Category Archives: dream journal

Sacred Spaces

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Today’s post contains a writing prompt from our Journaling Within book:
Do you have your own sacred space? 
If so, describe it. 
If not, what can you do to create that space?
Your sacred space is a place you create that’s just for you. 
It is a space that best reflects your true essence. 
It is a place you go to recharge, relax, and rejuvenate. 
It can be an entire room devoted to journaling, reading, and going within.
It can be a small table that you put some of your favorite mementos on.
It can be a comfy chair that invites you to slow down and take time to relax.
It can be a walk in nature where you smell the fresh air and take in all of the beauty.
It can be your bookshelf that is filled with books that are meaningful to you.
It can be a vision board that encompasses all of your dreams and goals.
Take some time today to think about your sacred space.
If you don’t already have a space created, 
take some time to reflect on what would best represent you. 
And then take one action toward creating this space.

Carving out a space that is just for ourselves is so crucial for our own well being.
And we’re definitely worth it!
P.S. – Thank you so much to all of you who ordered our Soulful Journals over the weekend through the DailyOM website! The numbers are still coming in, and they are WAY beyond what we expected. Wow. We are forever grateful to all of you and can’t wait for you to write in them to continue your journey of self exploration.
photo by DailyOM

You’re Human

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Do you ever have one of those days where from the moment you wake up you feel that you are being pulled in several different directions, you have more things to do than hours in the day to do them, and you just want to go back to bed, pull the covers over your head, and try it again the next day?
Today is one of those days for me. 
Our mantra has always been, “There is no such thing as a journal emergency.” 
We both have the tendency to lose perspective of this at times and get caught up in the whirl and spin of orders needing to ship, journals needing to be made, and our customers needing to be put first. 
When this happens, our breathing is shallow, our bodies are tight,
and our minds get stuck in the chaos. 
And then we remember our mantra – we remember why we started our company – we remember that we choose to live the positive and reflective messages that we are putting into the world – we remember that everything happens in the exact right time.
We remember that we are human.

And so are you. 
If you are feeling at all overwhelmed and stressed and wonder how you will ever get it all done – take a moment today and just breathe. Take a moment and sit with yourself. Remember that you are only given what you can handle. You are only one person and you do everything in the perfect way at the perfect time.
Take a deep breath. And then another one.
And then mindfully go through each task one by one.

Being Grateful – Even in the Hard Times

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It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time to write a post about gratitude! 

Feel free to click here (or below) to learn more about our Gratitude Project. 
Okay – now for today’s post:
We can all feel grateful when things are going well in our lives, but can we still be grateful and find the good in the seemingly not-so-good parts, too? That’s where the real soul searching comes in and the challenges begin to surface.
Here is an example to show how this can work:
Imagine that you are in a job you really can’t stand. You get up each morning and begrudgingly get ready for work and make yourself drive there – you know that the work itself isn’t your passion, the people you work with aren’t who you would normally choose to spend your days with, and this is certainly not the vision you had for your life. But you do it day in and day out because you have to pay your bills, right?
Sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?
But… take this same situation and imagine seeing it through a lens of gratitude and positivity. Each morning when you wake up you express your gratitude for having a house to wake up in, a job to go to, the security of a paycheck, a car to drive you there. Then when you get there, you express your gratitude for knowing that working at this job brings clarity to you for your future. By seeing what you don’t want to do, you can be more clear about what you do want to do by contrast. And having this knowledge gets you one step closer to living the life you want to live. And that is something to be grateful for! And you can start empathizing with your coworkers and imagine that they might just be in the same boat you’re in – just biding their time and clarifying their vision until they find the courage to take the leap toward pursuing their own passion. And this will make them more relatable to you, which will make the days much more enjoyable.

Can you see the difference?
We choose how we react to every situation in our lives. 
And it doesn’t mean that we’re seeing through rose-colored lenses at every given moment, but it can make your life much easier if you begin to show your gratitude for everything around you – even the tough situations where gratitude doesn’t seem easy to find.

Take some time today and think of something that’s not going as well as you would like in your life (your job, relationship, health, emotional wellbeing, etc.). Write about the situation as specifically as you can. For the first part of the assignment, write about it without censoring yourself – gripe, whine, get it all out. Then in the second part, rewrite it through the lens of gratitude and appreciation. Write about all of the positive things that are happening in your life because of this situation. Keep in mind that you may have to dig really deep to come up with things you are grateful for. But I guarantee it will be worth it, you will feel better, and you will see the situation in a whole different light.

And wouldn’t that be great?

Keep Dreaming!

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Do you ever wake up from a dream that felt so vivid, so real, and so powerful? 
Do you ever feel like it was trying to tell you something – a message from your soul? 
Have you ever experienced a dream that turned out to be a premonition?

There are all kinds of dreams – some are merely a processing of the previous day’s events – strewn together in a fun way that only our subconscious can do. And some are more meaningful – these are the ones that you can’t seem to shake from your mind when you wake up. They are so vivid and keep coming back to you throughout the day.

These are the dreams that I would suggest you pay close attention to. I believe that these dreams are your soul’s way of communicating what we need to be focusing on. These are messages directly from your soul – maybe giving you clarity on a path to take, a relationship to either end or begin, or giving us direction for our life’s purpose.

You’ll know this kind of dream when it happens.
You’ll feel it beckoning you to pay attention 
and to go within to decipher the message. 

You may want to start a dream journal. Before you go to sleep at night, tell yourself that you’re going to remember your dreams when you wake up. Then before you even get out of bed in the morning, grab your journal and pen and start writing. You’ll be amazed at how much you can remember on most mornings. And if nothing comes to you, that’s okay, too. You can still take that time to write – enjoy this moment when you are still in a half asleep state – when maybe your ego is still sleeping and you can really get to the heart of your emotions without censoring them.

Dreams are an amazing tool to allow us to go within and see what our subconscious is up to. It’s a wonderful way to see what our highest self wants us to know. And once you get the hang of remembering your dreams, you can take it a step further and start asking your highest self questions that you would like answered in your dreams. You always have the answers – and dreams are just another tool to help you find them.