✍️ The Art of Journaling in a Holistic Manner
How I see holism, and why I feel it's an important element in the day-to-day life
Happy Wednesday! In this week’s letter, you’ll learn about…
✍️ What Holism is, and its role in Cyclical Living
🖋️ Specific Holistic Journaling Prompts
📝 A free gift: An Autumn theme journal page for your notes
✍️ Holism: What, Why & When
Last week, I wrote about laying the foundation for Cyclal Living, and one of those is journaling your inner and outer world. This is for me in short Journaling in a holistic matter.
But what is Holism? We can write books on holism, and that is not my intention for today. So instead, I’d like to tell you from my perspective how I see holism.
Holims is the whole
Everything is part of each other and is connected to each other. Everything is interconnected and weaved with each other.
We are so used to separating everything, and that can be super handy, especially if we want to understand or learn something but then we need to integrate it to its natural state = the whole. And that’s in my opinion the missing piece.
Understanding that any organ in my body is part of a bigger system in my body.
Understanding that my body is more than a sum of bones, organs, limbs, etc.
Understanding that my mental & emotional state will affect my physical, energetic & spiritual body and vice versa.
Understanding that everything I do to and for myself will affect my surroundings and vice versa.
Understanding that I’m a part of something bigger than just myself and that something bigger is also part of me.
When we start understanding all of this we can start practicing something called Holistic Living; a healthy lifestyle that nourishes your body, mind, and soul. I see Holistic Living as part of Cyclical Living, as I not only observe the cycles of nature, but also try to implement/integrate + take into consideration its effect on my body, my environment, my mental & emotional well-being, and my spiritual life and vice versa.
The Art of Holistic Journaling
As I mentioned previously, dividing things into segments or categories can be handy, especially when we want to understand and learn something new. That’s the clue in Holistic Journaling = we separate to understand something, but then we put it back together, or integrate it so we can see the big picture.
To avoid confusion and overwhelm we won’t be freewriting all over the place how your day went, how you felt, etc. Instead, you write short sentences, or keywords divided into four holistic categories:
Body: how your body felt today.
Mental & Emotional: how you felt on a mental and emotional level today
Environmental: how you felt about everything and everyone just outside of yourself today
Spiritual: how you felt in regards to your purpose and mission in the world and your connection to the planet Earth, the universe, god(dess), etc. today.
Even though you have now a page with divisions, you’ll be able to see in one glance how YOU felt as a whole every single day = you’ll be able to see the whole picture.
Again, I recommend keeping it short by just using one page per day. If you haven’t read last week’s letter, I recommend doing so, as you’ll also find other tips there. You can check the post here.
By doing this consistently plus, by reviewing your writing, you’ll become more and more aware of yourself and your surroundings.
Tip: You can review your journal at the end of the moon cycle and at the end of each season.
Journaling every day this way while weaving nature’s cycles into your writing, you’ll start - after a month or two - to see your own unique rhythms and patterns.
This information is your TREASURE!
🖋️ Journaling Prompts
Body
Besides how you felt you can also…
Write the things - either healthy or unhealthy - you did for your body.
Did you listen to your physical needs?
Mental & Emotional
Besides how you felt you can also…
Write the things - either healthy or unhealthy - you did for your mental & emotional health.
Did you listen to your mental & emotional needs?
Environmental
Besides how you felt you can also…
Write the things - either healthy or unhealthy - you did for your home, relationships, work/career, and nature.
Did you listen to your environmental needs?
Spiritual
Besides how you felt you can also…
Write the things for your spiritual well-being.
Did you align today with your values? with your life mission?
Did you listen to your spiritual needs?
Do you think you can do this each day? Why? or Why not? Feel free to share your answer and reflections in the comments:
📝 Autumn Theme Notes Journaling Page
If you love journaling, specifically intentional journaling, please grab this free printable journal page!
By subscribing to Your WeatherVane newsletters you’ll get access details in your welcome email. Also, whenever you get your weekly letter you’ll see the access link in the email header. This information isn’t visible elsewhere on Substack; you won’t have access just by reading the letters online. That’s why subscribing is recommended.
💫 My WeatherVane’s Flow
This past week, I’ve been flowing in a planning mode. With all the decluttering going on, I’ve been creating space literally and figurably, and with that inspiration, intentions, and motivation have come my way.
Over and over again, I catch myself amazed by the beauty & synchronicity of Cyclical Living.
Not only by just observing nature’s cycles and themes but also attuning to those themes I’ve been able to flow naturally.
And that’s the beauty of Autumn and by that matter for both equinoxes —> with preparedness comes planning.
Being a true Gemini, who I’m sure has had undiagnosed ADHD her entire life plus the consequences of cancer treatment and all that it entails, I’ve been feeling more lost and overwhelmed than ever before.
Not an unknown feeling, as 1.) I’ve been suffering from this to some degree or another my entire life but 2.) also never been able to stick to a planning system because - back then - they felt dry and boring.
Now I understand that this is because of all planning systems - hell, all systems! - are linear and don’t take the person’s wholeness or uniqueness into account. Planning systems come from someone else’s perspective, what has worked for them. The chances for these to work for me/with me have been zero.
With Cyclical Living, I’ve been able not only to understand but to intuitively feel when to plan. Knowing this and being able to plan has given me the inspiration to create my own planner. And so, that’s what I’ve been working on.
Maybe in the future, I’ll be sharing more about my planning system.
I’ve achieved my goal of decluttering & organizing my closet!
The boxes in the attic are still unpacked…
📩 Upcoming Letter
✍️ My journey into cyclical living and the role of the Moon in all of this
🔥 Getting started with Moon Journaling
🖋️ Moon Journaling Prompts
📝 A free gift: New Moon Journaling Page
🌬️ Sending you magic & healing your way,
-Vane