While thinking about relationship issues and work issues, I have found that it is quite beneficial for me to write it all down. Everything I am thinking and feeling. Negative and positive thoughts.
I tend to ruminate and feel somewhat tormented at first. I may go through this for several days. I’m not aware during this time that my pen and paper are calling me.
“Hoping that with time the dust would settle, kept me from just giving up and crawling in a hole. That, and my mother’s voice saying, “Never give up.”
Excerpt from Rowing My Boat Ashore.
A light bulb goes on in my head that I need to write.
It doesn’t matter if I have a hectic day or week planned – I need to write.
I find free minutes or maybe even a half an hour somewhere in the busyness. Sometimes the writing comes out not making any sense to me. However, just getting it on paper helps. Once I sort through what I have written, changed a few words, or moved punctuation marks around, the light begins to shine through and I begin to feel more at peace with myself. Sometimes I just leave my journal writing “rough”. Then there are times I want it pristine.
It may take two, or maybe even three times of writing just what I think and feel in order to discover what is at the core of my discomfort.
Once that happens, my mood lifts and rewriting what is already there becomes easily handled. When my mood does lift, I come up with useful solutions to the issues that have been weighing on me. How to put those solutions to work comes without a struggle.
“Pick up your pen, Doris. Just write. . .”
However, I must add that sometimes those solutions are not met with open arms.
Different points of view, or a different set of emotions can cloud the decision making.
Back to pen and paper.
It’s not necessarily easy, but it does help to journal what you are thinking and feeling. And who knows, maybe those different points of view have ideas that enhance your solutions.
Journaling to sort out your feelings is quite healing. I won’t say it can keep you out of a counselor’s chair, however, it will only help if you are in one. My life has been enriched with journaling in it.
Doris
© Doris Clark, July, 2019
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