All & Uncategorized

#DevelopingIdea First Branched From: Digital Garden? I love concept maps. Clearly. LYJ is one. I love them because concept mapping, to me, is what learning is. I feel it is a part of critical thinking. I'm unsure how often concept maps are used (strategically and intentionally) in education. Students can of course make them whenever they choose. I'm specifically wondering how often their use is directed by the educator delivering the instruction. I wonder when, if, how often,

#DraftInProgress Journaling is more than venting, tracking, and a good wellness habit. Journaling is a relationship to yourself made tangible. Journaling is a personal exchange between you and you where you get to play the role of three: Person A talking, Person B talking, and a mediator. There's an infinite level of work that can be accomplished when you realize you can shift roles between yourself (speaker, listener, and mediator). You set decide how each of those show up,

#DraftInProgress Linked From: 🔗 Zero Effort Gratitude An alternative to gratitude journaling for when it's difficult to feel grateful. It asks you to start journaling about "what doesn't suck", using neutrality as a stepping stone into gratitude and then eventually into optimism. What's "Forcing To Qualify?" and why is it important to discuss? "Forcing to Qualify" is what I'm naming a particular way of getting stuck while journaling. It's forcing yourself (or at least tryin

Why is "Neutrality" so important in Zero Effort Journaling? #DraftinProgress Neutrality is the operative in Zero Effort Journaling. What makes it worth highlighting, is what it asks you to do, be, how it asks you to see things, and what it implies. What it's asking you to do is three-fold: Take notice. We all take passive notice to things. Stuff is out there. It's going to slide into your awareness. Take notice on purpose. Going out your way to notice something is a differe

I was writing a blog post on my gratitude journaling system and philosophy called Zero Effort Gratitude. In Zero Effort Gratitude, the idea of it is to make gratitude journaling easier by changing what gratitude journaling asks of you. It is to make the practice more accepting so you can experience more discovery and practice with awareness and do less appraising and qualifying of what's worthy of being in your journal. (More or less). While I was writing all about it in deta

Neutrality, as a concept, is about evenness, readiness, being clear, preparedness, a blank state, new beginnings, calm, and clarity. Neutrality is a perspective to journal from (or towards). When you journal with, from, or towards Neutrality, you are practicing observation and non-interference. Neutrality is simple acknowledgement. For example, I can say, "today was a busy day" and simply acknowledge it was busy. I could mean "stressful", "productive" or anything. "Busy" is c

Lately in my journals, I've been challenging myself to write using affirmatives. That means avoiding words like "don't", "can't", "isn't"" and the likes. Why? Because negatives only tell me what I'm avoiding. They're abstract, phantoms, vague, and literally tell me nothing. That's what negatives do. They say what's not there, what's not available. That's playing a game to not lose instead of playing to win. It's living to survive instead of living to live. It's being afraid

How good it is to wake up knowing you're happy. That life isn't still being created and now you're doing stuff just for fun. Just for the plot. That's what abundance is. Abundance is having filled your life up so much that you don't know what to do with the rest. It's beautiful to know, just knowing in and of itself. How you get to see you. How you get to bloom and branch. That you're in a place where your nail color matches how you're feeling. That you're in the mood to cook

I'm directed and I'm here. Life is factually beautiful. I keep seeing evidence of that. Evidence of a healthy root system. They're thick and intertwined. To say anything different is a lie. When what I'm granted and what I choose coalesce .... that is alignment, that is continuity. Witnessing other stories, being invested in their plot, God agreeing with what you deserve, Being directed, an agent in your own body. The embarrassment of vulnerability alchemizing into openness,

7/16/26 When I first got really into journaling, I would hand write a lot. Now, I'm more interested in typing. I think that is because of my growth in awareness. I like seeing different colors, handwriting changes and other non-journaled communication in my journal. Now, I feel like I can intuit that. I also hardly write things that aren't shareable. I love writing on my blog. So maybe my journaling is evolving from physical personal journaling with a signaling system build i

Agency is making a deliberate choice with your whole self. Integrity is the will to adhere to your values. Agency is your ability to adhere to those values. Ability. Not discipline. Ability. Exercising your agency is making a deliberate choice. And I said choice. I didn't say the "right" choice or best choice. Simply a choice. I didn't say the "right" or best choice because it is a choice you make with your whole self. Not your "higher-self" or "most authentic self" or the s