A bold claim, wouldn’t you say? Keeping a journal, just writing words in a book, changed my life?
Well it kind of did.
A year ago we were deep into the first few months of the COVID pandemic. There was nothing but uncertainty around daily life, my husband and kids were in the house with me all. the. time and I’d hit another abrupt stop on my rather bumpy and unfulfilling career path. I was feeling the way so many of us were at that time, lost in a whole lot of ways.
I also happened to be a week before my 38th birthday this time last year and my husband, who knows me pretty well, gifted me a lovely new notebook; hardcover with nice heavy paper in a gorgeous shade of aubergine.
(I will readily admit that that fresh notebook makes my heart skip a beat)
Now I have always been one to keep a journal or diary, albeit sporadically – my Gemini brain has a hard time committing . And I have a Rubbermaid tote in the basement right this minute stuffed with two decades worth of my most heartfelt, top secret, deeply personal writings. If you ever need to know each and every time I have been wronged, fell in love, hated my life, loved my life – it’s all right there.
But this time, on the cusp of my 38th year, in the midst of a global pandemic the likes of which I could never have imagined and feeling more lost in my myself that I’d ever been, I opened this latest notebook and made a very conscious decision to use this simple tool to sort it all out…whatever ‘it’ was.
Journaling Made Things Clear
I began taking a small chunk of time every morning (like seriously sometimes it was all of 8 minutes) to lock myself in my bedroom and just write. I started each entry with the date and time of day, this felt important for some reason, and I simply wrote what was in my brain and on my heart.
Sometimes it all came out in a “Dear Diary” sort of way, sometimes it was just bullet points, sometimes it was a to-do list for the day – whatever came out I took for what it was and just wrote.
As the weeks went on, my morning writings began to take on a much truer tone than in the past. I had just read Untamed by Glennon Doyle (if you haven’t read it, Go. Now.) and it sort of blew me right open. My desire to really do the work, figure out my truest self and be in the world as ME became overpowering.
I was starting to listen to that voice inside of me that I’d shushed for so long and I was no longer “sorry” for feeling, thinking, believing, dreaming the way I did.
From my consistent daily journaling I discovered a few things:
- I did not want to go back to teaching (this was a big scary one)
- I have felt like a professional life/career failure most of my life (another hard realization)
- My #1 dream was to get paid to write words
- I was ready to do it and do it scared.
What I wrote each day became the path of self discovery I’d been searching for. I took the little unearthed truth treasures and made a plan for myself. I saved the larger, more scary chunks for my wonderful therapist – there was quite a bit of work that was well beyond my pay grade and she deserves so much thanks for her wisdom and guidance.
Over the course of my journaling year I also discovered the power and incredible peace of a mindfullness and meditation practice. I’ve always enjoyed a bit of Woo in my life but I really dove in deep and found a strength, wisdom and resource-fullness in me that I was totally oblivious to.
If you’re a bit woo-curious and want to start yourself on a similar path, start with these resources:
Gabby Bernstein – The Universe Has Your Back (plus many other incredible books) & Dear Gabby podcast
Kaileen Elise – Inner Voice & Intuition Coach & Celebrate Cultivate podcast
Jen Sincero – You Are A Badass series
Shakti Gawain – Creative Visualization: Use The Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life
Jay Shetty – Think Like A Monk & On Purpose podcast
Journaling Stripped Away The Fear
What I found as the journaling, meditation and mindfullness became a normal part of life was that that fear and worry I had around all the big things I wanted to do or needed to face was starting to fall away.
I was able to face my anxiety head on – pluck it out of the chaos, examine it for what it was and decide how and if it served me at all. I found that this newly discovered inner strength could just as easily do away with the ugly and un-serving as it was able to bring in exactly what I wanted and needed.
Lo and behold, I was trusting myself for the first time ever! And I was being surprised and delighted over and over at the changes I was seeing in our life. My relationship with my husband was stronger, I was more patient with my kids, I was relating to the world from a place of peace and curiosity, it was wild!
Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I still have loads of work to do. And those old habits, thoughts, fears and anxieties are always right there, waiting out on the street for the bouncer to take his smoke break so they can bum rush the bar and start a fight.
But what I’ve learned over the last year is that I have a say – I get to decide if those hard, ugly feelings and habits get a front row seat to my life or whether I show them the door and make sure it hits them on the ass on the way out.
If you’re finding yourself stuck, stagnant, overwhelmed or just plain tired of feeling the way you do, put pen to paper and see what happens. Release the control, let the process unfold and let it flow…you may be pleasantly surprised to find you had it in you all along.
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