How to Heal Yourself with Transpersonal Journaling?

Imagine a man, 48 years of age, brushing his teeth in the morning, watching his face in the mirror. And then a sudden realization comes to him. He has been working hard in his professional life to provide for his family. Trying to smile at every step of his life, no matter the circumstances. But now, after 20 years, he’s tired of his own story. The children have now grown up. The designation in his office, the titles that he received feels like he’s wearing someone else’s shoes.

The questions in the back of his mind when he was in his 30s that he would shove to the side are coming up to the surface now. In fact, they’re much louder now. The questions are: why do I have to be strong all the time? What is it that I really want?

This is the midlife identity crisis that we all can relate to. Midlife crises need not come with some kind of personal conflict or financial burden. It can be much quieter. It can be a profound realization. When you look back at your life and the decisions that you’ve taken, it’s the same feeling where you feel like you’re on the right track, yet you still got lost somewhere in the race of life. People around you will keep telling you that you got lucky. And you feel bad when you don’t agree. This is where many people end up getting caught up in a cycle of both gratitude and grief.

This is where transpersonal journaling comes into play. It’s not pretty at all. It can be messy. It’s much more than the typical write-your-feelings-down-in-a-diary. It challenges your whole personality. It sees you beyond the roles that you’ve taken. As a parent, as a boss, as a provider, as a partner, etc. It allows you to be yourself beyond all the labels that you, that society has given you.

The difference that counts

Journaling can be just like talking to a good friend. While journaling, you write down your frustrations, your feelings, and then you close your notebook or the diary. This kind of exercise is helpful on a bad day. However, when we are talking about an identity crisis of who you believe you are, and when that identity begins to crumble, you need something that goes much beyond normal journaling. Transpersonal journaling opens that door to symbols, images, and even conversations with yourself.

This practice doesn’t rush you to solutions immediately. It allows you to experience the paradox. You can feel good about everything that you have done in your life, everything that you have created. But also angry about all the sacrifices and the hard work. It’s okay to feel angry. Because to gain everything, it was really expensive on your part. It’s okay to miss the part of you that you have lost under the responsibilities. But you still love your family. You still love your job. This type of writing allows you to come face to face with all your emotions and battle it out on paper until something honest comes out of it.

Being present when it doesn’t seem to matter

The most difficult part about this whole exercise is to get started. When you do not feel like getting started. Imagine the mornings when the coffee is bitter and the page is still blank. You’re not able to write anything even though you have just started, even though you want to start transpersonal journaling.

There is a need for clarity for now. You need not write full-form sentences. You can just scramble whatever half-thoughts you have onto the paper. One day you might just draw some symbols that come to your mind. Some other day you might just draw a picture or a diagram. If you have nothing else to write about, you might on some days feel like you have written gibberish and you feel like tearing the page out. But leave it right there. You do not have to censor yourself. You have to be real.

There’s no right or wrong thing to write about. There’s no ritual. There are no specific instructions. But the key is to show up. You do not have to look smart or wise while writing your transpersonal journal. And do not worry about spellings at all. You just have to focus on the ideas. Allow your ideas to flow through you. Sometimes one entry could be just three pages of anger towards an aging parent because of some childhood trauma. The next one could be a description of how the light falls on the balcony in the evening and makes you feel strangely peaceful for no apparent reason. You can write about anything. And they both belong in your transpersonal journal.

Your body reacts to your feelings

With so much stress going on, you might have a stiff shoulder. When you think about another decade of the same life that you’re going through, maybe your jaw clenches.

Transpersonal journaling pays attention to those signals in your body and doesn’t ignore them. Whenever you get stuck in the middle of a sentence, ask yourself what that feeling is. And ask yourself where the feeling is coming from. And then write down that feeling. Just write a raw description. The tightness, the warmth, the peculiar feeling, or that emptiness in the chest, etc.

Once a friend of mine said that when he was writing about his father’s expectations, his hands were shaking. He wasn’t crying though. He was just shaking. On the page, he allowed his younger self to write. And that younger self wrote that love meant achievement. He took long pauses. He was still confused about his mixed feelings. However, he went through the process. He still continues to have the same issues in his life. But now, he feels like it’s his own weight and not some borrowed weight. And that difference itself makes a hell of a lot of difference in how we look at life. At our life in the present.

This is where it is different from purely psychological approaches. Transpersonal journaling doesn’t separate you from your daily mess. You can write about God, the universe, or how you feel life has been unfair to you. Or just the quiet voice that is larger than your personal story. You can also write about how you feel about your physical health, like how your back hurts all the time right now. And the grocery list never ends. And that constant pressure of the next due date to pay your bills never ends.

The bits that people don’t say

People do not talk about their sessions honestly and openly. Sometimes you’ll just write “I don’t know” 20 times and then close the notebook in frustration. Some other day, old grief will come back as some bad memory and you’ll spend the rest of the day grieving about it. But the practice has to continue regardless. Consistency matters more than anything else. You should be consistently honest with yourself.

Living with the questions

Many people report feeling a lot better after months of transpersonal journaling. I don’t mean like in an enlightened way or suddenly that person turns wise. Nothing like that. The only expectation is that we want to be a little distant from the old identity of who we used to be. They feel happier from the inside. They don’t argue with reality. They see the little beauties in everything. From the sound of their partner’s voice, to the aroma of the rain on hot concrete, or to the foolishness of hope when it’s all heavy and confusing in your life.

The crises in your life do not go away magically. There are questions that will still remain unanswered for years. Questions like, am I sufficient? Have I done everything properly for my family? What is my responsibility at this stage of life? Can it be done on time? The practice is to carry all these questions rather than to expect them to be solved on the spot. You need to give yourself enough time to make a difference.

Remember, the mirror doesn’t lie. And it never did. It just waited until you were ready to take a closer look.