Keeping a Journal
by Genevieve Gerard
As I spend time away from the United States I am reminded that journaling is a wonderful tool to help us in the process of transformation.
A journal is a friend you can share with, knowing there is no judgment.
Many years ago when I began journaling, I resolved to live each day so that when I looked back at it when I got older, I would smile. Now, no matter what sorrow or loss I may have been experiencing at the time I was writing, when I pick up an old journal to read, I find I do smile. The love and compassion that the passage of time has granted puts everything into perspective. I did survive, I did prevail, and I have arrived in a different moment of time, bringing with me the wisdom that those events long ago imparted.
The very act of journaling has brought magic into my life with the healing way it has brought me through the dark night of many experiences into the light. Early in my experience of journaling, I began to notice that no matter how unhappy or unsettled I was when I started write, the process of writing would start to clarify things. By the conclusion of the writing, my perspective had shifted, and I was able to understand life and events with a greater depth and clarity.
The times in my life when I have neglected or discarded the discipline of keeping a journal I have regretted the loss of that piece of my journey, for our memory fades and without keeping a journal the lessons we have learned tumble into the mosaic of our life. The mosaic is still beautiful, but without the fine detail and clarity.
To keep a journal does require a commitment and a certain amount of discipline. What I found works best with how to journal is to make a daily entry, even if that entry is simply “To tired to write today” or “Nothing to say right now.” The advantage of this is to keep the energy flowing. Otherwise, it is all too easy to drop the disciple and then lose the habit altogether. When the flow and the continuity are lost, one is no longer keeping a journal, merely writing at will. That is very different, and it serves a different purpose in our life.
As I write these words, I confess that I have slipped into that trap, and I sorely miss the blessing, and continuity journaling has brought into my life. I fell into writing a great deal, but not journaling. And although I have been prolific and writing a great deal these last few years, as I write this article extolling the virtues of journaling, I acknowledge that keeping a journal is significantly different than any other kind of writing, and I resolve to take my advice, and return this well-worn tool of transformation to my life by returning to the discipline of journaling today.
I have found that for me a lovely journal and an old-fashioned fountain pen works best. I have on my shelf a brand new beautiful journal and in my drawer a fountain pen. I feel excitement and pleasure in this decision as if I have found a cherished old friend I had lost contact with along the way of life, to be reunited within joy.
UPDATE: Click To learn my Top 10 Tips On How To Write In A Journal.
Copyright © 2011-2014 by Genevieve Gerard and Touch of the Soul. All rights reserved.
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In the 1994 volume The Psychology of Writing (public library), cognitive psychologist Roland T. Kellogg explores how work schedules, behavioral rituals, and writing environments affect the amount of time invested in trying to write and the degree to which that time is spent in a state of creative flow. Kellogg writes: