An interview with mindfulness teacher Dr Natasha Papazafeiropoulou, as she reflects on the practice of mindful journaling and writing.
What’s Your Personal Interest in Mindful Journaling?
I have been practising meditation since 2004. In 2011 I became certified as a mindfulness meditation teacher by the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). During my training, we were encouraged to share our experience in meditation and emphasised the importance of reflection after each meditation.
Years later, I decided to extend this practice of mindful sharing from verbal to written form. So, I started keeping a journal of my everyday meditation practice.
Having initially had no expectation as to how trivial or profound this practice might be, my experience was so rewarding that I decided to design a course and workshop to teach people how to journal in a mindful way.
"Writing can be an incredible mindfulness practice"
-- JON KABAT-ZINN
How Can Journaling Support Us?
There are different types of journals. Journaling can be a good way to keep track of our activities and our progress against fitness or work-related goals, but also can be used as a good outlet to express emotions and reflect on our experiences.
The uniqueness of a journal is that we can express ourselves privately, with the freedom to be authentic and original in our writing. At the same time, it's a tangible keepsake that remains throughout the years so e have the option to go back to old journals or share them with others.
How Does Practising Mindfulness Benefit a Journaling Practice?
There are two ways mindfulness can support a journaling practice. First, using mindfulness awareness we can use the journal itself as the anchor to keep our attention in the here and now. This way journaling becomes a mindful activity such as mindful walking, washing up, etc.
Secondly, journaling can be used as an alternative way to share our experience of our meditation practice. Practising journaling while in a meditative relaxed state, we are more able to get insights into our practice, life situations and keep a record of our reflections.
"Whether you're keeping a journal or writing as meditation, it's the same. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind."
-- NATALIE GOLDBERG
How Does Journaling as a Group Differ From Journaling Alone?
In the journaling course we practice in a group setting. Although journaling is a solitary activity (just like meditation), when we share our journaling experiences with others we can gain better insights and different perspectives.
For example, participants see similarities with the way other people usually see journaling as a way to express distractive emotions, such as anger, and realise how a mindfulness practice can inform their journaling practice.
During the course, we learn how to use journaling to reflect on the past and set intentions for the future. We practice different ways of journaling from structured and guided written reflections, open writing, and combining writing with drawing or sketching.
We practice different mindfulness ideals such as equanimity, gratitude and self-care and use mindful journaling as a way to apply these principles to our everyday life in a meaningful way. Finally, people learn to use their discretion to share as much or as little as they feel is useful.
It’s deeply rewarding to teach this course and I am excited to watch people getting insights into their practice and to use an alternative means to reflect and develop.
" I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. It was very well paced, a variety of meditations and opportunities to practice journaling and exchange experiences with other participants."
-- ANNA, WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT
Finally, Do You Have Any Top Journaling or Mindfulness Tips?
My top tips for both mindfulness and mindfulness journaling are:
- Let go of any effort to achieve something or get a specific outcome
- Let go of any guilt of not practising enough
- Consider group meditation to gather momentum for your own practice
Dr Natasha Papazafeiropoulou
Dr Natasha Papazafeiropoulou has been practicing meditation since 2004 and trained to teach mindfulness meditation at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2011. Since then, Natasha has been teaching mindfulness to organisations, universities, small groups and individuals. Natasha has a PhD in computer science and taught at Brunel University. She now lives and works in Athens, teaching mindfulness, yoga and running retreats. Natasha has a passion for teaching mindfulness in any setting and is particularly interested in applying mindfulness ideas into everyday life.
Join Natasha’s 4-Week Mindful Journaling Course or Half-Day Workshop.
