My Brave Sad Days is informed by Ayurveda — eye-ur-vey-dah.

Ayurveda is a holistic guide to optimum health across body, senses, mind, and spirit. These must all be balanced to achieve optimum health.

Ayurveda understands clarity as something that emerges when experience is fully processed. According to Ayurveda, Agni is the inner flame that digests what we consume. Just as the body needs fire to digest food, the mind needs fire to digest experience.

Journaling supports mental Agni by helping transform confusion into clarity and emotional complexities into understanding.

Agni — The Fire of Transformation

Ayurveda teaches that Agni is the fire of transformation, the force that digests and converts what we take in into something useful and life giving. In the body, Agni metabolises food. In the mind, Agni metabolises experience. Journaling can be understood as one of the most practical ways to strengthen this mental Agni, because writing is a deliberate act of inner digestion.

What We Take In Each Day

Each day we consume far more than food. We take in conversations, disappointments, news, expectations, memories, comparisons and unspoken emotions. All of it must be processed. When mental Agni is strong, we are able to reflect on these experiences, feel what needs to be felt, extract meaning, and let the rest go. We think clearly. We respond rather than react. We recover more easily from hurt. We are able to separate the voice of truth from the voice of the inner critic. This clarity is the sign of a steady inner fire.

When Residue Accumulates

When mental Agni is weak, experiences are not fully digested. They linger as psychological residue. In Ayurveda this residue is called Ama. Mentally, Ama is undigested emotion and unresolved thought. It shows up as rumination, heaviness, brain fog, cynicism, emotional reactivity, self criticism that loops endlessly, and a sense of stagnation. Just as physical Ama coats the tongue and dulls the body, mental Ama clouds perception and dulls motivation. The mind feels heavy because nothing has been properly transformed.

Writing as Tending the Flame

Journaling acts as a conscious tending of the inner fire. When you write, you take something vague and internal and move it into language. You give shape to emotion. You slow down reactivity. You examine whether a thought is true or simply habitual. This act of reflection is heat. It is sharpness. It is clarity. It strengthens mental Agni because it supports the process of digestion. Instead of storing resentment, you name it. Instead of carrying confusion, you explore it. Instead of believing the inner critic unquestioningly, you place its words on the page and see them clearly.

Like Increases Like

The scientific principle of like increases like applies here as well. Clarity increases clarity. Honest reflection strengthens discernment. Silence supports insight. Each time you journal with sincerity, you feed the qualities of mental fire. Over time, the mind becomes less congested. Emotional experiences move through rather than sticking. Insight replaces fog. Energy returns because less effort is spent holding undigested material inside.

From Weight to Wisdom

In this way, journaling is not simply self expression. It is transformation. It is the daily maintenance of your inner flame. Mental Agni digests life, and journaling is one of the most accessible tools we have to keep that fire bright. When the fire burns steadily, experience becomes wisdom rather than weight, and we feel lighter, clearer and more capable of meeting whatever comes next.