Supernatural Botanicals

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• Builds self confidence and self knowledge
• Records the past
• Brings out natural beauty and wisdom
• Helps you feel better about yourself
• Helps you identify your values
• Reads your own mind
• Aids in connecting causes to effects
• Reveals the depths of who you are
• Reveals outward expression of yet unformed inner impulses
• Creates mystery
• Clarifies thoughts, feelings and behavior
• Reveals your greater potential
• Shifts you to the observer, recorder, counselor level
• Reveals your processes – how you think, learn, create and use intuition
• Creates awareness of beliefs and options so you can change them
• Self-discovery
• Reveals different aspects of self
• Helps you see yourself as an individual
• Connects you to the bigger picture
• Is a close, intimate, accepting, trusting, caring, honest, non-judgmental, perfect friend
• Accesses the unconscious, subconscious and super consciousness
• Finds the missing pieces and the unsaid
• Helps rid you of the masks you wear
• Helps solve the mysteries of life
• Finds more meaning in life

“We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and once in retrospection.”  Anais Nin

Journaling is my thing.  I started journaling when I seriously started working out, about six years ago.  Initially, it was for tracking purposes only; Wednesday I do cardio, Thursday I do upper body, Friday I do lower body, etc.  Then I realized how beneficial it was to record my meals.  When you start keeping track of your caloric intake, it gives you a huge look inside yourself.  When your skin is starting to look bad, you can look back and see what’s going on in your life.  Are you eating too much junk food?  Too many glasses of champagne?  The answers are all right there, you just have to find them.

My journaling went one step further.  It started innocently enough, just notating if I had a headache that day, noting any blemishes or anything strange happening.  Not only did I get to know my body really well, I got to know my own mind better. 

Why did I always seem to be super moody one day a month and very weepy?  Why do I get a blemish about every third or fourth month right in the same place?  Why did I feel like I could eat like an animal some days, while other days I’d barely take any calories in and felt great?  Why was the libido through the roof on some days of the month?  Well, the short answer is hormones.  But I was never able to understand why my body was doing what it was until I started tracking it in my journal.   It turns out, those problems happened the same day, month after month.  It’s sort of like a science experiment.  Guess, test, and revise. 

You can also go one step further and write your feelings down.  It’s really cool to reflect on old postings and say to yourself, this is where I was, then.  This is what was happening in my life, good or bad, and this is how I dealt with it.  As if it’s a guide saying, this is what worked in the past for me….this is what didn’t. 

Journaling is definitely one of those things that you don’t “get” until you try it.  It’s a huge gift to have that sort of insight, to reflect on yourself.   Try to wrap your brain around it and get started.  You’ll love it once you get going. 

There are online journals, such as www.LiveJournal.com.  I generally prefer to type over handwriting, but in this instance, I like writing things down.   It just feels more cathartic somehow.   I can appreciate a beautiful journal.  I adore beautiful books and journals, and it’s always the perfect gift for me. 

Check out the journal section next time you are at the bookstore and purchase your favorite one.  Get into journaling.  It’s like a window, looking inside yourself.  It’s an easy and powerful way to accelerate your personal development.