The Magic of Journaling
Daily writing is a restorative ritual. It gives us the ability to find our way down, to go beneath the time-bound, the urgent, and toward what will really nourish us.
We fall into the current of energy, make connections. It expands us and lets us think about things in more sovereign and liberating ways - and that's empowering. If I haven't journaled in a while, when I do, I often feel tired, as if I've just eaten a heavy meal in front of a fire. It's grounding, and reveals how exhausted I am by trivia, by facts, by the reels looping in my head.
Without regular practices like contemplation, forays in the natural world, or digressive walks in new places, life is lived too much on the horizontal. It starts to feel thin. Our conversations shrink to the administrative, to whatever last provoked us.We lose contact with the rich verticals of life.
Sometimes we're seeking simple clarity; we want to express our feelings and crystallise our thoughts. We skim off the surface jumble, lay it on the page, and achieve an internal coherence. This is invaluable. If at first we don't get actual answers, we at least feel more present and lucid, closer to knowing which questions we really need to ask in order to move forward.
More radically perhaps, is the kind of journaling that provides an access point to the unconscious, the realm of myth, dream, and archetype. This is where rebellious or socially divergent thoughts and feelings live, alongside rich, symbolic imagery, and a whole cast of characters who have messages and wisdom to convey.
"You can excavate yourself. But the self you access is collective. It's not one thing, it's a set of things. The closer you get to who you are, the more selves there are."
- Douglas Brooks
In these journaling processes, we increase our ability to relax with the idea that we are a multiplicity of selves. We release the grip on the 'self' and allow other facets to emerge.
Though vast and teeming, this domain is hard to reach when we're engaged in all the busy-ness and doing of our lives. It requires quiet, stillness, and receptivity. A willingness to go deep. In this timeless and lawless realm, however, we access to our innate magic. We are going down into the dark, dredging up what we need in order to live and act in more conscious and creative ways.
The journal exercises I offer do both: Some are intended to create more clarity and presence. Others are free dives into the unconscious. Think of both as antidotes to whatever you have 'overdone' to the point of toxicity: narrow thinking, suppressed emotion, anxiety, or escapist fantasy. Some days you need to go deep, and others you need to spill out or cut through.