Journaling for Spiritual Growth Shows Your Deep Thoughts Have Value

One of the things I hear too often from people around me is the wish that they could be deeper, wiser, full of more knowledge. Deep people are respected, trusted, and sought after whenever someone wants to get things done, and done right.

So where do these deep people come from?

The Difference between Deep People and Me, and What Does Journaling Have to Do With It?

I believe that there is nothing intrinsically different between many of those so-called "deep" people and you, or at least, there is not nearly as much as you think.

For most of these people, the depth that people love about them has been developed over time. No one is born inherently wise, knowing everything there is to know about life, people, relationships, etc. We simply absorb and learn from the world we are in as time passes. Use your journaling to benefit from this information absorption.

Our thoughts have value, and our questions have even more value. Ask these questions of yourself, and of God, while journaling. When we take the time to voice those questions and thoughts, or to at least mull over them for longer periods of time than the hustle and bustle world really allows us, we find that our thoughts also have value, and that we do actually have something to say.

One of the major differences between those who would be described as "deep people" and those who are not is merely that those described as "deep" have examined their lives and the connections between theirs and other people's experience. Deep people have looked at their lives against the backdrop of the world and connected the situations and events of their lives to those of others, and by doing this they have been able to see a fuller picture of life. Deep people have taken the time to deepen their own waters by looking at life from many angles, and have had the opportunity to look past appearances to see to the truth of things.

Create Deeper Waters through Journaling

Journaling gives us the opportunity to become like those wiser and deeper people we respect, in that it provides a place for us to examine our own thinking and discover layers of thought that we never knew was there. When we value what happens in our heads and cultivate our thoughts and musings, they have the chance to grow and flourish, becoming the very wisdom that we long to hear from someone wiser than us.

Start using your journal to build onto your foundation, and see the worth of the thoughts that rattle around in your head grow and form into something really valuable.

Tips for deepening your thoughts through journaling:

Give yourself credit. Stop selling yourself short. The only reason you don't have something important to say is because you haven't had the time to develop your thinking on a matter. Accept that your informed opinion matters and start organizing your thoughts into something useful.

Try journaling on a wide variety of subjects. The thoughts that will really impact your life and the lives of others are those that come from connecting the various aspects of your world to each other. Learn, write, connect, and draw conclusions. Write about the people you respect, and find out what it is you respect about them. Write about the people you don't respect, and draw a contrast in what you don't respect about them. Always stretch yourself.

Build on your foundation when journaling. Believe it or not, you already know a lot more than you think you do. Just start writing about what you know, and start to ask questions about the things that you don't know to fill in the holes in your knowledge.

Enjoy your life. The deepest and wisest people see their value and accept it, continue to grow, and enjoy their experiences. An unhappy person is typically unwise. Use your journaling to improve your joy, to understand things better and make more informed decisions to have more control over your circumstances, and to make better life decisions.

For more in this series of articles titled "Journaling 101," please read one of the following:

• Journaling 101: A Tangible Evidence of What God Is Doing in Your Life
• Journaling 101: A Record of Where We've Come From
• Journaling 101: A Place to Process Life, God, People, and the World
• Journaling 101: An Outlet For Prayer
• Journaling 101: An Easy Outlet For Self-Evaluation