How to make more intuitive decisions part one – writing

Ever struggle to make decisions, or even know what is right for you any more? Find out how stream of consciousness journaling can help you to re-connect with your inner self and make more intuitive decisions.

Being authentic and keeping in touch with your inner self – your spirit – is essential if you want to pursue a successful career, freelance or business path that’s in line with your values, energises you (rather than depletes your energy) and that you will enjoy and thrive in.

But how can you do this? Katie Phillips, founder of Daring & Mighty, has put together a six-part series teaching you how to connect with ‘you’. Every Sunday for the next few weeks we’ll be sharing a simple practice you can adopt to help you tune into your spirit, and make more intuitive decisions in your life and work.

What is your ‘spirit’?

I’m going to talk a lot about your ‘spirit’ in the next few weeks, and I wanted to start by explaining what I mean by this. We all have a spirit, but perhaps we give different names to it. You might know it as your inner voice, your gut instinct, your intuition, or even your muse or soul.

Our spirit is our energy, our life force, our unconscious… it’s all the workings that go on invisibly inside us that have a huge impact on the decisions we make in life, and how we feel.

And in order to feel inspired and internally guided to intuitively make the right decisions, we need to be connected to our spirit – our self. 

How to connect with your inner self through writing

There are many ways you can connect with your spirit, but today I’m going to focus on stream of consciousness journal writing.

So often we forget how much wisdom and experience we have to call on – that the answers to so many difficult questions are within us. And instead of using this knowledge to help free us and move us forward, we get stuck in negative thought patterns.

Stream of consciousness journaling can help us to open up to the truths inside us, connect with our spirit and listen to our intuition.

How to start stream of consciousness writing

To practise stream of consciousness journaling, it’s important to allow yourself the freedom to write whatever comes to your mind (if you can, write by hand as the connection is so much more direct).

Just sit down and start writing whatever comes to mind. Don’t censor or even actively think about a single word – just follow where the writing takes you, however crazy and nonsensical it may seem.

In stream of consciousness journaling, you are breaking down subconscious barriers that might hinder your free thought. It’s a bit like a download where you brain-dump onto the page. You can write down your fears or your frustrations, your thoughts and desires, your reflections and emotions, things that you are grateful for – whatever you like!

Don’t worry about re-reading and editing as you go, just get it down on paper. I would recommend that you don’t show your journal to anyone. That way you can be conscious and clear about what you write, and will avoid the need to self-censor out of fear.

When you write, you may begin to feel some creativity flowing through your pen – some people notice that their handwriting actually changes when they find themselves in creative flow, in inspiration, in spirit.

How writing can help you find the truth

Stream of conscious journaling can help connect you to the truth. It can give you the answers, ideas or resolutions you are looking for, and sometimes even the answers that you weren’t looking for but that are ultimately the ones you need in that moment.

Through connecting with your spirit, journaling can help you to keep on the right emotional track, get more creative, discover your best self, enable you to give yourself love and develop more self-confidence, make a directory of things that make you feel good, and even manifest your dreams.

And by putting you in touch with all your inner thoughts, experiences, feelings and beliefs, journaling in this way can help you to make more intuitive decisions – choices that are authentically right for you.

It’s easy to start

It’s such a simple but powerful exercise, and I encourage you to grab a notebook and just start doing it. It’s quite easy to do – just set aside at least 15 minutes every day (preferably in the morning immediately after waking up, if you have time) and find somewhere quiet to just write.

It’s a great way to start or change a day, and you will be amazed at how therapeutic and cathartic it can feel – and how much more in tune with your real needs you feel.

For busy mums who are used to putting everyone else first and ignoring their own physical comfort and emotional needs, it’s a much-needed reality check with our own wants and wishes, and will help you make decisions that feel ‘right’ much more easily. So give it a try today!

Katie Phillips is the founder of Daring & Mighty, an organisation committed to sharing the importance of having a healthy, loving and conscious relationship with yourself.