I Choose... - a journal exercise

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

This journal exercise comes from both my own experience and from the book Developing Intuition by Shakti Gawain. About ten years ago I went away by myself for a weekend of R & R. While there, I read and rested a lot, and I wrote. One of the questions I asked myself was, "What do I really want?" With many open pages and hours before me, I started to write. I enjoyed the writing and the whole weekend.

Then about five years later, I happened upon that old notebook and began to thumb through it, reading snippets here and there. And then I came to The Page, the one I'd written on my solo weekend years before. Virtually everything I had written about what I wanted for my relationships, my personal time and my work had come, or was coming, to fruition. I was stunned to realize I was living out what I'd written that weekend.

That experience taught me a lot about my ability to make decisions and then make those decisions come to be. I have since learned that everybody has the same ability to make decisions and make them come to be. Since that first experience, I've more consciously made decisions about what I choose, and many of them have come to fruition. I know others who've done the same. So, give this a shot. Grab a notebook or journal and write about what...

I Choose

Find a quiet place where you can focus for a while -- an hour or so, depending. Try to leave the time open-ended if you can. Ask yourself what you really, really want or want to do. Be specific. (One thing I wrote was "I want to write for a living not just a hobby.") Then -- and this is important -- feel that thing you want. Describe it.

Write about what that dream-plan will look like. What will it feel like physically and emotionally? How will it smell or taste or sound? Immerse yourself in these sensations as you muse and write. If you aren't sure, just imagine it the best you can. Feel it all as if it's happening right now.

Write about what will happen when you do your dream-plan. Where will you be? Who else might be there? If you imagine other people, focus on those who support your dream. Again, feel the feelings, sensations and satisfactions.

Express gratitude for your dream-plan.

As you write, you might encounter negative thoughts or feelings. You might picture other people telling you it can't be done or that you can't do it. In your mind or on your paper, thank those people for their opinions and wave goodbye to them in your imagination (you're not ending a relationship, just an imagined objection). Release them to your spiritual source or to themselves. You can smile at them, knowing your opinion matters more in this exercise.

Once you're done writing, write the date on the entry. Then in the days, weeks, months and maybe years to come, continue to invest in your dream-plan often. Re-read and re-focus on your idea. Re-feel the feelings. Enjoy the satisfactions and express your gratitude, even if you don't see any obvious evidence of it right away. Picture how it will look and be. Keep re-deciding to have or do it.

Mike Dooley, another person I've read and listened to, enlarges hugely on this brief journal exercise. He recommends creating a board or scrapbook full of pictures and words and other items that contribute to the idea you've decided about. I've done this, too, and it helps a lot.

Will you change your life utterly by doing this journal exercise? You could. Will you get everything you've ever dreamed of? Maybe. I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that our decisions -- and learning to believe in our decisions -- can take us places we never imagined.

Give it a shot. What do you choose?