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Journaling with admiration for someone you know · I Care About You

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  Hello beautiful souls, and welcome back to I Care about yout,
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  the podcast where we talk about journaling and different
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  prompts that can help us find more joy and happiness
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  and contentment and peace in life. It's also a way
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  to kind of figure out who we are. This whole year is a
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  collaboration with my upcoming book, which drops
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  in January, called the Authentic Self Project.
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  Please look it up. If you pre order, you'll get 12
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  months of secret content that will kind of help you
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  stay on track. Every month there'll be a video from me
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  talking about the chapter and
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  why I wrote it and what the different things kind of help
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  you do in life. And maybe we'll even do a live session.
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  Who knows? So anyway, stay tuned for that and if you pre order
• 0:56
  look for that content coming your way.
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  It's still in development, but it's getting there.
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  I'm your host, Juliana Jay. Like I said, I'm an author,
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  I'm a journalist, a journaler.
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  I've been a journaler almost all of my life.
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  I've done all different kinds of journals and
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  I just find that they are so magical. There's so
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  many things about yourself and inner wisdom that you have that
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  you're so unaware of until you start writing it
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  down somehow or recording it somehow.
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  I talk a lot about in my journaling groups about
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  how I spent a year journaling while commuting.
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  Once. My commute was pretty long, could be anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours
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  depending on the traffic. And during that time I would record myself
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  talking, journaling through speech.
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  And the craziest things came out while I was doing
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  that that I didn't even think of. Most commonly,
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  something would happen during the day, during my workday that I would just kind
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  of brush over and move on. But in reflection on my drive
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  home, realized that it really brought up
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  some things for me or I was really upset about it, or it was
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  a mirror for me in some way or some sort of reflection came out
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  of it. It was really, really valuable. There's a lot of different ways
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  people journal and leave this up to you for the
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  journal prompt. But today's prompt is this.
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  Who is your best friend? What do
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  you love about them? List it all down in a bullet list
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  and then write a letter of gratitude to
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  them. I don't think we spend a lot of time
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  as grown ups really being in a space
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  of gratitude and thankfulness. And when we find ourselves
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  in that space, when we have a gratitude practice,
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  when we get in the habit of thanking people for
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  all that they do for us. It makes our life happier
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  over time. It makes us feel more
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  secure and content with where we are in life. More grateful.
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  Gratitude brings on a lot of joy.
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  It brings on a lot of contentment, fulfillment,
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  realization that you're connected to other people, there's a connection
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  and so many other things. A gratitude practice
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  is so powerful and it's really quite simple.
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  Simple. Well, I say simple, but sometimes even
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  I have a problem with my gratitude practice. I do a gratitude practice
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  every morning. I wake up at 6 o' clock to do writing before I start
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  my day. I'm very regimented about it because I wouldn't do it otherwise.
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  So the alarm goes off at 6, I make coffee,
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  and then I start my day with a gratitude
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  practice. For me, that practice right now is writing
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  down at least five things, maybe more, that I am grateful
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  for, that maybe happened the day before or that I realized are such a gift
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  in my life. There's so many things you don't realize are such a
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  gift until it happens. For example,
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  my daughters, both of my daughters, they kind of live on
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  the same. In the. On the same property, but in different houses.
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  And they each have a couple of cats
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  and they have two foster cats right now. And their
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  cats got really, really sick and they don't know why. The vet doesn't know why.
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  Nobody knows why. They're all recovering now, so don't worry. They're all on the
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  up, up and up. They're getting better every day. But for a while
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  it was really scary. And one of my daughters has a very old cat
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  that's around 18 years old, and she got sick. And she has been
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  with the family for such a long time and she's such a sage amongst
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  the family. And it was really hard on my daughter
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  to have this happen. And. And she was
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  at work and she's like, I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm
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  failing the cat because I'm at work. But if I don't go to work,
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  I don't get paid. You know, all those things that rattle around in our brains.
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  And I was helping her figure out,
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  like, okay, what to. What should she do next? You know, how's she gonna get
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  to the vet to take somebody with her so she's not alone in case it's
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  news, it's hard to hear. And to just go,
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  do what she needs to do, follow her heart, do what she needs to
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  do. Which she did. And the cat's on the mend. But that experience the
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  day before made me realize how grateful I am that my cats aren't
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  sick, that my animals are healthy and
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  you know, being their usual crazy
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  selves. Like currently right now, one is climbing a screen and
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  that even though they are mischievous,
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  they're in good health. And I felt really thankful for that. And I was really,
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  really thankful that my daughter's cats were also recovering.
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  And it just brought this whole gratitude. Sometimes I do what,
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  what Esther Hicks used to call a rant,
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  a manifestation rant. Esther Hicks is this really credible
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  writer from, I want
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  to say, the 70s and 80s. I'm not quite sure, don't quote me
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  on that, but she wrote a lot of books about manifesting and a lot of
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  the books are perspectives of someone she was channeling.
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  This is really. You can see a lot of videos of her online
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  and so check her out. But she has this one thing where you just have
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  this, this rant about. For me, in this
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  case, it's gratitude. But you're thankful for. And it's just a rant. Whether you're writing
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  it all down, all the things you're grateful for, until you're exhausted. Are you saying
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  it out loud? It's just helps ground
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  your life in meaning when you get
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  caught up and in a spiral of all the other things that aren't working out
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  in your life or that are challenging or. Or when you get really caught up
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  in desire. So many of us are, myself included and you know,
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  we're in a capitalist society here, so we are incredibly barraged
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  with things we're supposed to be desiring at all times. That's, you know, what advertising
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  is. And when we get really caught up in this desire, we can just really
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  feel that unworthy are suffering
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  like we're really suffering because we can't have these other things.
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  And to have a gratitude practice just helps bring it back into perspective of
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  all the things that you do have that are joyous and great.
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  It's also important to just kind of acknowledge who's
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  around you. You might not. I don't really have.
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  I don't construct my life in terms of best
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  friends or besties or anything like that. You know, I like to say that
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  you should be your own best friend or my dog's
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  my best friend or all these kinds of things. So you can certainly write about
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  yourself if you're. If you want to write about yourself as
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  your best friend, you know, yourself knows you more intimately than anyone
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  else does. They really are your best friend because they're there for you.
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  Yourself is always there for you. You might say
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  Mean things to yourself with your negative internal dialogue.
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  Or you might self sabotage or do all these types of
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  things to your, to yourself. But you know yourself most
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  deeply and most intimately. So if you want to write about yourself
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  as your best friend, why is that
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  true? And what do you
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  love about yourself? This is a really, really great
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  practice and it's actually in my new
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  book that's coming out. I wish I had a. I keep looking for a physical
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  copy of the book to show you, but I don't have one yet. And when
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  I get that box of books, I will post unboxing
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  video. My publisher requires it.
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  Last time I did that with my first book, I cried. It was
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  not really this very exciting woohoo thing because I just got really emotional when
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  I actually saw the physical thing. But if you're gonna write
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  about yourself, what do you love about yourself?
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  Allow yourself to go to that place where you can talk
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  about what you love about yourself. If you're gonna talk about a
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  different best friend, it can be a best friend or someone who's really
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  close to you in any timeframe. You can talk about a childhood
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  best friend, you can talk about an imaginary best friend. You can talk
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  about caregivers or siblings
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  or even writers that you really love, that you
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  really, really connected with. I was
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  a super fan, I still am, of the Bronte sisters.
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  Not just I love them all. They've all I've written, I've read all
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  of their works. They're all so beautiful. I love them all.
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  And I could write about them, which would be really complicated actually,
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  now that I think about it, because they did have challenging lives.
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  But I think if I wrote about them, it might be
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  really interesting to figure out. Why do I resonate so much
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  with them? That is something I ask myself a lot,
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  is why do I resonate with this author? What,
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  what is, what is that? Where's it coming from?
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  And often when I do that writing practice or that
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  reflection, I find out something about myself that I
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  didn't know. So you can write about an
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  author or an artist, or a director or an actor or
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  a poet or musician,
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  and what do you love about them? And as you're doing this practice,
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  you'll notice what does what you love about
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  them say about yourself? Are there things you wish you had?
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  Are there things you wish you do more of?
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  Do you do it and you appreciate that about yourself?
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  If one of the things you love about whoever it
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  is you're writing is that they are
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  emotionally available, you can then ask yourself,
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  am I emotionally available? Is that something I have or something I
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  wish I had or something I would like to achieve or something I'm currently
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  working on, or something I'm afraid to express, but I
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  am secretly inside. A lot of times
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  these become things that we secretly have inside
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  of us, but we don't let other people in on the secret because of
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  fear, of the fear of exposing ourselves, of the fear that
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  here we have this thing we think is beautiful about ourselves. And if
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  we share it with others, they might say something negative about it, and that would
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  be hard to take. So much
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  of my life has been around that, hiding all the things about
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  myself because I am afraid that people will say negative
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  things about them. And I did go through a time where I did this
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  year of being out of my comfort zone, and it was really hard.
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  And a lot of the times I stepped out of my comfort zone, the people
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  who knew me got really upset. Like,
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  kind of wanted to, like, push me back into where I was and punish me
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  back into where I was before. And it was really hurtful.
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  Oh, my gosh. That was. It was a really hurtful couple
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  of years. Oh, my gosh. That was during the time
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  I wrote my first book, Reasons to Live. So there's some couple of stories
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  in there around that time in that book. But,
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  God, it was just really.
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  I really felt raw at the end of it, at the end
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  of every experience. Just. I'm a very visual person,
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  so I would always visualize myself just as this lump of flesh
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  on the ground after something would happen because it just would hurt me so
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  deeply because these were things I had hidden for so long and
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  finally allowed out into the light. And these people who
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  I thought loved me stepped all over them. And that
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  was hard. Sorry. I paused for a minute because there's some weird noise outside,
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  and I don't know what it is. It kind of sounds like somebody's in my
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  backyard. Weird. But maybe they're not.
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  Anyhow, where was I?
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  Yes. So these things that I let other people see were
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  used against me. And that was really hard thing to overcome.
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  So you might come up with some of those things as you're writing on this
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  prompt. What are some things you really love about them? Are they
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  things within yourself that you're keeping a secret from everybody else?
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  And then write a letter of gratitude to them? This is a really
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  fun exercise. I just did it this morning. I think the letter is
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  behind me, behind that candle right there. If you're watching
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  me. I just wrote a letter of gratitude to someone I know. It's a
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  a writer who's actually been on my podcast before, friend of
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  mine, really wonderful person, Sherry Balloul,
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  and I wrote her this gratitude letter because I've been thinking a lot about her
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  lately, and a lot of her practice is writing gratitude to people.
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  And she has a business
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  Simply Celebrate, which is all about that, just gratitude
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  and being thankful and all of those things. And so
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  I wrote her a letter of gratitude because I've been thinking a lot about her
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  and I was wanting happiness
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  for her. So I wrote her a gratitude letter. And it's really nice. It makes
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  you feel really good that you do something like that. And if you write a
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  gratitude letter for yourself, it's fun to take it out and look at it every
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  once in a while when you're feeling kind of like down or
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  it's been a hard day or you feel like you let yourself down
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  or you made a mistake. It's nice to pull out that gratitude letter
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  and remember that all that stuff's
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  okay. Everybody has mistakes, everybody has problems,
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  everybody works through things, everybody is
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  human and everyone makes mistakes and everyone has
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  hard days and everybody does things they don't feel so proud about.
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  It's all just part of being here on this planet and learning things.
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  So that's the prompt, y'. All. Again,
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  it's who is your best friend or the
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  somebody you highly admire that gives you a lot, could be an artist,
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  could be anyone who gives you a lot in your life
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  and what do you love about them? And finally
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  writing a letter of gratitude to them.
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  And again, I said it could be yourself. You're doing this too,
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  so let me know how it goes. This is a really fun prompt.
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  I think you're going to have a lot of fun with it. I certainly did
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  when I wrote about it. And every time I write about this
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  prompt, I always learn something more about myself. So I hope
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  that happens for you as well. So, dear friends, I want to
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  remind you about my book, Reasons to Live, which is available everywhere. Link links
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  in the show notes. Also, my new book, the Authentic
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  Self Project, is out for pre order. And like I said at the beginning,
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  there is a special secret gift when you pre order the book,
• 16:51
  which will be out in January just in time for you to start a new
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  a new you, a new year, as my publisher likes to
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  say. This show is also brought to you by cozyearth.com
• 17:05
  and Zevo Life. Both the links are in the Description.
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  You get 20% off with the promo code. I care about you.
• 17:13
  Really awesome products. Some really great things in cozy
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  earth for gifting this season.
• 17:20
  And Zebo Life will help you get through the season by giving
• 17:24
  you a little bit more energy and just vivaciousness
• 17:29
  to make it through those long parties you're about to attend.
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  So, dear friends, take good care and know that I love you and
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  I care about you, and you got this, and we're all in this together.
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  Take care.
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  Of sa.