Earlier this month, Chris Vasiliadis, a certified wellness coach from Priority Wellness interviewed me on Blog Talk Radio. She broadcasts the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month from 6 to 7 pm, and that evening’s topic was “The Write Way to Wellness.” This post is adapted from our interview. Chris asked me how I had used journaling to achieve my goals and how I had then helped others through a similar process. When I developed multiple sclerosis, I lost feeling on the right side of my body. With most other episodes I’d had with MS, they normally cleared up in a couple of weeks. This time, I got this sense that things weren’t going to be clearing up right away. So, I figured that I needed to find a way to teach myself how to write with my left hand.
Surprise, surprise – shortly after I had set my intention that way, a woman I met happened to introduce me to a procedure called “Morning Pages,” which was created by a writer, Julia Cameron. Every morning, I sat down with a pad of paper and wrote three pages of stream of consciousness, whatever came to mind. I just thought, “One day I will get to the point of writing legibly and sign my name with my left hand.” Soon, I started making progress in my southpaw. Day after day, I focused on this goal, and each week I noticed my writing improving.
Well, as I got into the process, I found all kinds of exciting things. Inner personal things kept coming up. I started remembering things from my childhood. I started hearing “chatter,” which I later realized was my inner critics, the overwhelmingly noisy voices inside my head that told me I wasn’t good enough, or I wasn’t capable of doing the things that I wanted to do and/or….
All of this fascinated me, so of course, I continued to pursue the journaling. My journal became my therapist. I would ask it questions, and the answers would somehow surface. I was stunned to find that those answers were already inside me.
Through regular journaling, I’m really able to clear out all of my internal stressors, or, as I call it, the “crazycrap” we all carry around inside our bodies. I can’t say enough how much stuff -- stress and irrational beliefs -- we carry around with us that started collecting there when we were impressionable children.
Getting clear on a goal and focusing your energy on it sets a path in motion for it to become a reality. There is a mystical, spiritual aspect to journaling. It just seems like if you’re able to get out all of the negative, critical stuff on the paper, you open up your energy field and your internal health, and somehow the universe gets the message. Somehow, the very thing that you needed shows up in your life. You’ll get a phone call or someone will give you some info they “just knew” you’d be interested in.
One client of mine, a woman in her mid-80’s, was living with her daughter after she had some health issues, and she was just not happy. She was living out on Cape Cod but she had been born and raised in Boston and was really a city girl. So, she took to journaling to help her figure out how she could get back into the city. Journaling was like having her own personal therapist to work through everything: how she was going to make the move, and setting goals: the date by which she wanted to move, for example.
Then she started to investigate different housing places, and she found a perfect senior housing community. She’s now been back in the city for 3 years,near where she used to live and she's reunited with her dearly beloved church.
I don’t know how it all scientifically works. All I know is that by continuing to go through the process of setting your intentions through journaling, it’s like you’re giving your spirit, your soul, your body, and your brain all kinds of really good opportunities to heal, get clarity, find more energy and get more goals.
Next week I’ll post a follow-up article on journaling techniques you can use to get clear on what you want and bring it into your life.
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