This year I purchased a planner–Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner–from a website called The Dragon Tree.  It came across my Facebook feed as a suggested post and I was intrigued.

It is quite extensive, and I have to admit that I have not completed all the pages that require answering questions to better define your goals in life.  The concept behind the planner is to create rituals in your life that you want to make a habit.  It is based on the thought that it is small steps that create change, vs large ideas.

I believe that is what caught my attention when the post about the planner popped up on Facebook, as I had just read an article about studies that showed our brains are much better at creating change when we break the steps down into things we can accomplish more easily.  (I wish I could find the link to that article, but I am not finding it right now.)

Anyhow, on the weekly layout for the planner, there is a mandala design at the top where you put your focus for the week.  This week, the thing that came to me was not a word or words but a heart.  I decided to just go with what my gut was telling me to do and I drew a heart.  Pondering that a bit, I realized that I had colored the red on the outside of the heart and left the inside of the heart blank.  That led me to ask myself “What is in my heart?”.

Instead of being able to write a bunch of things that were on my mind, I realized that I had stumbled on a very significant question to which I really needed to let simmer before I could answer.

After I wrote the question next to my heart at the top of my planner, I took out my prayer journal and markers.  I simple drew a big heart and wrote the question next to it.  As I doodled around and embellished the heart, I considered what was really in my heart.  Many thoughts came to mind, but none were fitting quite right.  Then, something came to me–my need for connection.  I decided that was where I wanted to start.  How I will connect with who/what and how I will do it are the next step.

I decided that the page I had drawn with the heart in the middle was going to be my prayer journal meditative exercise for the month of February.  (I know.  It is fitting with Valentines Day being in the month of February too!)  I am curious to see what will unfold.

If you are looking for a fun and thoughtful exercise to do with a group–adults and even children–you might consider giving each person a piece of paper and asking them to draw a heart in the middle and ponder the question “What is in my Heart?”  Some might answer the question and say, “well, of course, it is Jesus.” But then ask “what does that mean?”  What does it mean to have Jesus in my heart?  It could most definitely be a dig deep exercise.