I don’t keep a journal per se. But my Artist’s Way Morning Pages are very much that type of writing. It’s more like a written therapy session and I have a lot of grief in my life. I think of them as “Mourning Pages” for that reason... From experience it really is a powerful tool for working through difficulties...
I have kept a journal since I lost my first baby who was stillborn. It was a way to express things and not get any feedback from well-intentioned people who often said things that hurt me, that didn't help. As I became the mother of three other children, I continued to write--about the struggles of being a parent, about its joys, about the grief I still felt. It became a daily ritual of pouring my feelings out, but also cataloguing the awe I was experiencing in raising my children. It was also a way to vent about things that I wanted to say out loud, but knew might be hurtful and/or unproductive. That's been my permission to myself to have and engage with my feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy (yes, that has been a hard one for me--seeing friends' kids thriving and living their lives to the fullest when mine aren't). Writing down all my thoughts, especially the not-so-good ones, helps me feel heard, in a sense, without judgment or anyone telling me how I should handle things. I often go back and read some of those journals, especially the earliest ones, and they have shown me how I've grown, what I've overcome, what I can handle (that I didn't think possible). They are reminders that my emotions are valid, but also that I can shift.
I'm so sorry about your stillborn baby, and I so understand this about the function your journals serve, Nancy - I have written in mine similarly, over the decades.
My dad gave me my first journal when I was in 4th or 5th grade. It was little and had a lock on it with a miniature key. I took to it naturally. It wasn't until I was older that I realized I never wrote down my daily activities. I always wrote my thoughts and feelings, my conversations with God. I didn't know until well into adulthood that this style of writing has a name. It was the only space I had that would safely contain my inner world. It was the only space I didn't filter myself. Everywhere and everyone else was far too vulnerable and full of judgement with people trying to solve my problems or fix me. No one just let me be except my journal and God and then eventually a good counselor. Now I am learning to just let myself be whether it's inside my journal or outside it.
I began journaling at the lowest moment of my life. It's been more than a year, when I look back the pages now, I can see where in my life I am still stuck , and where I have grown.
Well, I'm a journaler, but I have really missed the boat on this somehow. I've been doing it the way we all keep eating fiber. I write these moody, blah productivity reports which I don't habitually reread bc deep down I know they're just full of old worries that I don't care to re-live. Also, no one ever told me that's what people do to glean insight from time to time! I just fill them up and buy new ones on sale at HomeGoods.
You probably don't get those light dawning realizations without rereading. Just YESTERday, my daughter told me she feels great after rereading her old journals.
Keeping Journal !! that's really brilliant tool. its gateway to process through our frustrations, disturbances, emotional troubles on paper and just get done with without taking / sharing with anyone. Paper is more silent than people. At the same time, it's best place to record your smallest, tiniest wins each day to prepare for your next day. Journaling is really meditating experience.
I've journaled my entire adult life and frequently recommend it to others as a way to work through life's ups and downs. However, I've never been one to keep my journals - I always burn them once they are filled. It's a way to rid myself of the past and keep moving forward.
I remember that, as a 15 year old adolescent, I wrote poetry. I was infatuated with a pop singer from Norway. I wrote poems for her. And I did them almost every day. And sometimes I cried while writing them, thinking I couldn't have her. Though it may sound foolish at first, I still remember that experience. And in my parent's house, probably those notebooks still exist.
I don't do much of that these days, and maybe I should. They connect me to that romantic boy that still exists. That fears not in expressing what he feels.
I began to journal after my wife died on Good Friday four years ago. Several weeks after Easter, my initial entry describes how I was out food shopping at her favorite store and received a call from the funeral home advising me that her body was to be cremated the next day. In that first entry, I reported how I had watched the funeral of Prince Philip, and the bagpipe lament started the tears flowing as they did later when I played my wife’s favorite Bach Double Violin Concerto. I noted that I began writing a poem that I would finish the next day after I had opened her jewelry drawer and found a dated small envelope containing a lock of her childhood blond hair. Kross’s “expressive writing” and Pennebaker’s experience (and “Bittersweet”) define who I became through the journaling process that followed to this day. It has been an intense journey of learning how deeply one can feel, empathize, and connect with others' humanity and one’s own. I sense I’ve evolved as I’ve documented the music that was so important, and even all the tears along the way. Now I realize that there has been Kloss’s “magic” and “seeds of growth” and my late partner all instrumental in setting me “free” in a profound way. There are five journals to date.
Oh, Richard. There's so much beauty and expression in everything you narrate. Memories, poems, music. Art, of course. You're such an eloquent example on how your process of writing and learning helps you to integrate all that sadness. And at the same time, takes so much courage. I admire your tenacity and how you're still able to find beauty after losing your wife. I'm sure there's so much beauty and nurturing experiences that will fill many notebooks for years to come.
Sit here listening to music trying get myself to a point where I can just get it all out, to cry, before there is no time, to express all the pain, lonely tears hide...
Thank you! It makes such a difference to express thoughts and feelings on a page. I love how you encourage flexibility and self-kindness with this practice. There’s no pressure to follow a particular form or routine. Just follow whatever feels right in the moment.
I like expressive writing, till my notebook finishes and i have to buy a new one -- and I feels like losing a friend, the dairy cannot just continue, for my lifetime, and i have to switch to new one and then connected to a new notebook. Haha ! I am sure this doesn't make sense, but this is how i have felt
I've said for years that, if anyone ever read my diary, they would come to the conclusion that I was unhappy all the time. They might not notice that three months went by when I wrote nothing because things were going well. Now I understand and feel better about my tendency to write when I am not feeling good. Thank you!
Feeling grateful for the timely information and this community to whom I’m new - I’ve been close to starting a writing practice for some time now and this is the nudge that motivates the start. Hesitant largely due to self sabotage reasons and I’ve also ‘not known where or how to begin’ especially having been conditioned to live life as a perfectionist. That’s been unraveling now for a while. I’m also inspired by quotes in general - here Hemingway weighs in: “writing is easy. Just break out a pen and bleed”. At least that’s how I remember his quote.
This is the premise of Nicole Sachs Mind Your Body book. She calls it JournalSpeak and has healed many from chronic pain and anxiety. The book is outstanding.
I don’t keep a journal per se. But my Artist’s Way Morning Pages are very much that type of writing. It’s more like a written therapy session and I have a lot of grief in my life. I think of them as “Mourning Pages” for that reason... From experience it really is a powerful tool for working through difficulties...
Beautiful!!
I have kept a journal since I lost my first baby who was stillborn. It was a way to express things and not get any feedback from well-intentioned people who often said things that hurt me, that didn't help. As I became the mother of three other children, I continued to write--about the struggles of being a parent, about its joys, about the grief I still felt. It became a daily ritual of pouring my feelings out, but also cataloguing the awe I was experiencing in raising my children. It was also a way to vent about things that I wanted to say out loud, but knew might be hurtful and/or unproductive. That's been my permission to myself to have and engage with my feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy (yes, that has been a hard one for me--seeing friends' kids thriving and living their lives to the fullest when mine aren't). Writing down all my thoughts, especially the not-so-good ones, helps me feel heard, in a sense, without judgment or anyone telling me how I should handle things. I often go back and read some of those journals, especially the earliest ones, and they have shown me how I've grown, what I've overcome, what I can handle (that I didn't think possible). They are reminders that my emotions are valid, but also that I can shift.
I'm so sorry about your stillborn baby, and I so understand this about the function your journals serve, Nancy - I have written in mine similarly, over the decades.
Thank you, Susan.
My dad gave me my first journal when I was in 4th or 5th grade. It was little and had a lock on it with a miniature key. I took to it naturally. It wasn't until I was older that I realized I never wrote down my daily activities. I always wrote my thoughts and feelings, my conversations with God. I didn't know until well into adulthood that this style of writing has a name. It was the only space I had that would safely contain my inner world. It was the only space I didn't filter myself. Everywhere and everyone else was far too vulnerable and full of judgement with people trying to solve my problems or fix me. No one just let me be except my journal and God and then eventually a good counselor. Now I am learning to just let myself be whether it's inside my journal or outside it.
I began journaling at the lowest moment of my life. It's been more than a year, when I look back the pages now, I can see where in my life I am still stuck , and where I have grown.
Well, I'm a journaler, but I have really missed the boat on this somehow. I've been doing it the way we all keep eating fiber. I write these moody, blah productivity reports which I don't habitually reread bc deep down I know they're just full of old worries that I don't care to re-live. Also, no one ever told me that's what people do to glean insight from time to time! I just fill them up and buy new ones on sale at HomeGoods.
You probably don't get those light dawning realizations without rereading. Just YESTERday, my daughter told me she feels great after rereading her old journals.
Will try rereading journals.. ;) Thanks, Susan!
Keeping Journal !! that's really brilliant tool. its gateway to process through our frustrations, disturbances, emotional troubles on paper and just get done with without taking / sharing with anyone. Paper is more silent than people. At the same time, it's best place to record your smallest, tiniest wins each day to prepare for your next day. Journaling is really meditating experience.
I've journaled my entire adult life and frequently recommend it to others as a way to work through life's ups and downs. However, I've never been one to keep my journals - I always burn them once they are filled. It's a way to rid myself of the past and keep moving forward.
I remember that, as a 15 year old adolescent, I wrote poetry. I was infatuated with a pop singer from Norway. I wrote poems for her. And I did them almost every day. And sometimes I cried while writing them, thinking I couldn't have her. Though it may sound foolish at first, I still remember that experience. And in my parent's house, probably those notebooks still exist.
I don't do much of that these days, and maybe I should. They connect me to that romantic boy that still exists. That fears not in expressing what he feels.
I began to journal after my wife died on Good Friday four years ago. Several weeks after Easter, my initial entry describes how I was out food shopping at her favorite store and received a call from the funeral home advising me that her body was to be cremated the next day. In that first entry, I reported how I had watched the funeral of Prince Philip, and the bagpipe lament started the tears flowing as they did later when I played my wife’s favorite Bach Double Violin Concerto. I noted that I began writing a poem that I would finish the next day after I had opened her jewelry drawer and found a dated small envelope containing a lock of her childhood blond hair. Kross’s “expressive writing” and Pennebaker’s experience (and “Bittersweet”) define who I became through the journaling process that followed to this day. It has been an intense journey of learning how deeply one can feel, empathize, and connect with others' humanity and one’s own. I sense I’ve evolved as I’ve documented the music that was so important, and even all the tears along the way. Now I realize that there has been Kloss’s “magic” and “seeds of growth” and my late partner all instrumental in setting me “free” in a profound way. There are five journals to date.
Oh, Richard. There's so much beauty and expression in everything you narrate. Memories, poems, music. Art, of course. You're such an eloquent example on how your process of writing and learning helps you to integrate all that sadness. And at the same time, takes so much courage. I admire your tenacity and how you're still able to find beauty after losing your wife. I'm sure there's so much beauty and nurturing experiences that will fill many notebooks for years to come.
Sit here listening to music trying get myself to a point where I can just get it all out, to cry, before there is no time, to express all the pain, lonely tears hide...
Thank you! It makes such a difference to express thoughts and feelings on a page. I love how you encourage flexibility and self-kindness with this practice. There’s no pressure to follow a particular form or routine. Just follow whatever feels right in the moment.
I like expressive writing, till my notebook finishes and i have to buy a new one -- and I feels like losing a friend, the dairy cannot just continue, for my lifetime, and i have to switch to new one and then connected to a new notebook. Haha ! I am sure this doesn't make sense, but this is how i have felt
I've said for years that, if anyone ever read my diary, they would come to the conclusion that I was unhappy all the time. They might not notice that three months went by when I wrote nothing because things were going well. Now I understand and feel better about my tendency to write when I am not feeling good. Thank you!
Feeling grateful for the timely information and this community to whom I’m new - I’ve been close to starting a writing practice for some time now and this is the nudge that motivates the start. Hesitant largely due to self sabotage reasons and I’ve also ‘not known where or how to begin’ especially having been conditioned to live life as a perfectionist. That’s been unraveling now for a while. I’m also inspired by quotes in general - here Hemingway weighs in: “writing is easy. Just break out a pen and bleed”. At least that’s how I remember his quote.
This is the premise of Nicole Sachs Mind Your Body book. She calls it JournalSpeak and has healed many from chronic pain and anxiety. The book is outstanding.
I learned to journal through the work of Nicole Sachs and it's been very helpful to me.