THE DAY DOCUMENT | A CREATIVE PRACTICE FOR PRESENCE
Sometimes life feels like it’s going very fast.
Even when I am slowing down and doing a conscious effort to not engage in excess activity, there’s so much to take in. Often too much, and it’s all happening so quickly that I feel I cannot catch up. On top of that, my mind wanders, thinking about the future and all the possible scenarios that could potentially manifest there. Personally I often get quite overwhelmed with this experience. Don’t you?
I recently came up with a simple journaling practice which has helped me heal from this overwhelm. A simple way to take yourself from “up there”, to “here”. To become the observer that can integrate this all as it happens.
The practice is very simple. It’s all about taking a moment to step back from your life and collecting all the little flashes of things that you lived through the day. It is very similar to dream journaling. When writing down our dreams right upon waking up, it’s always easier to write things fast so that you can quickly remember and re-constitute that dream.
Writing fast, and writing keywords rather than whole phrases allows you to work with the speed of thought. It allows you to create a more complete picture, without losing yourself in the intricate confusion of writing phrases and weaving words together. Rather than being in the consciousness of the writer, you tap into the consciousness of the observer who quickly collects all the clues and puts the pieces together as fast as they flash in the mind’s eye.
THE PRACTICE
This practice is best done in the afternoon, evening - anytime where a good chunk of the day has gone by and you feel like you can offer yourself a moment of reflection.
Retreat in solitude, make yourself really comfortable. Grab your journal and pen.
Now take a moment to reflect on your day and gather the memories you’ve created of it from the moment you woke up. See it like a collection of moving images flashing before your eyes - as if looking into a slide viewer. Without thinking too much, start to give names to these images, like keywords or very simple descriptions. Write them all down one by one, in a quick flow as they come.
Stop when you arrive to the present moment. If you feel like it, you can also define what this present moment is about, as it’s happening. Don’t forget to write the date & place you find yourself in.
What is the benefit of this practice?
This practice allows us to realize that our lives are a waking dream. A waking dream that is very real, and that really happens, in every waking moment. That we can be more present with it all, just as it unfolds.
A practice as this one is both grounding and perspective-giving, as it brings you into the seat of the observer of the movie that is your life. As you reflect, you can take a moment to integrate it all. That moment will also give you a peek into your consciousness, to see what makes you tick, to notice what your inner movie director wants to remember.
You might notice that you absorb a lot of sensory memories, like scents, sounds or visuals. You might notice that people and interactions create an intrigue for you, or that your emotions guide a lot of your life. You might notice that all the little random or mundane things of your daily life are exactly what your soul is appreciating. Your life is your own unique movie, your own unique daydream, a symphony that is sacred as it is. There’s nothing that you need to do other than experiencing it.
Over time this practice can allow you to be much more present with it all, and it can even be of benefit to your creativity. As you are tuning into that intentional witnessing, you are training yourself to observe more overall and may feel more inspired simply by what is, collecting the pieces that feed your soul. We don’t need to always seek out external sources to create mood boards and imagine things that aren’t yet there. This has a tendency to take us out of our body and out of our reality. Being able to see the real, daily magic in our lives allows us to make and live our whole existence as an art, just as it unfolds.