Soul Therapy: Your Guided Journey To Self Love

This post was originally posted on Blogger September 25, 2024.

In a world that constantly demands our attention and energy, it's easy to forget to nurture the most important relationship we have – the one with ourselves. With the amount of daily stimuli that we have no control over bombarding and overwhelming our brains, it’s important to do something that is restorative for your physical and mental health and overall wellbeing. I find I benefit more if it is a mindful and meditative activity that gets me into a relaxed state of body and mind, but it doesn’t have to be. Something to help me recharge and refresh my system, so that I can be at my best. The first Soul Therapy guided journal was that thing for me. It was my first ever guided journal, and I felt I really benefited from the journaling practice I created by setting aside some time to write every day. I just started "Soul Therapy Self Love Edition" as my next journal to write in. Soul Therapy Self Love Edition is like an old friend who invites you on a journey to discover and find yourself. It aims to help you discover yourself while you heal and find self love. The author does this while keeping true to the original format of Soul Therapy. 

This beautifully crafted guided journal, written by popular author, therapist, coach and mindfulness advocate, Jacqueline Kademian, is designed to gently guide you through a series of introspective prompts, affirmations, and exercises that all work towards improving your overall mental wellbeing and self esteem. For me, Soul Therapy came at a critical time last year during my mental breakdown. The time I carved out of my day to journal was, some days, the only peace I felt. Soul Therapy truly helped my soul by answering the guided prompts that are geared towards self-discovery and reflection, allowing me to process my emotions and rediscover my inner strength. By carving out dedicated time for writing from the journaling prompts as well as daily self-reflection, I gained important insights into my thoughts, emotions, and aspirations, paving the way for a more authentic and fulfilling life. It kept me from falling off the edge and going down a rabbit hole I might not crawl out of. It helped me bring focus to my long time dreams and aspirations, and finally get serious about what my message is as an artist, creating my lifestyle company, meredithhutton79, and becoming a writer, blogger and pain advocate. My journaling also inspired me to create and make “Galia-Notes”, a new product line of journals, planners, and stickers. I’ve also started to put my art on useful items like mousepads, toiletries and tote bags, as well as housewares like pillow covers. I am even doing doggy bandanas and car coasters. My “chronic life, chronic lifestyle” motto represents both my chronic pain and my chronic use of cannabis to combat that pain, and I have some really exciting things planned in the works that I think people are going to like.

Working through and completing Soul Therapy and journaling overall has made a big difference in my mental health. It helped me create a lasting journaling habit and I learned some things about myself I wasn’t expecting to learn. I don’t know if I would have made it through last year if I didn’t find journaling. I’m not sure what I would have done with the mass of emotions that were felt if I didn’t have journaling. I sat with this the other day, and I thought long and hard about what I learned. Below are a few of the things I took away from my experience journaling in this journal:

• Cultivate Self-Compassion: I learned to embrace my imperfections and I began working on treating myself with the same kindness I extend to others. I learned to celebrate my quirks and what I call my "isms" and that I too am worthy of the love and compassion I show others. This has been one of the harder lessons to learn, and something that I think I’m always going to have to work on. Last year I got in the habit of telling myself daily in the mirror that I am worthy of the same compassion, kindness and support I show others. I had a fun coloured sticky note with the message written on it, and I’d change up the sticky note type and colour on a regular basis. I even decorated some. I learned it is true what they say, if you say something enough times, you begin to believe it. I've been working really hard on my self esteem and self love and it's paying off as I'm beginning to believe in myself again and my abilities as a person. When you have chronic pain, and it limits you as much as it does me, you start to lose your confidence, and begin thinking of yourself as a burden to your loved ones. It’s sometimes hard not to compare yourself to your old self, and I think “what value do I bring to this world despite all I cannot do?”. As a disabled person, these thoughts of feeling less than others, and the guilt and shame can be hard to shake as we are so often dependent on other people to make it through the day. Hell, to make it through life. So this realization and feeling is a huge step for me and one that I am really proud of. I’ve worked hard and I’m beginning to feel like I’m making real progress.
• Release Negative Patterns: To identify and challenge my self-limiting beliefs that hinder my personal growth and negatively impacts my happiness. Challenging and reframing those beliefs, called cognitive distortions, is what I’ve been doing in my journals and workbooks, CBT apps Clearful and Clarity, and my healthy habits and routines app Fabulous. I work in them daily. I have a few other mental health and exercise apps that I carve out some time each day to use that work towards my bigger goals. These apps prompt me to read the day's readings, do the day's tasks, as well as a guided fitness video, and I write about my experiences with those activities in these apps, summarizing my process. These apps all provide summaries of your progress too, so you can really see where you need work, and where to congratulate yourself on a job well done. Now I am happy to say that I can incorporate writing in Soul Therapy Self Love Edition into this routine. These daily routines working in my apps and journals compliment and go nicely with each other. One builds on the other and they allow me to delve deeper into my mind. Journaling and working in my CBT/Habit apps are the two things I think I’ve benefited most from, and the two things that kept me from going off the ledge last year. I will always remember how I found myself expanding my journaling practice when I found a mother-daughter journal to do together with my daughter, and that story will be held close to my heart for the rest of my days. 
• Set Empowering Intentions: Last year I began to really think about and define my goals and I created a plan for manifesting my dreams into reality. I have wanted to write a book about my chronic pain for years, but the job seemed too big and I really didn't know where to start. I thought the only way to share my story was to write a book, and it was that narrow minded thinking that prevented me from writing out my story in a different format. A more forgiving format, and something that won’t take me years to finish. Starting a blog and social media presence with respect to my chronic pain journey has exceeded any expectations I ever had. It has been really great so far. Writing my story in chunks, with no real order to them, with my very personal thoughts, has proven to be the best method for me. It's why I think I click so strongly with blogging, as each post is an opportunity to tell a short story. I have created a morning routine that has me check in, do a few guided exercises, begin to focus, and plan out my day’s goals and tasks, including the planning of any blog posts I’m in the midst of writing. This also includes carving out time every day to write and edit my blog posts, as well as do chores around the house. I pace myself doing a little of each at a time and I peck away at these things during the day. For example, I like to do 3 chores, name 3 things I’m grateful for, and list 3 personal accomplishments, every day. In doing those, I have created positive daily intentions for myself that are easy and quick to do, even on the busiest of days.
• Practice Gratitude: Shift your focus to the abundance in your life, fostering a deep sense of contentment and joy. My gratitude practice is very important to me. It was the first CBT exercise I ever did when I was introduced to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and started going to therapy over 10 years ago. I have a soft spot for my gratitude practice and one day I hope that one day I’ll carve out some time and I’ll get to read some of them from past years. When I started my gratitude practice, I had no idea just how transforming it would be. It’s the basis of my personal growth and I have learned how valuable starting and keeping a gratitude practice is for your mental health. It helped rewire my brain to see the positives in my life more clearly, and I use my gratitude practice as a reminder that we don’t know what tomorrow holds, so let’s not hold ourselves back today.
• Prioritize Self-Care: Last year I learned of the importance of self care when I began to experiment with daily rituals, routines and practices that nourish my mind, body, and soul. I was desperate and craving quiet activities that benefitted my mental health. I needed the activity to be quiet and calming, and something that I could do mindlessly, until my intrusive thoughts lessen and my mind calm enough to do a more in depth activity. This is probably one of the most important lessons you could ever learn and certainly the most important lesson I feel I learned. If I don’t look after myself, how am I supposed to live up to my commitments and be there for my family and friends. I learned that it’s not selfish to prioritize self care, it’s vital to my overall emotional wellbeing, and I place a lot of importance on the little things that I can do that come together to make up my self care routine. Showing these acts of self care to myself is an act of kindness to myself that tells me that I place importance on, and think I’m worthy of, prioritizing my self care. It’s something I now schedule into my days at designated times, just as if I would a chore or a task on my to do list. 

Jacqueline Kademia is a passionate advocate for mental wellness and the transformative power of journaling. Her brand, Soul Therapy, by Positive Soul, offers a carefully chosen collection of thoughtfully designed journals that cater to various aspects of personal growth and mental well-being. With a focus on mindfulness, self-discovery, and empowerment, Soul Therapy guided journals provided me a safe and supportive space for me to explore my inner world and cultivate a deeper connection with myself.

I look forward to working in this journal and sharing some of my more meaningful journal entries applicable to chronic illnesses and pain.

To purchase your own copy of Soul Therapy, click here: https://amzn.to/3MZ3wZn

To purchase your own copy of Soul Therapy Self Love Edition, click here: https://amzn.to/3BccvUn