Posts Tagged ‘truth’

Understanding the reason you want to write will save you a lot of time and frustration. I spent years sitting before a blank page, searching the keyboard and my soul for the right words. But I did not spend enough time searching for my reasons to write.

Love is not enough.

We have heard this expression spoken many times about relationships. As we get older, we begin to see this alone cannot sustain a love affair. Soon life will get in the way, distracting you from that initial attraction and causing amnesia of the thrill.

My love affair with writing has been as complicated as with any man I ever devoted myself to. Just as the faces of the men in my life changed, so did my writings. I drifted from spoken-word influenced poetry to journalism (newspaper, magazine, television) to travel writing to essays to e-books to blogging and back to essays and memoirs.

With each form, I was searching for not only myself, but my purpose. And while I was looking for the words to paint the imprints of my heart, I never once asked what my heart could offer. Like love, writing can be a selfish endeavor.

If for no other reason, writing can make you feel good. The release of pinned up emotion and nagging tension offers a calming effect that is not only refreshing but uplifting, allowing you to refocus your attention to what is most important in life–the now.

The next level of writing offers a method for rationalizing and reflecting. This deeper exploratory writing beckons the meaning of your life and the world around you. Writing becomes a way of excavating the truth beyond our shallow surroundings.

The next notch up is writing purely for self-expression, typically infusing release and reflection. This does not inherently require an audience but a desire to articulate and sift through the inner workings of your mind.

An offshoot of self-expression is the next writing domain: chronicling or recording what in this world is most sacred to you. Typically, the writer intertwines personal insight with the magnificence of nature, family trees, or cultural landscapes.

The next writing domain requires an interested audience to impart knowledge or pleasure. Most contemporary writings reside here, housing the vast majority of books, magazines, and blogs. This realm is adorned with flashing lights luring literary hopefuls to see their name in print and on checks.

The ultimate story of writing is to improve mankind, creating literary arts which permeates times and space. This literature is reveled and looked upon with the same discerning eye as an observer of Dali.

So what is your reason for writing?

I write because my soul aches at the faint notion of not writing. I write because if I don’t, my life will not be fulfilled nor fulfill. I write to make the world more beautiful.

No day elapses without a thought of writing, regardless if it’s achieved.

I now know the terrain of true passion, the unchartered land beyond intense want. I now know what love is, I know what life is, I know what writing is.

It’s not exactly easy to firmly establish a discipline of journaling. If you’re launching journal writing as a new way to manage your inner and outer wellness, you may find yourself coming up with a thousand reasons why you can’t journal today.

Notice that this is the worst kind of procrastination, because it stems from a feeling that promises you make to yourself don’t really have to be kept.

Doing good for yourself is something that’s easy to put off until another time, and another time, and another time, until suddenly you notice that years have passed. Your self-awareness and happiness index have sunk to new lows and you wonder how you got here.

The fact is that you are really committed to increasing your self-awareness, to improving your wellness and your soul’s health. You truly do want to be a better, healthier, happier person. It’s just that you always seem to be worried about all the other little things on your list.

While you’re so busy trying to deal with everything going on around you, It seems that getting a grip on your own behavior is the hardest thing in the world.

The key is that you have to remember to love yourself, at least as much as you love all those hundreds of things on your to-do list.

You began journaling in the first place because you crave a better opinion of yourself. You want to realize a more alive and healthy You. If you shelve that goal while giving priority to everyday miscellanea, you’re demonstrating a cruel lack of self love.

On the other hand, you know that attending to your self’s needs through regular journaling results in increased well being.

Journaling never happens at all unless you actually sit down with your notebook and pen. That may seem a simple enough act, but in truth, we rarely stop moving long enough to do it.

So whatever objections the moment may raise, you want to remember to get out of your own way and to get back to the page.

What does it mean to get out of your own way?

Even though you’re swamped, with a million things on your mind, when the time comes that you have set aside for journaling, whether you feel like it or not, take a deep breath and sit down with your notebook.

Ask yourself, “Okay, what’s going on?  What’s happening?” in an understanding, soothing tone of voice. Then begin to write.

If you approach your journaling as an exercise in self-respect, you can more quickly make it a welcome habit, one you look forward to and perform with wonder.

About Mari

Mari L. McCarthy is The Journaling Therapist (http://www.CreateWriteNow.com.) Through her trademarked program, Journaling for the Health of It! ™,  she helps clients live healthier and happier lives.  Her most recently published interactive e-book, is 53 Weekly Writing Retreats: How to Use Your Journal to Get Healthy Now

“You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place.” – James Lane Allen