By Raymonde Savoie
How Big is Your Pond?
If it had not been for my writing and keeping a journal from my teenage years, I don’t think I would be alive today. Sounds melodramatic? Maybe it is, but it’s no less the truth as I see it. An almost daily offering of my thoughts onto paper and keyboard has kept my inner ’psychic pond’ at a manageable level for years, and that has made all the difference.
Some people like to write in a journal and some don’t. That’s a fact of life. In all honesty, I feel a bit sad for those who do not, for whatever reason, use writing as a way to release the life burden that we all carry. But, having said that and to be fair, some of the people who do not write in a journal have other ways of expressing themselves, such as art, drama, or a continuous string of vocalisations to their friends and family members. It’s not for them that I am sad. It’s for the other ones who have no means of expression whatsoever and choose not to journal, as if they have something against journaling as a principle. I don’t judge them but I am just sad for them.
Writing, if entered into as a form of self-knowledge, can also become a spiritual practice that supports the writer while at the same time serving as a containment field for all the fears, anxieties, joys, contemplations, prayers, and questions we invariably experience on our human journey.
Yes, journal writing is a universal therapy for what ails you, whatever that may be. It can shore back the dams that we keep building up to protect ourselves against the pressure of life’s ‘big psychic pond.’
A while back, I wrote an article on how the accumulation of life’s stresses and stretches in the body and in the soul could be analogous to a large pond that we each carry with us inside our psyche. Each day another piece of debris such as a resentment or unexpressed sadness is thrown into that pond, adding to its volume, adding to its weight. Some of the debris piles up unconsciously but most of it gets dumped in the psychic pond because we don’t want to feel their unpleasant nature or face the conflict that they carry with them. Sometimes it’s a dream that tries to get our attention but we dismiss it as a nightmare brought on by the previous day’s stresses.
As we get older and we accumulate this detritus of life, those unexpressed desires, blocked emotions, silent screams and unfulfilled dreams, the pond becomes so congested and stagnant that deep contamination sets in. And we, for want of keeping our minds at peace at all costs – Above all else, let’s be positive, shall we! Don’t look at the bad side, ever! Beware negative thoughts or you will stress out! – keep the pond on the back burner and deny that it even exists. After all, who wants to look at that nasty stuff? Who wants to peer under the surface of reality and perhaps realise that our sacrosanct world is not, after all, what we pretend it to be?
The Psyche Demands Its Due as the Pond Demands Its Flow
We may wish the pond and its contents to go away, but it never will. On the other hand, if we gather the bit of courage necessary, take pen in hand and start writing, I promise that there will be an almost immediate pressure release and it will come from the edges of your psychic pond.
I had to grab hold of a few tools when I started writing in my journal, in order for the pressure valve to work, so to speak. If all you write about in your journal are the superficial activities, the artificial sheen that covers your life, then don’t expect much release to happen in your congested pond.
The writing must be honest, introspective and about who you are, what you feel, what your dreams tell you, when will you make your real life happen. Make it a daily catharsis, a dredging process of bringing up to the surface the contents of your pond, thus transforming them into helpful, healing allies. In what life presents to us, that is where our healing lies. All of it, not just what we perceive as ‘the good parts’, or what we may decide to keep as being ok so it doesn’t disturb our inner peace. Be the writing witness to everything in your life as you experience it, as you dream it, as you live it. Be the living stream that flows from the Source out to the world.
As with all forms of energy, without the flow from your pond to the stream to the world, there is no process or movement; and without active process, there is only stagnation and eventually, death. Choose to be alive and journal your way to health and wholeness.
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Raymonde Savoie has used journaling and dream deciphering extensively to heal childhood trauma and its after-effects, to discover her life purpose and to help others heal through their dreams.
Raymonde is a writer, dream decipherer and intuitive card reader focusing on Goddess inspirations. She has a forum on journaling, dreams and healing with gardens on her website, as well as her blogs, at http://www.raymondesavoie.com/.
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