Practices for Honoring Feelings. Journaling and Self-Compassion

Journaling as a Tool for Clarity and Development

Another very powerful way to manage stress and increase our resilience is to keep a journal to write down our thoughts and feelings.

This practice, which you can do by hand or on a computer, is an excellent tool for your personal development and emotional well-being.

Keeping a journal regularly can help you gain clarity, reduce stress, set goals, and express yourself creatively.

It also allows you to identify thought patterns, monitor your progress, and gain valuable insight into your own growth as a person.

It is a safe space where you can process your emotions without judgment, allowing you to better understand them and prevent them from accumulating and causing discomfort.

Self-Compassion as a Pillar of Resilience

Self-compassion is another fundamental practice for honoring our feelings and involves applying the compassion we give to others to ourselves ourselves.

This concept is a very important part of resilience, because we are all imperfect human beings and we are going to make mistakes, fail, and feel embarrassed.

The key question to ask ourselves is how we treat ourselves when we acknowledge our own failings, our weaknesses, and our inevitable mistakes.

Rather than beating ourselves up, self-compassion invites us to treat ourselves with the same kindness we would offer to a good friend who was going through a tough time.

The Antidote to Destructive Self-Criticism

Many of us are very hard on ourselves when we fall short of an expectation, when we do something wrong, or when we experience some form of criticism.

We tend to see what is wrong and use criticism and very harsh self-talk to beat ourselves up, mistakenly thinking that this will motivate us to improve.

However, research has shown that a much kinder approach is not only less stressful, but also promotes more growth and resilience.

Destructive self-criticism keeps us trapped in a cycle of negativity and shame, while self-compass