Weekly Mindful Journaling Challenge #2: Honoring who you are

To honor who you are, an individual may need to understand their personal identity, purpose and meaning, and ways they are to serve. This week’s writing challenge focuses on daily meditative and mindful writing on ways you personally honor yourself.

For me, self-love is one way of acting in a loving way toward ourselves. It can be defined as regard for your own happiness. But when you allow space for self-compassion you are going deeper than self-love. For me, self-compassion is about accepting and honoring all aspects of your life, from failure to perceived inadequacies or suffering. Self-compassion is honoring where I am, forgiving myself for my monkey mind, giving myself space for feeling and healing, and for not being able to let things go as easily as some others.

Kind over Matter: Self-Love vs. Self-Compassion

Associate Editor at Psychcenteral Blog – Margarita Tartakovsky – writes 7 ways to honor yourself. She briefly explores:

• Self-Forgiveness
• Discipline of stillness
• Respect of one’s body
• Self-Honesty
• Self-care – Leisure Activity
• Engaged in spiritual and sacred rituals
• Self-Compassion

Dr. Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. shares her thoughts on ways we are able to honor ourselves. She observes how values play a role in this:

We may think of honor in grand terms, but on a personal basis it is best to think of your personal values and how they are expressed in your life.

And, here is an article at Psychology today where Roni Beth Tower shares 52 ways to show I love you: Honoring yourself.

Last week’s writing challenge focused on writing mindfully and meditatively on what you are grateful for. This week, the challenge focuses on writing on ways you honor yourself.

How Honoring Self improves Writing

Utilizing meditation and writing mindfully will help improve your writing. It also helps with improving a sense of worth and freedom. By exploring how one honors themselves, it forces us to take personal inventory on what we value and appreciate. It brings us to face our own weaknesses. Through it, we gain confidence in overcoming our fears and doubt.

How many times have you approached a writing goal and lacked the confidence and courage to translate your own thoughts, emotions, images, dialogue, scenes into an artistic word painting?

Focusing on the person that matters the most – ourselves – we free ourselves from the fears and doubts that inhibit our creativity. And, this is the focus of what Steve Aedy shares at lifehack when he explores 8 ways we are capable of improving ourselves with our own writing.

• Know and understand who you are
• Manage your thought and attitude
• Set Goals
• Write your way as the right way
• budget and practice financial discipline and stewardship
• Free yourself from the past
• Forge healthy and stable relationship
• Ultimate therapeutic tool to effect change

As we explore self-identity, compassion, love, appreciation, acceptance, forgiveness, and embrace self-honesty and awareness: Our ability to write may improve over time. This is not something that occurs over night. It is a process of transforming ourselves in a way that our confidence seeps deep within our own writing style: Whether it is writing fiction, non-fiction, content for blogs and websites. Our writing is to leave an impression upon the reader a confident understanding of who we are and how we are influential.

Honoring Self Writing Challenge Tip

As with the initial first weekly writing challenge on gratitude: Take a moment to meditate and mindfully reflect on what ways you honor yourself. Focus on simple breathing techniques (if this is new for you) and allow yourself time to approach this challenge.

Set aside, at least, 15-20 minutes each day and follow these tips outlined below. When you are comfortable – begin writing. The goal of this challenge is to write on ways you engage in self-care, love, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, health and wellness. Here are 7 tips to effectively write each day on this topic:

1. Be as specific as possible – To foster ways of honoring yourself, you want to focus on the specific details related to what you are grateful for.
2. Go for depth over breadth – Dive deep into the details about how you engage in self-care, self-compassion, honesty, self-love, and forgiveness. Do not write in a superficial way. This requires some exploration rather than listing things
3. Personalization – Focus those areas where you may need to improve. This will carry more weight and make a greater impact
4. Subtract not Add – How will your life look differently without honoring yourself? Don’t just spend your time focusing on the good ways of honoring yourself. Spend time getting acquainted with the areas you’ve neglected to honor. Focus on ways to improve those areas deficient of honor and worth.
5. Good gifts – What good gifts does honoring self bring into your life? How does honoring yourself bring good gifts into the relationships you have around you?
6. Savor surprises – What were some of the unexpected ways you’ve discovered in honoring yourself?
7. Revise if you repeat – Zero in on different aspects when you find yourself writing about the same situations, people, and things.

The Writing Prompt

Are you ready for this week’s writing challenge?

I honor myself…..

Remember to follow the tips. Practice mindfulness and meditation to help clear the landscape of your mind. Do not merely just write about what you are grateful for, share the thoughts, emotions, and how your body responds.

When you have completed this challenge – comment and share your thoughts on this experience.