Journal Writing:
A Tool For Your Spirit
Journal writing is a wonderful tool for your creative spirit. A fountain of personal wisdom can be found simply by picking up a pen or pencil. By keeping a journal, you can embark on a marvelous adventure and effectively nurture your spirit and soul. A "journal" can mean many things to different people. It can be a notebook of thoughts and inspiration, a tool for self-analysis or a day-to-day diary of action and reaction. Through journal writing, you can discover new ideas and solutions as you connect with your conscious and subconscious mind. Journaling is a remarkable device for easing worry and obsession, for identifying hopes and fears and for allowing your creativity to expand, increasing your level of energy and confidence. It harnesses the power to tap into successively deeper layers of your subconscious mind while it zaps the nervous, pssive energy that ties your stomach in knots and leads to worry and guilt.
Journal writing is a tool to help you discover the wisdom you already possess. Sometimes, this wisdom will surprise you. Other times, it will challenge you. Always, it will come directly from you, empowering you to trust yourself and to take action by giving you the deep-seeded knowledge that you know more than perhaps you think you do. You will have found the answers within yourself, and you will return there time and time again for futher guidance. In addition, to revealing personal insight and wisdom, the journal writing process can help dispel feelings of loneliness and confusion by helping you discover a unity within yourself. As your conscious and subconscious mind work together to solve problems in black and white, the ideas are validated and more easily applied, even if you never share these ideas with anyone else.
The Art of Journal Writing
The art of journal writing has tremendous potential to tap the subconscious mind and to arrange conscious thoughts in a clear pattern as words flow from your mind, down your arm, into your hand and across the page.
Do away with your internal editor! That is the voice that lies in the deepest and darkets recesses of your brain. It is the voice that says, "You shouldn't be writing that!"Here are a few tips to banish this voice:
Write quickly - allowing the words to be pulled from your mind and heart. Don't let fear stop you. Keep Writing - Don't erase or cross-out any words. If you're heading in a direction that you would rather avoid, start a new paragraph. These "accidental" entries may be telltale signs for issues you need to address. Erasing just takes the words off the page, but not off your mind. Date each entry in your journal - Note the time, place and any details regarding your mood and emotions that will be necessary for context when you read back on your work. After you have finished a journal writing entry, take a walk or get up to get a glass of water before you reread what you wrote. In addition, please remember to reread your work with compassion. Then, write an insight line - a sentence or two about what you think the piece is trying to tell you. Sometimes, this insight is as plain as day. Other times, it will take a little longer or to "read between the lines" so to speak. If the subject is a delicate one, there is nothing wrong with putting the journal aside for a few hours, days, or even weeks. There are may even be times you will not reread an entry at all and that is perfectly fine. The act of insight comes from writing the entry itself; the insight line simply helps you discover it.
Technique
There are as many techniques for journal writing as there are people who write them. The important thing is to explore the underlying layers of your mind by using whatever means that works for you.Use creativity with the techniques you use. We all have a subconscious mind that communicates to each of us in a differnet way. If you get stuck and feel you have nothing to write, try wirint about conversations, facts, feelings, dreams, images, quotes, expressions or ideas. Other ideas for sparking your creative journal writing include writing down memories for childhood, children themseves can be a treasure trove of stories, use a journal to pray each morning and parents and granparents are rich sources of stories and memories. Journal writing techniques can also include drawing pictures or writing poetry or you can make a collage from magazine images. After completing a few journal entries, you will become more familiar with how your mind works and how it prefersd to communicate with the world. Clustering is a method that works well when the ideas don't flow on their own. Put the central idea in the center of the page and circle it. Then, without pause, make associations placing them in new "bubbles" tying them to the main idea. The result is a complex matrix of ideas, many of which you may not realized you had. If you wish, compose your thoughts into prose that says exactly what you want to say. Discover yourself through your creative writing. Reflect, have fun and write spontaneously without worry or a plan. The pages will be happy to hear what you have to say about it all.
Creativity Changes Everything
Art and Alchymie LLC - Creative Expression for Transformation - Felton, PA
Christine DeJuliis, Creativity Coach and Expressive Arts Facilitator
10161 Park View Drive
Felton, PA 17322
(717)818-3032
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