Let patience be a sweet and comforting word for you whenever you say or think it. Do this and watch how it changes your life. If we want to become more effective communicators out in the world, we have to figure out how to communicate more effectively with ourselves. Now, this sounds fundamental and yet it's not something that we're taught how to do, something that we necessarily think about. But depending on which neuroscientists you ask, between 90 and 98% of all your brain activity happens on a subliminal level. You know what that means, right? You are literally a mystery to yourself. Now I know that sounds flip, but I am 100% serious here. After all the times when something someone said to you or some other stimulus or external circumstance triggered negative emotions, you behaved in a seemingly irrational manner. Maybe you lashed out. And afterwards you felt a lot of guilt and shame as you asked yourself, why did I react that way? This isn't so different from a physical complaint. Like when you're feeling queasy after dinner and you have no idea what specific food you ate that might be causing those uncomfortable feelings, well, when you're not sure what's going on in your gastroidecinal system, you know that there are methods and strategies for figuring it out. You can start with an elimination diet to figure out which food is making you feel sick and why. And we can do the same for our mental and emotional well-being through a daily reflective writing practice. You figure out who you are, what you need, and you get clarity around the contribution that you are here to make. The objective of private writing is to enter into a deeper relationship with yourself. Imagine how much easier life is going to feel once you can talk to yourself, write to yourself, as if you were your own dearest friend. Next in yourself, as you would your mother, your best friend, your partner, provided that you have a good relationship with all of those people. Let me back up a little and explain why I prefer the term private writing to journaling. We keep private notebooks for four purposes that I've observed. As a historical record, you know, on this date, I engage in this activity, I had a conversation with this person and so on, for catharsis, venting frustrations, articulating disappointments, and expressing other challenging emotions within the safe space we've created for ourselves inside the notebook. To collect other people's words that we find inspiring or educational as in a common place book, now it's well worth keeping a journal or diary for any or all of these reasons, and it's the fourth reason, reflection and discovery that elevates a journaling practice to what I call private writing. This is writing for your eyes only, for the explicit purpose of personal growth and transformation over time. So a couple more clarifications here. Private writing is not blogging or any other kind of personal writing that does have an intended audience. In your private writing, your audience is you and only you, though of course if you end up facilitating a private writing workshop yourself someday, you're going to share passages with your students for educational purposes as I am doing in this video. Clarification number two applies to fiction writers. This practice is distinct from the preparatory work you do as you're designing your plot and developing your characters, what some writers refer to as side writing. Some of that preparatory writing will make its way into your private writings on occasion, but it's not the focus or emphasis of the practice. The focus, the emphasis is personal growth and revelation. When your journaling practice becomes more than those angry rants about who disappointed you and a list of what you ate yesterday when it becomes true inner work, then what you have is private writing for sole development, which is priority number one. And then private writing for public impact. Your private writing will nourish and inform and clarify your public writing, but I see that as a side benefit. Because as I wrote in my book Life Without Envy, private writing is the most powerful tool in terms of ego management, and by that I mean the process of evolving out of wanting validation and recognition towards wanting to make a contribution. That transition happens much more quickly when you are focused on personal growth through private writing. That said, the great thing about private writing is that you don't have to consider yourself a writer to do it. Truly, I believe that every single human should develop a private writing practice because we each need to walk our own path of self-discovery and emotional mastery. Over the past 25 years, my private writing practice has shown me that I am here to help bring a more joyful, more process oriented and heart centered creative culture into being. So all that sounds like exactly your cup of tea, then join me over at comatparty.com for a free mini workshop packed with actionable insights to help you develop a transformational private writing practice of your own. You will find the sign up link below this video. The ego says, you're making it all up. And the response comes. Oh, little child. I've made everything up.