RJP: Awareness
Awareness is noticing what is, observing thoughts, feelings, surroundings.
That can be simply noticing something. It can also be going out your way to notice, track, and observe something.
Think: " It is catching my attention" vs "I'm giving it attention".
It's important to take notice to Awareness in journaling as its own entity.
Recognizing something exists allows you to get curious about it.
Your curiosity leads you to study it.
Your study of it leads to you using it as a tool deliberately.
At first, you'll practice noticing things after they've taken place.
(This is the most common understanding of journaling: reporting).
You'll get practice with extracting information from memories and your current feelings.
Memory retrieval and expression are great for getting to know yourself, romanticizing your life, and grounding yourself.
Regularly acknowledging your life, experiences, and feelings helps to give your life a sense of realness, validity, and put it in a state of mattering.
You matter, your life matters, your feelings matter. I something happens to you, that matters.
You don't get to decide what goes on in your life , your does. (Right?).
Eventually, though, being the reporter will begin to feel unsatisfying.
Here you are, being this reporter recording the lie of a character and their whereabouts whilst also having the power to influence their life dramatically.
That realization just makes recording and reporting feel empty, stale, stagnant, useless, dried out, spent. It's like having the controller in you hands, realizing you have the power to hit the buttons.
That brings forth questions:
What Do I do/
What do I want to do?
*What's happening in my life that I want to influence?
Now, that skill of Awareness is ready to evolve from "what's happening to me", from a "reporter mode", into an investigative, data collection, observational mode.
You'll being to deliberately examine your life for particular themes.
This where awareness turns into curiosity.