about that because when you write something, you're taking something that was previously a thought form or just an idea. And you're beginning to give it physical form. Think about that. You have a thought, nobody can see it, and then your hand moves, the pen touches the paper, and now it's here in the physical world. It's material. And that's why teachers of the law of attraction, particularly in the early 2000s when everybody was talking about this stuff, would always say, write down your goals. Why? Because you're impressing yourself through movement into the field. You're taking something that exists as thought and you're beginning to crystallize it into physical form. I think about it like dropping a stone into a lake. Like the moment the pen touches the paper, there's the first impression, and then the ripple goes out and eventually it can materialize into reality. Now, I can't scientifically prove to you that writing something on a piece of paper changes some external energetic field. I'm sure somebody could run that experiment, but here's what I can tell you. It changes you, and you are the one who's going to make the decisions, notice the opportunities, have the conversations, and take the actions that create your life. So whether you want to understand this neurologically, psychologically, spiritually, or all 3, the act of writing matters. You're not just recording the thought, you're making an impression with it. Unlock number 3, journaling gives your emotions permission to flow. So the 3rd reason journaling is so powerful Is that journaling is a path to emotional freedom because there are things that we hold inside of ourselves that create blocks. And the information is held in the body. You're angry, you're jealous. You don't feel like you're good enough. You're scared. Maybe you're resentful towards somebody and you don't want to admit it. And sometimes it's really hard to just allow those feelings. And so we hold them up, we keep them inside. So what ends up happening is we resist them. We judge them. We try to think our way out of them, but expressing through writing how you truly feel gives those feelings permission to move because it's almost impossible to write without feeling. Like if I sit down and I actually write, I'm angry, and then I write why I'm angry, and then I write what I wish I could say, and then I write what I'm afraid is going to happen, I'm starting to feel something. The writing becomes a mechanism that gives permission to the feelings to flow. And as the feelings flow, you begin to flow. That's the important part because so much of what we call being stuck is really just energy that we're unwilling to allow to move. And journaling gives it movement. So you don't have to show it to anybody. You don't have to make it sound enlightened. You don't have to write what you think you're supposed to feel. You can write the truth and the truth has movement in it. That's why sometimes you can journal for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes about something that's been bothering you for 3 months. And when you're finished, the situation hasn't changed at all, but you have. And now you're relating to the situation differently. That's freedom. Unlock number 4, journaling amplifies positive emotions. So the 4th unlock is almost the opposite of the 3rd. Writing doesn't just give you a mechanism to release the feelings that you don't want to continue carrying. It also gives you a way to reinforce the feelings that you want more of. So gratitude is a great example. You can think, I'm grateful for my wife. That's beautiful. But the thought takes 2 seconds. Now sit down and write, God, thank you for my wife. Thank you for this thing that she did yesterday. Thank you for the way she loves me. Thank you for the life that we've created. See, when you do that, you're spending more time in the idea that's motivating the appreciation. You're sustaining the neurological experience of appreciation. And I think that's the key. You're not just thinking about gratitude. You're giving yourself the time to actually experience grateful. You're expressing it through your body. You're moving your hand. You're staying in the experience and you're reinforcing that gratitude more deeply into yourself. And if you want to use the language that I use, you're imprinting it also into the field. So journaling does this really interesting thing. It gives what needs to leave a pathway out. And it gives what you want to cultivate a pathway in. And that's super powerful. Unlock number 5, journaling deepens your relationship with God. Now, this may sound like an overpromise, but this is what I found to be true. The 5th reason is probably the most personal for me. Journaling can become a form of relationship building with your higher power. Could be God, Jesus, Allah, nature, the universe, whatever it is for you. If in fact you want to have a deeper relationship with it, I'm not saying you should or You need to, but if you want to, journaling is one of the best ways to commune with your higher power. Why? Well, think about it. If you want to have a deep relationship with someone, if you want to feel connected to someone, if you want to be able to understand and hear someone, then that requires regular communication with them. Parents, in particular mothers, will talk about how they can sense when their child is in danger, even if they're separated by great distances. If you talk to people in intimate relationships where a couple has spent years together, they know each other so well that they can finish each other's sentences. There's a kind of syncing of nervous systems that takes place in deep, intimate relationships. And that's based on regular, ongoing, safe, authentic communication. And this is actually what led me to develop my own journaling process. I've talked about this in other episodes, but people have had such extraordinary results with it that I wanted to share it again here. I call it communion journaling, and it came out of a desire that I had A little over a year ago to have a deeper personal relationship with my higher power. I wanted a deeper relationship with God. I felt like I had a relationship with the universe, but it didn't feel very personal. I believed in God, but I wanted to feel a very personal relationship with the God of my own understanding. And I had this burning desire. And then an idea came to me and I dismissed it at first. The idea was to wake up early and go down into my podcast studio and to write. To write to God. And I was like, nah, that feels kind of inconvenient. I'm not a big fan of waking up early. And then my wife said one day, a few weeks later, hey, you know, you haven't been sleeping very well, but rather than just continuing to try to squeeze in extra sleep and then sleeping until 7:30 or 8, why don't you go down to your podcast room and journal or something like that? And I was like, no, I don't think that's going to happen either. And then a few weeks later, I did this really deep transformational breathwork session during which my body literally sat up and I started writing in the air. And I was like, okay, I get the message. I don't need to be struck by lightning. I will get up and I will write. So the next day I wake up around 6 o'clock in the morning. I come down to the podcast room. I had no idea what I was going to do. There was no journaling prompt. There was not some process somebody had taught me. I literally, I just sat down. I put my pen in my hand and I touched the pad of my journal with the pen and I started writing and the words just started flowing. And at first I just started thanking God for pretty much everything. It was really beautiful. It was almost like this long way overdue pen pal letter. I was like, God, you gave me all these amazing things in my life. I don't know that I've ever really sat down and properly said thank you. So thank you. And so I started thanking God for my wife, for my son, for my business, for my mission, for my house, for my friends, for my sobriety, for my awareness, for my consciousness, for my life, for the opportunities that I had. And I just kept writing, just poured out of me. And what happened was I got so deeply into the frequency of appreciation, not because I was trying to practice gratitude or do a gratitude list, but because I was actually having a conversation. And then I had this kind of feeling take over me very much like my son who was 3 years old at the time, who just asked for this, Daddy, I want this, Daddy, I want that. And he's relentless about it. He knows that like, if I ask, I'm going to get this thing and I deserve this thing and I'm entitled to this thing. Because he's a, you know, a narcissistic toddler who asks for a lot of things. And so once I finished thanking God, I just started asking for things. I was like, hey, I want this, I want that. Here's what I want. Give me this. Let my work be heard by millions of people. Let the building of my business be easy. Let my sleep improve. Let me have an even more amazing relationship with my wife, right? Just give it to me. I want this, I want that. I was like a spoiled child of God. And what was cool was that while I was asking, I had this knowingness that according to God's will, I would receive everything I asked for because I knew who I was in relationship with. I was asking the creator of all things, and I felt that relationship. It was almost like I was sitting with God down in my man cave. And that changes the energy of asking because you're not sitting there thinking, okay, maybe this will happen. Maybe it won't. How do I figure out how to make this happen? I had this experience that the moment I asked, it was going to be done for me. And then after I felt this conviction that I would have the things that I was asking God for, I had another thought. It was like, wow, I should probably ask for other people too. And so I started praying for other people. I know I should pray for other people, but it's not something that I was doing on the regular. And man, I saw what I was writing and it was powerful. It was beautiful. Like, you ever hear people like do these powerful prayers, like a really Amazing preacher. Like, that's what was coming out of my fingertips. I was praying for people in my family. I was praying for people who I knew were struggling. I was praying for people who needed help. And then that became my process. It wasn't something I sat down and engineered. It emerged naturally out of the experience. And it's incredibly simple. Number 1, I thank God. Number 2, I ask God. And number 3, I ask God on behalf of others. I pray for other people. That's what I call communion journaling. It takes me 5 to 15 minutes, depending on what shows up. I don't do it every morning, but when I do, man, I come out of this podcast room, like lit up for the day. I feel connected. I feel grateful. I feel like I'm in a real relationship with the creator of the universe. And honestly, as I'm talking about it right now, I'm wondering why I don't do it every day. I guess because there are some days where I just have more to learn by suffering, but that's how powerful this process is. And so I'm begging you to start journaling. Not because it's another personal development habit that you're supposed to check off the list, but because there's information inside of you that you may not be able to hear at the speed that you're currently moving. There are feelings inside of you that need somewhere to go. There are thoughts and intentions that become more powerful when you physically impress them onto a page. And there may even be a relationship available to you with your higher power, with God, with something greater than yourself that you simply haven't created enough space to experience. So my invitation is get a pen, get a pad, give yourself about 15 minutes. And if you don't know what to write, start the way that I started. Say thank you, ask for what you want, and then ask for somebody else and just see what comes through. And by the way, before I let you go, this is one great tool that I'm suggesting you try out, Communion Journaling. And I have another one for you. I know that about 10,000 of you have gone through it over the last 30 days, and the reviews are just amazing. There's a link in the description of today's episode. It's absolutely free. You're going to find a David AI-powered assessment. It takes 3 minutes. It will give you a full assessment of your current mindset, help you identify your top 3 limiting beliefs, and walk you step by step through a really powerful tool that we have for transforming your limiting beliefs. It's absolutely free. It's my gift to you to help you take your personal growth and mindset one step further after today's episode. And please, if you haven't yet, subscribe. It is the way we're able to get this work out to more and more people. We've grown from less than 100,000 subscribers to over half a million this year, and I want you to be a part of that growth with me. Just hit the subscribe button and the bell icon so that you can get notifications twice a week when new episodes come out. And if you love this episode as much as I loved sharing it with you, pay it forward and share it with someone who needs to hear it today. I love you so much. Thank you for being here with me, and I will see you in the next episode. Hey, it's David.

David:One more thing. If you want to go even deeper on everything we've talked about on today's episode, don't forget to jump over to www.davidbaire.com. You can find the link in the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. A couple of times a week, I'm going to be sending you the latest episodes that we've released along with additional free trainings. You'll get immediate access to my free mind hack ebook and go even deeper into all the tools, the technology, the the frameworks that have helped tens of thousands of people establish a changed mind. Don't forget to jump on over to the site, and I will see you in the next episode.