Journal Writing - Free Lesson

Getting past the inner judge voice in our heads

To get past the voice in your head that keeps putting the brakes on your creativity by saying things like, "I don't know what to write about", "I should write only in proper form, complete sentences and have a theme or cohesiveness to what I write" or "I should do this or that before I write", or "jeeze I'm not good enough", or "I don't have time", or "I should be more creative", "I should be more disciplined", or "I should......"

The trick is to just do it anyway. Thank that little voice (or big giant booming voice) and tell it to take a long slow boat to China while you write. There are many excellent books written about freeing yourself from this inner critic. There are several sessions in the course that address this as well.

The point here is to get going.

The technique is a form of stream of consciousness writing. You focus on any object you can see; your hand, the pen you are holding, the dirty clothes piled where you left them last night as you fell into bed, the dirty spot on the floor, your kids pictures on the wall, your dog's wagging tail..... anything at all.

Write the name of the object you are looking at.

Immediately write down whatever thoughts spontaneously come to mind. It does not matter if the thoughts are connected or random, write them down.

Write as quickly as you can without giving any inner voices time to chime in (voices that say, "this is stupid, you aren't going to get anything out of this, you need to get at that list of things to do, oh I can't write THAT thought, it's not o.k.")

Don't worry about good penmanship, spelling, incomplete sentences, logic. Nothing needs to make any sense at all. The point is to loosen up and let go of notions of how to do it. Anything at all is okay.

The idea is to write non-stop for at least 5 minutes. As a regular practice over a period of a week or so, this will begin to loosen up the soil covering the seeds of what is bursting to be set free in you.

Don¹t pause or stop long enough to think about what else to write. If you find your mind going blank just write the last thing you wrote, again and again, until you find new thoughts streaming through your brain.

Just write as fast as your hand will go.

Some suggestions to gain the most from your journal writing experiences:

1. Set aside a specific time each day to write.

2. Find a quiet, serene place to write and organize it to be as comfy and sacred as you can design it. Some of my students find a small space in their home, clean out a corner of a room and designate it as their writing space. Others find it more nurturing to go outside and sit on a rock by a stream, in the forest or in their backyard. I have one student who drives to the lake and sits in her car and writes. She has no quiet space at home.

3. Approach the writing sessions with sincerity, a sense of the sacred, light a candle, turn off the phone, tell others around you not to disturb you for the next umptyump minutes.

4. Have all of your materials easily accessible. Shop for just the right colors and styles of pens and pencils, just the right kind of journal book that will hold a lot of words and doodling. (Too small and it will stifle your work).I recommend a 9x12 sketch book. Borders sells the best and cheapest one I've found: $7.99, it is a special they have every once in awhile and it is: sketchbk jumbo blue, and the bar code sticker has a number going vertically, "296Y" then under the barcode it says "fashion 9962 bargain" and under that are
the numbers: 6578833IR 20 51203 ED 1" NR3 703-E22 523955 0000799.

5. Play soft pleasing music or be in silence.

6. Take a few minutes to sit, ready to write. You may want to tape record the following * items allowing 30 second pauses between each *. This warming up to write will take between 3-5 minutes each time.

* Close your eyes.

*Take at least 5 deep slow breaths

*bring all of your attention and energy into your center of being, your belly.

*Focus your breath and your attention deeply inside yourself.

*Quiet your mind, relax your body

*When you feel centered, relaxed and ready, open your eyes and begin the assignment.

Special note: I find working in long hand has a more organic and visceral connection with my inner self. Some of my students prefer the computer. I recommend you give long hand a good week or two, first. Very different work comes out of each method. Try both and see for yourself which you prefer and which is most productive in delving deeply.