THE "HOW AM I ACTUALLY DOING JOURNAL" ENTRIES
AN AWARENESS EXERCISE AND A DEVICE TO MAKE PROGRESS FROM
draft


Since we humans do not tend to be able to journal with total awareness of all that is going on and since concentration in one thing at a time can often be very productive, I recommend that you do the following for at least two days, but preferably for a week initially.  Then you can tickle it on your calendar for doing every week until you are satisfied that you've derived sufficient benefit.  It is a good idea, still, to check in at least once a month, so tickling that is advisable.

Classic ignorance, of course, lies in not paying attention to what is going on and not adjusting appropriately to what is going on, as in the analogy for many people's lives that is illustrated in Living The Life Of A Gradually Boiling Frog, alternate story akin to the idea of the movie Groundhog Day.


AN ENTRY MIGHT LOOK LIKE THIS

At this moment, I feel a little congestion in my chest, my heart is beating a little fast.  I am drinking coffee - perhaps I might consider not doing that, as it hypes me and confuses my chemicals so that my body is not operating right and I am not aware of whether or not I'm hungry.  My stomach feels acidic.  The coffee does taste good and sipping on it is a bit of a treat, but it is not good for me.  So I better find a substitute.  Lightly fruit flavored water - I'll try that. 

I notice that I am slouching.  That is not good for me.  I'll sit up and breath deeply instead.

I feel kind of discouraged.  There is so much to do. 

At the end of the day or some reasonably short period, I would review what I've written and make some conclusions about adjustments I might make.  While there is some automatic adjustments made just due to greater awareness, you will get vastly more vbenefit is you make sure that you are fully harvesting the information that you spent so much effort on gathering already and it makes sense to "complete" on this, as that is where the highest benefit can come from.

I notice that I felt kind of stupid around Kevin.  He seems so smart and self assured.  What mannerisms of his did I notice that I might emulate.  His posture is great, he seems so centered physically, he makes gestures that are from his center and are definite and strong and controlled (more like a master, not like being restrained). 

I notice that I feel bad more often than I thought.  I better do something about that.  What I will make sure that I do is to use the check-in and adjustments checklist (some people call the initial part of this process "mindfulness")

My dominant emotions were:  

I felt negative or bad feelings __ most of the day, __ for more than an hour, __ for less than ___ minutes (yeah!)


My bad habits that I noticed:  

           Habit                                           Decision
                                               (Keep, alter a little, correct completely, be a frog)


Habits I should change 

Sleep (body repair, alert during day, circadian rhythm)