The Benefits of Yoga Journal

Journal writing is a universal tradition. Therefore, some yogis have adapted this tradition in an effort to enhance your practice of yoga. Moreover, it turns it into a personal and intimate experience that enables one to stay motivated in doing yoga.

Before one is able to experience the benefits of yoga journal writing, s/he must overcome the difficulties of even trying to get started. The mere act of writing in itself is difficult. How much more with yoga writing for your journal?

As with the physical execution of yoga exercises, you need to think about different factors and combining them together into one fluid sequence of movements that offer therapeutic value. When one aspect is missing, you cannot expect the get the same effective results. You also need to think about the same when writing for your yoga journal to ensure that you can produce insightful reflections or writings that would help advance your yoga routine.

Merging of Discipline and Writing

Another source of difficulty with writing for your yoga journal is the act of disciplining yourself. Without discipline, the results are not as powerful or as useful as you would have wanted. If you do get results, they are not long lasting either.

The idea of yoga journal writing prove most beneficial for beginners. Being able to establish an internal journey is a difficult undertaking that require a certain level of focus and concentration to properly meditate. Writing in your yoga journal will provide you access to subconscious thoughts and enable you to use that during meditation for exploration and attain more success.

During the act of writing, you utilize your mind a great deal. In fact, it also opens up your observational skills so you become more receptive to different ideas or thoughts that affect you during waking moments of your life. Observation is key in being able to notice even the slightest bit of detail involved in your practice of yoga to ensure that you are performing every aspect properly.

This keen ability to observe is also important in identifying factors that might inhibit your progress. Whether it be physical, emotional, or psychological, you need to get rid of those blockages to be able to explore new areas. In fact, you can reach deep inside you for inspiration and draw out more benefits through that.

Seeing Things Anew

Sometimes, you tend to be too focused on your personal goals that you fail to view things objectively. This is a trick that you can use to re-evaluate the steps you are taking to achieve your goals. Is it time to change your routine? Do you need to make improvements in your routine to make it more effective? Are you reaping the results aspired? Writing your own yoga journal will enable you to find the answers to this question. Of course, the answers will come out over time and you can do so by reading through your journal from time to time.

This act of liberation is just one of several steps wherein you can utilize the use of a yoga journal to expand on your practice.

Serious yogis always aim for improvement in their practice. Starting off from the easy beginners pose, they gradually advance to more difficult poses that require more flexibility but also promise greater results. This is when the benefits of writing a yoga journal becomes really evident since you can evaluate the steps you have already completed against your goal. Taking note of each aspect of your yoga practice can be difficult if you relied solely on your memory.

Your ability to monitor each aspect of your yoga practice will contribute to your mastery of this method. Whether it is in the execution of poses, the sequencing of those poses, the proper use of breathing exercises, or the lack of meditational practice, you can use your yoga journal to pinpoint exactly where improvement has to be done.

Most yogis have probably heard about yoga retreats. What about yoga writing retreats? Most likely no. Yoga writing retreats are newer methods introduced by expert yogis that will enable you to focus more on how to improve your yoga journal writing capability. These yogis recognize the value that a yoga journal has on your commitment with yoga. Hence, these retreats are aimed at helping yogis develop their writing skills for their yoga journal to fully utilize it.

When you participate in a yoga writing retreat, expect a good balance of activities involving performance of yoga exercises while the other half is dedicated to writing exercises. In some cases, you have to travel to a place that is far away from the city to produce a conducive environment for reflection.

Exploring Your Inner Self

As noted above, reflection is an important factor in attaining the benefits of writing in a yoga journal. When you write down the experiences you went through in the practice of yoga, you learn to get rid of any biases or judgments you might have on yourself. Instead, you begin to explore your internal self for a deeper understanding of what this practice is all about and how you can maximize results.

A reflection of the activities undergone during yoga performance and injecting your inner thoughts about it will enable you to explore new areas in your practice. In some cases, you might be surprised at the things you were able to reflect on. Your inner voice comes out in the process and most of the descriptions jotted down on your journal are specific images instead of general descriptions.

During yoga writing retreats, writing exercises play a major role in equipping you with the techniques needed for the enhancement of your yoga practice. Here are some guidelines you need to remember so you can adapt your own writing exercises to improve your yoga journal:

• Try to imagine yourself being in a particular place, situation, or a specific experience. Close your eyes while doing this so you get a clearer picture of what you are imagining.
• Pay attention to every detail you see around. Imagine yourself as physically being there.
• Take note of all forms of details, whether it be the image of the scenery, the smell, on which specific spot you are, and other similar details.
• Your objective is to gather as much information as you can before writing it down on your journal.
• From there, you have the liberty to explore with your imagination and take note of all details so you can write it down on your journal for reflection later on.