My mother gave me a diary when I was in the 4th grade. It was her practice to write daily and she figured it would be good for me as well. It was red and had a key which made it very special. In those days I reported what any normal fourth grade girl would write: went to school, took a bath, fought with my brothers, washed the dishes and so forth. By the time I turned fourteen I discovered life wasn't so easy, my hormones changes and everything seemed chaotic. Writing it all out felt good. Now the little diaries were replaced by notebooks, and became a practice of mine to this day. I have boxes of these spiraled notes, or composition books in black and white awaiting a time in the future to be read by me.
It's was always my habit to use journaling as a dumping place for all the dark thinking, griping, bad days and things that just simply confounded me locked inside my head with no other place to go except a page in a notebook. I even used to own a black paper notebook allowing me to write in pencil so that not even I could decipher the junk being written down. That one eventually ended up in a ceremonial burning and departure from a bad time in my life. For the most part anger to rage to sadness and desperation filled many pages releasing my mind from sinister grips of bad thinking. That is the content of my lifelong journaling. They were a friend to me when no human being could possibly understand or so I thought.
On occasion a poem, prose or "aha moments" of enlightenment or resolution, graced a page or two with even illustrations to boot! There were many prayers, recordings of memorable events or dreams. I suppose there is even a yin and yang to everything in life. Black ink on white paper (or visa versa), good and bad, hard and easy, male and female, complaining or gratefulness.
This year, I immersed myself in reading a devotional called Moments that Matter by Catherine Marshall - a womanly sage, full of deep yet gentle wisdom. She takes a day with a promise of scripture, an example from life and paints her words like a Masterpiece concisely into something worth remembering. She is never judgmental or trite, always open-ended with room to apply the meditations to my life.
I realized that all my writing doesn't have to be about darkness. I experience so much good, pleasant times and memories. I determined with her influence and authoring model to spend more time in authentic stories, with gratitude, noble messages, and solution based writing. That and keeping things short, which in case you haven't noticed, is very difficult for me to do! There is always room for improvement...
~~~~
LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS with clarity.
Choose Clarity
It's was always my habit to use journaling as a dumping place for all the dark thinking, griping, bad days and things that just simply confounded me locked inside my head with no other place to go except a page in a notebook. I even used to own a black paper notebook allowing me to write in pencil so that not even I could decipher the junk being written down. That one eventually ended up in a ceremonial burning and departure from a bad time in my life. For the most part anger to rage to sadness and desperation filled many pages releasing my mind from sinister grips of bad thinking. That is the content of my lifelong journaling. They were a friend to me when no human being could possibly understand or so I thought.
On occasion a poem, prose or "aha moments" of enlightenment or resolution, graced a page or two with even illustrations to boot! There were many prayers, recordings of memorable events or dreams. I suppose there is even a yin and yang to everything in life. Black ink on white paper (or visa versa), good and bad, hard and easy, male and female, complaining or gratefulness. This year, I immersed myself in reading a devotional called Moments that Matter by Catherine Marshall - a womanly sage, full of deep yet gentle wisdom. She takes a day with a promise of scripture, an example from life and paints her words like a Masterpiece concisely into something worth remembering. She is never judgmental or trite, always open-ended with room to apply the meditations to my life.
I realized that all my writing doesn't have to be about darkness. I experience so much good, pleasant times and memories. I determined with her influence and authoring model to spend more time in authentic stories, with gratitude, noble messages, and solution based writing. That and keeping things short, which in case you haven't noticed, is very difficult for me to do! There is always room for improvement...
~~~~
LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS with clarity.
Choose Clarity
No comments:
Post a Comment