The Most Overlooked Practice in Personal Growth

So there are effectively two well-known practices when we're doing inner work or we're healing, maybe we're even in therapy. And if you're in therapy or if you've been there before, you were probably asked or encouraged to do one or both of these two practices. And I'm talking about journaling and meditation. Those are the two. But there's a third one that I want to talk about today. It's really, really powerful, but it's overlooked and no one talks about it. So here it is. What is this third practice? But before I tell you what it is, it's interesting because I can almost guarantee you that you have been told at some point in your life not to do it. Okay, I can almost. So let's come back to that. Let's see if that's true for you when I tell you what it is. And you were probably also told that it was a waste of your time or that when you're doing it, you're wasting your time. So isn't that interesting? I think it's probably, it's actually a thing that bridges meditation and journaling and makes the two of them. It sort of helps us integrate them. So journaling is really about, I would say, particularly useful when you are feeling stuck or helpless or powerlessness in life. Journaling helps us to, there's a concentration aspect to it in that you are focusing on issues. You're willing to now look at problems more honestly. So that's the concentration aspect of what's involved in journaling. And meditation, I would say, is probably more appropriate for the letting go of the problem-solving aspect of it. It's more about surrendering, letting go of the intellectual problem-solving, which is a hugely, hugely beneficial thing for us to practice. But this third aspect, this third practice, is what I would call daydreaming. For some people that refer to it as contemplation, which is sort of a middle practice between journaling, which is about concentration and meditation. So both of the the the act of journaling is trying to restore balance from one direction out of powerlessness into power into empowerment. And meditation is also trying to balance the mind, the psyche, right? Taking us out of that chronic doing and problem solving into more of the feminine aspect of the psyche. But contemplation or daydreaming effectively is almost, you're not, you're allowed to think, but there's no structure to it and it's less intellectual. So I would highly recommend that, you see, doing this inner work and having these practices, It's a great thing to do. Obviously, I would sanction that you invest time in doing these practices, but actually knowing which practice is appropriate for what moment, where you are internally, sometimes meditation, sometimes journaling, sometimes contemplation or daydreaming. In fact, I think that the contemplation and daydreaming is the thing we go to once we are relatively balanced. It helps us maintain a sense of internal balance. within the aspects of our mind, the psyche, maybe the masculine and feminine aspects. And so it's interesting because I actually had a conversation with someone a while back and we had been talking about, you know, the usefulness of these different practices such as journaling and meditation. And they were sharing that they have a huge amount of resistance sometimes to doing it. And they told me this, an account of, they sat down one morning to do I think it was meditation, but they just had a huge amount of internal resistance to doing it that day. And I said, OK, well, well, what did you do? I said, well, I just found myself sitting there and I wasn't able to do it. Effectively, what they were doing was just staring out the window, but seeing it as, well, I'm not practicing something. You see, what if that's actually what was called for? On that given day, maybe the best thing for us to do sometimes is just stare out the window and daydream, which again, is what we were told not to do. Complete waste of your time. What if it's a really, really healthy thing for your psyche to do that? And isn't it interesting in our culture with all this technology we have, it seems as if it's never been harder to get a little bit of space to just daydream. I'm staring out a window right now, right? Right. As I look out there, it's kind of perfect for Contemplation and daydreaming. Wouldn't it probably be a better use of one's time to do that instead of having our head in a screen or in a phone or something, doom scrolling or having our attention sucked into something like that? And I'm not against that technology, but I think actually that practice of daydreaming and actually allowing yourself to categorize it, if I'm actually doing something useful here, this is actually healthy for me to do this. Let your mind wander. It doesn't matter. You're not trying to block any thoughts or you're not even trying to be still. You're not even trying to problem solve. Thoughts might emerge and come and go. You're thinking about something completely random. You're just daydreaming. I think there's a huge, huge benefit to doing that, right? So I would say this is about subtlety in your inner work, knowing which practice is maybe most beneficial at any given time for you. Meditation. I think it's a huge thing. I think journaling is so, so, so helpful. The journaling one, I put that down as concentration. And I'll give you an example why. An aspect of journaling could be like challenging some thoughts, right? Or inquiry. And inquiry involves, okay, I've identified a thought now that I'm having or a belief that I have, and it's really limiting me. An aspect of inquiry is, okay, you found that thought. Now, what are you going to do with that thought once you've found it? You know what you're going to do? You're not going to switch attention to something else. You're going to stay on that thought, right? So journaling is about identifying and staying focused on something. It takes a huge inquiry is about you can't switch thoughts. That's too significant. You need to focus on that. You need to really inquire into that to see if it's true or not. Meditation is completely different. Meditation, especially if you're in that chronic doer and you're feeling that pressure in life, right? You're in the midst of the chaos and then the comings and goings. That's meditation time. That's okay. Breathing time, letting go, restoring balance. And then sometimes, maybe when you're at work, doing something throughout the day, stare out the window. Maybe that's the best thing you could do with your time and the healthiest thing you could do for your psyche and your healing process instead of maybe having it stuck in a screen. So keep that in mind, especially maybe even on days when you have resistance to doing either journaling or meditating. Could you do a little bit of daydreaming? And I would say you might be surprised that that might be exactly, rather than that being a compromised approach, that might be the perfect approach for you on that given day. So I hope that's useful. We've got contemplation as a third strategy, an overlooked strategy. And see, I'd really love to hear your comments on this if you've tried that before, if you've ever considered that to be a viable practice. And if it isn't, maybe consider integrating that in your practice. Hope that's a useful video and have a great day. See you next time. Bye-bye.