When
was the last time you wrote whatever leapt into your awareness? Maybe you
already regularly write. It could be you are hoping to jumpstart a writing
process or give new inspiration to your words and thoughts.
Parking
oneself in a chair with pen in hand and writing paper or a journal on one's lap
engenders a rare opportunity to slow down our usual racing mind. So often, our
brain is teaming with ideas, plans, emotions and thoughts of events both the
past and future. Here, maybe in our favorite chair or quiet hideout, we can
pull in the reins of the charging horse, calm and quiet the tumultuous din and
observe the countryside we have so blindly been galloping through.
For
me, writing or journaling my musings allows me to actually follow a single
train of thought, to let that event, thought or dream be filled-out with the
attending emotions, questions and subtleties that are on the edge of
consciousness - just hanging there, waiting to be noticed and brought forward.
Therein discovering a richer level of awareness and acknowledging the sometimes
deeper or more difficult questions that may be presented.
Occasionally
the gifts of an "ah-ha!" moment or a resolution of tension or
confusion is given. Or sometimes it is simply the ability to "voice"
what is within.
There
are myriads of different types of journaling. For some people journals are
records of mainly factual events such as weather, precipitation, meetings and events.
Others are poetic endeavors full of the inspirations and verbal melody of free
thought association, without care to punctuation, proper grammar or sentence
structure. Some contain writing and reflections on dreams, hopes, fears,
significant happenings or powerful emotions. There is no one right way to
journal - which makes it an exceptionally personal and free undertaking.
Fifteen
years ago, I even began an "exercise" journal to add to my regular
journaling. I used it to record and inspire my daily or weekly exercise
routine. Over the years it gradually also became a health journal, a place I
could jot down my health issues and attempts to resolve them. Time has a way of
providing real forgetfulness. I have marveled and been surprised at the turn of
events or my forgetting about how something had happened.
When
I was raising small children my journal entries were pretty meager. The
demands, exhaustion and high level of activity with keeping little ones going
left little time or energy for writing. Those days probably were some of the
most full, interesting and challenging hours of my life.
I
have told those close to me to not judge my life by the tone of many of my
journal pages. I have used my journal to work through and let out some of my
less than pleasant emotions - be it as it may.
Over
the 35 years of journaling those pages have displayed the joys and struggles of
spiritual longing, the creativity of significant dreams, wonders of key life
events, the complexity of emotions and relationships and at times the
reoccurring boredom and loneliness that sneaks up behind me.
Most
of us don't intend or even wish to have our journals read by anyone else. Some
people write with the intention or eventual desire to dispose of the words in
some fashion. Others wish to tease their writing to find the hidden gems, the
unique twists of vocabulary and thought, barely exposed in the tilled soil.
An
excellent jumpstart to writing and creative inspiration is Julie Cameron's, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. It
is a series of writing and reflection exercises of "daily pages" and
encouragement to go on "artist's dates" to help access the inner
creative urges and dreams that are within each of us. Recently, a young couple
I know gathered with six other people to journey through the 12-week The Artist's Way series together. They
met once a week and shared their reflections from their daily pages and weekly
artist's dates. The Artist's Way is a wonderful tool to free up inner creativity,
access buried dreams and hopes and provide a format to one's writing and
inspirations.
Anyone
can journal and do it anyway they like. The invitation is to begin and let the
process be its own without any great expectations. If we journal a long time,
our writing and thoughts will vary in content and complexity from one time or
phase of our life to another. Yet too, we may see the similarities, patterns
and processes that carryover 20 or 30 years and more and return once again.
Grab
a favorite pen, a blank sheet of paper, spiral notebook or carefully chosen journal
and plop into a comfortable chair, ready to break into that expanse of
untouched fiber with what teams and stirs within and around the unique, gifted
human being that you are.