The Write Way

I started journaling when I was 10 or 11. My dad gave me a leather-bound planner with blank pages he didn’t want.

Now Staples are my staples.

$2.99 for 100 pages. Even though Office Depot has prettier composition notebooks, Staples is on the way to the grocery store.

I covet Moleskine notebooks but they're spendy. I'd feel like every word had to count--which defeats the purpose, as you'll see.

The wisdom of writing

I've journaled most of my life. Not every day and not regularly, but it makes a noticeable difference in my mental health when I do.

I write:

• Morning pages, dumping the mental clutter I accumulate overnight

• Gratitudes, thousands over the years

• Prayers, hopes, dreams, and goals

• My true thoughts and feelings—words I didn’t feel safe to share with my husband(s)

(My second husband once read my journal without permission. Which is everything you need to know about that relationship.)

These days, I journal multiple times throughout the day.

In the morning, after I meditate: gratitudes and anything else percolating in my mind.

When I’m working and get stuck on what to write or how to write it.

This week, I thought about what “Head with Heart” actually means. Something like this:

All the years I spent overthinking, I ached to connect to my heart. Couldn’t figure out how to do it, no matter what I tried. The experience of balancing what my head knows and what my heart feels is sweeter and richer than I ever imagined it could be.

It came up because I hired a graphic designer on Fiverr to refine my logo. Version 1:

Stuffing Valentines into a sleeping person’s head? I'm not feeling it. Currently waiting for version 2.

When I want to explore a new physical sensation

Yesterday morning, while walking in the woods, I felt something new on the right side of my chest and throat. Stuck-ness.

The left side of my body has been talking to me for the last few months, so feeling something new on the right was odd.

My nervous system was also slightly dysregulated—not how I usually feel in the woods.

I came home and wrote about how I felt. A few lines, then this:

I feel slightly dysregulated and I don't know why. It's the right side of my heart and throat, not the left.

Long pause for breathing and gently exploring the sensation.

I’ve been so unsure my whole adult life, doubting myself, trying to get it/everything right, being the person I thought I should be. Living that way has been completely exhausting. All that efforting. It’s completely soul-sucking. Trying to like the right things, say the right things, do the right things. Always asking what’s the right thing, not what do I want, what would bring me joy?

It’s been several years since this was true for me. I wouldn’t have admitted or even known it at the time.

But those feelings were there, waiting to be felt on a random Tuesday morning.

When I have an emotion I want to process

My older daughter is in a long legal battle with her ex. On Monday, we talked on the phone about a message his attorney sent her.

When we hung up, I felt really angry without knowing why. So I sat down with Staples and pen.

I don’t want this to be happening. I don’t want any part of it. I hate it, I hate it. I hate every part of it. I hate him, I hate his attorney, I hate that I have to be her support person. I hate that.

Oh.

I’m so sad. I feel so sad. I feel so sad that she has to deal with this and the kids to. I really, really hate this for all of them.

My point?

I would have eventually reached the feelings and awarenesses in the last two excerpts without journaling. It would have taken me days (or weeks) of discomfort, though.

I highly recommend journaling regularly.

Even 5 minutes a day. Just you and your thoughts and feelings having a little conversation.

Don’t write well or neatly. I can barely read what I write in my journal. Screw grammar and punctuation, too.

Be honest. Not perfect.

If you don’t know where to start:

• What are you yearning for?

• What’s one thing you could do for yourself today to create comfort and peace?

• What’s the best thing that happened in your life in the last 24 hours?

• Where in your body do you feel most alive?

• What feeds your heart that you’ve let fall by the wayside?