“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
~Alan Alda

Last week I spoke of my passion for using a journal; it is especially useful in this time of my life. I put my old ideas aside about a diary, and allowed myself to grow up and use a journal. As rigid as the method of keeping a diary may seem, keeping a journal is conversely flexible and different! Over the years I graduated to a bound book in order to stay organized. I do date my entries, but I have no rule about frequency, length or format. When I am feeling bad or overwhelmed with the many changes taking place, and want to move to a different place, or a better place, I use my journal. I will start my writing with a statement or a question that has something to do with what I am experiencing. A question that I use quite often is, “What do I need to know about this (situation)?” 

I have always been somewhat sensitive and cry easily when I experience or hear of sad situations. This is definitely a time for me to pull out my journal, and spend time writing about my sadness, or anger or whatever I am feeling. For instance, in the past have I have experienced the winter blues. Many people do, and I am no exception. When I wrote about this in my journal, I asked myself questions to encourage my writing. 

A question or a statement will be a stimulus to help me write. Examples of questions are like these: what is it that makes me feel sad at this time of year, or, what is it about winter that makes me sad? I would then begin to write, not censoring myself, and not even thinking about what I want to say. I just let the words spill out as fast as possible. 

I may ask the same questions over again, until I have the insight I think will help me. I believe this is that this kind of activity that sheds light on the ways that I personalize the situation. When I would get to a place that gave me some insight, then I would ask myself another question, such as what does this tell me, or how can I turn this around? I would always glean some knowledge that must have come from my subconscious, or my soul. It certainly was not in my conscious thoughts prior to writing!

Next week I will talk more about this.

Love,
Lorraine

This entry was posted by Lorraine Calhoun on January 8th, 2007 under Mid-Life with keywords .

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