Internal Journal Reflection

During this second semester of my last year in the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, in my English course, Journey in Literature, we learn important concepts like: inner and external journey. Both concepts are related with our identity. To discover and understand better our inner journey we were assigned to write five times a week in a journal notebook.  Our principal task were to write in the notebook without thinking, keeping our hand moving, without worrying about spelling, and to loose control, all this for ten consecutives minutes. For our external journey we were assigned to create this blog and experiment and reflect about our daily experiences.

While writing 42 entries and drawing 26 compasses I had the opportunity to known myself better. At the beginning, the first couple of entries were really difficult for me to write them in a coherently manner. Nevertheless with the practice, the needed concentration, and focus I improved in an incredible way. This technique helped me not only to know and discover myself better, but also to improve my writing, and it also gave me a moment to relax myself. During this semester I was having a   tempestuous relationship and this journal helped me tremendously to overcome it. I was not capable to hear my parents and family advise, but the only thing that I really needed to just pass the page was to listen to myself. At the beginning I felt that this journal was a lost of time, but I just needed one week more to realize that it was my perfect medicine. The compasses consisted of a brief resume about your daily emotions, physical, spiritual and mental state in a scale number. I am not a spiritual person when it comes to talk about a specific religion. Nevertheless through out this journal I saw the spiritual state with a different perspective. Therefore through all this semester I made community service with a friend in “La Via” in Aguadilla, I reconnect with nature, and I had the opportunity to appreciate the power of silence.

           

I consider that while making my internal journey in the journal I improved my external journey in my daily life. Both concepts, internal and external journey, are so correlated that you cannot think about the first without talking about the second. My journal helped me to resolve love problems, family and social problems. It also helped me to put in paper and start up to live my dreams. All this things form an integral part of my identity. I discover that identity means: dignity, culture, friends, love, beliefs, etc.  Nowadays this journal and blog activity forms and integral part of myself. Concepts like internal and external journey and Identity, are terms that I currently use in my other classes and daily life. I encourage everyone that is reading me to use this techniques and I guarantee that you will never regret.