Sunday Journal Prompt

“Trees need wind to blow against them 

because it causes their root systems to grow deeper.”

– Dennis Merritt Jones in Natural Awakenings article, “Strong Winds Make Strong Roots”

Despite having healthy soil, purified air and water, and filtered light, trees in a biodome toppled over after growing to a certain height. Scientists determined that the trees had not grown strong roots because the element of wind was missing.

Rather that resisting wind, trees bend and sway in response to it—all while strengthening their roots.

What “wind” have you been resisting? 

Rather than being rigid, how can you sway a bit while strengthening your roots?

Sunday Journal Prompt

Unsubscribe

To reduce the clutter in my email in-box, I unsubscribed to about 50 different sites. Although I’d been deleting tons of emails daily, I hadn’t realized how much email I was receiving from unwanted places. I hadn’t considered the energy it took from me to read and decide to delete each one. As a result, I’ve streamlined my life. I now receive periodic emails from blogs and sites that energize me—sites about health and minimalism, for example, not companies promoting sales of products I don’t need.

This step has helped me have the confidence to unsubscribe to negative influences in my life, such as hurtful comments from energy drainers. By minimizing my exposure to what zaps me, I spend more time with people and activities that fuel me.

What can you unsubscribe to in your life? 

What has been taking up your time and draining your energy bit by bit?

Sunday Journal Prompt

“Make me an instrument of Thy peace.”

– Prayer of St. Francis

While I practiced yoga beside a beach cove at dawn, only two people were in sight. One cast his fishing rod into the calm waters; the other glided his surfboard past the coral reef toward cresting waves. Later that day, I noticed hikers using professional or makeshift walking sticks to help them maintain stability on a rough trail. I travel with a little book of quotes, a homemade prayer card and my yoga mat, my “cylinder of peace.”

What objects—instruments—do you associate with peace?

How do they help you become an instrument of peace?

Sunday Journal Prompt

“Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.”

                            – Marian Wright Endelman

It’s so hard to be still. When I stop at a red light while driving, I find myself checking my phone for texts and emails. At home, I often rush from room to room, looking for a misplaced item or putting clean laundry in drawers. When I eat alone, I flip through a magazine. While cooking, I listen to a podcast. Even though I know that constant input drains me, I find myself seeking it.

The writer Ron Carlson says that he writes each morning before checking email or reading the news. “That’s about what other people have to say. Instead I want to see what I have to say.”

Write down something you fill your time with that you can postpone—or skip entirely—today. Instead, listen to what you have to say.

Sunday Journal Prompt

“You cannot fully love anyone or anything until you love yourself.” 

                                                                                                                            – Yoga teacher Doug Swenson

We devote much of our time and energy to others—helping them, giving to them, pleasing them. If we do this without filling up ourselves first, we become but a shell of ourselves. Bitterness can cultivate.

In his session entitled “Yoga, the Dawn of Self-Love,” yoga teacher Doug Swenson said he considers each yoga session as like a “spa day,” time to relax and pamper ourselves. When his seated students stretched out to reach their toes, he encouraged them to massage their own feet.

By babying ourselves, we acknowledge that we are worth our own time and love. Practicing self-love daily enables us to freely give to others without depleting ourselves.

What do you do just for yourself? What more can you do?