Why We Practice
I recently read a story about a mother who told her daughter that she was leaving her all of her journals. But there was a stipulation. The daughter couldn't read them until she was gone. The woman died a week later.
The daughter was surprised her mother even kept journals, and was shocked that there were three shelves of them. She reached for the first one and it was blank. The second one was empty, too. So was the third - and every journal that followed as she worked her way through the collection.
The rest of the book, which is titled When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams, is a reconciliation of this experience along with an exploration of what it means to have a voice, what suppresses it, and what's left in the wake of its void.
About halfway through, I closed the book and felt intense gratitude for the dozens, maybe hundreds – I've never counted – of notebooks that I've filled over the last 30 plus years in a way I never appreciated before. I've always had the impulse to write, but never paused to consider why.
And in that moment, I realized it didn't matter what happened to those notebooks. It was the act of writing, the process, the practice, the ritual of picking up a pen and expressing my unique view, if only to myself. It has led me on a well-documented path of self-discovery and growth.
It has also deepened my empathy when I work with students and clients. I like to work with four practices, which I'll share briefly in a bit. And it's helpful for students to understand what it was like for me when I began each of those practices myself and where it has led over the years. And I love seeing how others take these practices and make them their own.
So what are practices and why should we do them?
Practices are simply actions that we do for the purpose of learning, growing or experiencing. The practices I recommend have been specifically designed to discover and connect with your deepest self. This allows you to access your innate wisdom, or what I like to call the still point – a place of calm and knowing, an inner North Star.
The more you know this inner voice, the better prepared you’ll be as you travel your life path. When you practice consistently, this wise knowing can take you on a journey from head to heart, where you can live wholeheartedly as your truest self.
At its core, creating a practice is a method for developing new levels of self-awareness. If you're intentional with your practices, you'll find that they can be a wonderful support for your life choices. These practices are meant to be incorporated in your daily life, with the ability to be amended and scaled as you develop and grow. And I highly encourage you to modify them in ways that best suit you.
Here are the four types of practices I work with when I teach and coach. They are:
Contemplation
Journaling
Positive Action
Holding a question
Let's take them one by one.
Contemplation. I intentionally use the word contemplation because it means deep reflective thought, which is a state of mind and spirit that's beneficial to nurture.
The range of activities to get you into a contemplative state is broad and ranges from silent meditation to inspirational reading to visualization to deep listening to being in nature to meaningful dialogue. I've worked with many of these contemplative practices over the years and I find the ones that support me change as my life shifts from one phase to the next. So I recommend that you find something that gets you to a quiet state and be consistent with it, if only for a few minutes a day.
The next practice is journaling. And I readily admit that for some folks, the thought of writing stirs huge fears. But much like contemplation, you can find ways to make this supportive and part of your daily routine.
I believe that if you can write an email or send a text, you have the ability to journal. If you enjoy journaling, you can expand or amend your current practice. If you don't enjoy narrative writing, you can use a bulleted list. You can use your phone, maybe the Notes app or its audio, video or camera capabilities.
If you're more artistic, you can carve out a little time to doodle, sketch, paint or collage. If you prefer a portable or virtual option, you can also use an online journal, some of which have multimedia capabilities. Whatever method you choose, consider it a safe place for learning what wholehearted living means for you.
Consider your writing practice as a protected space, a private sanctuary, where you can identify where your inner and outer worlds are not congruent, where you can explore new areas of interest, and where you can dive deep in fearless conversations with yourself.
The next practice is positive action. It's been my experience when I'm embarking on a new project or life phase, that the best way to gain a bit of momentum is to take a related positive action, a small intentional step toward a new way of being. I've also found that taking small actions and consistently reinforcing them with a positive outlook helps us connect with and learn to trust our inner wisdom.
The last practice is holding a question. This practice has been my favorite since I left my corporate career and my identity began to shift From Type A to Type Be. It gave me the opportunity to examine my beliefs, traits, characteristics, roles, and social connections, and decide if they're still the best choices for me as I moved forward. Learning to hold a question facilitated this process and helped me determine what stayed in my life and what needed to change.
I think the reason why this is so powerful is because in our professional lives, we're always expected to know the answers as leaders and as team members. Holding a question gives us an opportunity to not know the answer and sit with it. This tends to open ourselves to possibilities that stretch beyond our logical mind into the realm of the heart, which invites innovation, connection and creativity.
There's also a power in the asking, in giving ourselves permission to not know and to work through it. It's a practice that keeps us present. These are big, open-ended questions that will invite you to be curious and go deep as you design your next steps.
Don't rush the answers and be open to the mystery when you receive an answer that you don't expect. When an unexpected answer surfaces for you, just jot it down in your notebook. It's usually an indication that you're not filtering as you reflect, which is great. And you just may be heading down an exciting new trail of thought.
Here are some thoughts to help you create your own practices around these four activities:
Commit. Determine when and where you’ll practice. I suggest designating a place where you'll feel comfortable and creating a schedule that's sustainable. The magic is in the repetition and the honoring that comes from building the habit.
Stay open. Invite bewilderment and not knowing so you can spend time just being and living with your questions.
Be kind to yourself. That can take the form of suspending judgment on your efforts, which is especially important in the beginning, starting in small time increments, and then giving yourself space to experiment or to allow yourself to just dream.
Remember that you have options. Work with the practices in whatever way makes sense for you. Make them your own by listening to your own inner guidance and amend them as you see fit.
Above all, remember that the point of practice is to create an engaging conversation with your inner wisdom. I believe creating supporting practices will help you move toward what matters most, while taking good care of yourself along the way.
Working with these practices will help you connect with your own insight and keep you on a path that's right for you. Your practices will also support your well-being, so you can do what lights you up with the people you love. That's wholehearted living.
And that's why we practice.
Journal Reflections: What practices have you relied on to keep yourself well? What new practices would you like to explore? How might you begin to incorporate them into your daily routine?