2019 was a hard year for me. One milestone, though, was that I finished my first Zenit customized journal at the end of the year, which made for perfect timing for a new wellness journal for the new year. I took my time in deciding what I want for my next journal. And in fact, I chose to get myself TWO new Zenit journals to support my health, wellness, and growth.
The first customized journal I made builds on my first Zenit journal. I use it for planning my daily priorities, tracking my wins, taking notes, and processing my experiences, thoughts, and feelings.
For my personalized prompts, I’m using the daily planning prompts at the top: “My ME to-do list” and “My work to-do list.” As an entrepreneur, I like having these two to-do lists side by side and of equal length. It helps me stay balanced and practice self-care everyday. I kept these to-do lists to six lines to force myself to prioritize, to avoid having an overwhelming to-do list that never ends.
The next daily prompts in my wellness journal are “What serves me today?” “How am I honoring my wants?” and “What am I learning?” With my last Zenit custom journal, these prompts were transformational for me to get in tune with my heart, my needs, and my desires. This helped me set healthier boundaries in relationships and focus more of my energy on what matters to me.
I also know that growth takes time - hell, it’s an ongoing process without a finish line - so I want to keep working on these areas. That’s why I included them in my new personalized journal. Just this week, journaling to these prompts helped me see that I carry stress from a lot of “shoulding” and worst-case scenario thinking. This won’t change overnight, but each day I journal, I find ways to recenter and counter these fear-based thought patterns. I find ways to honor my needs and desires, and recenter on who I want to be.
The cover I chose for my new customized journal is our new cover, Power. Its deep red and black and its pattern was calling to me. Last year was a hard year for me. I was hurt and betrayed by people I love and counted on. Over the year I’ve been working on healing and rebuilding the ground I stand on. When I see and feel this cover, something about it helps me feel grounded, reconnecting with my core and my power.
My other customized journal is what I’m calling my “Soul Journal.” It’s unlined and blank on the inside - it only has the date holder and bookmark star, so I can easily come back to pages I want to revisit. I’m using this journal to write down things I read or hear that speak to my soul.
Actually, when I was in college and studying poetry and literature, I had a blank notebook where I wrote down lines of poetry that spoke to me. As an adult, I fell off reading for fun for a while, but over the past few years I’ve gotten back into it by reading for 10 to 30 minutes as I’m going to bed. I’m currently reading an amazing novel, “Taty Went West” by Nikhil Singh. Early in this book, I read the line “Taty awoke before dawn and watched the sun split like a ripe melon over the world” and it struck my soul. I was like, “Wow! I want to write that down!” So, I created this custom journal for all things I come across in the universe that move my soul.
For this journal, I’m using the new cover Bloom, which is available for our Lil Notebooks. (If YOU want a full-size custom journal with this cover, DM me on instagram or contact me on my website.) This cover was speaking to me for this journal, because it has both a depth and lightness to it. I wanted something to remind me that I can still be happy and smile. A reminder that I don’t have to take everything so seriously. I’ve started to fill it out with other things I’ve heard and read. And with each entry I add, I feel the light in my soul bloom.
I’ve found that in addition to clarity and a space to express my thoughts and feelings, journaling in my customized wellness journal and my “soul journal” is giving me hope. And it’s not a blazing fire of hope. It’s the hope of a slow-burning log. The flame is small, you can barely see it, but the log continues to burn. And that’s enough. It’s what I need right now.
I finish each morning journaling session with hope that I am little further equipped to keep moving forward. Hope that each day, I am steadily solidifying the ground I’m walking on. Hope that each day, I continue to uncover who I am, so that I can go a little further in leading with my heart.