Are you centering your journaling on yourself or on others?

An exercise in self-ownership

I have a morning journaling ritual that I use a custom-made journal (you can check it out on Amazon if you’d like - and there are other cover options if you go to my author page) to write down ‘I’ statements. ‘I’ statements are what shape our reality - anything you put after the word I indicates what your perception of the world is in relation to yourself.

So things like ‘I can’, ‘I will,’ and ‘I am’ become our reality, literally, because there is no truly objective reality. Just 7.5 billion subjective realities all overlayed onto this point in time and space.

When I was writing my ‘I’ statements a couple weeks ago, I realized that I had gradually shifted away from statements that centered around others and into statements that centered me.

Example, I might have previously written: I will not hold a grudge against Karen. (Notice how I make the statement about someone else, really - and I also use a negative rather than a statement of positive relationship)

Reframed, centering self and removing the negative ‘not’: I am in control of who I give my energy and thoughts to. (Here, I remove a subject outside myself and take ownership of my role in an action)

When writing or journaling, are you centering your statements about yourself, your ability, your life, and your autonomous existence? Or are you centering yourself around someone else, thereby giving away control and power in a situation you are trying to move past?