Do you ever feel like you are drifting away from yourself, like you are losing your tether? You might crave access to an anchor within. A way to ground yourself, know yourself more fully, and live a more fully self-expressed life.
Journal writing is a way of coming home to yourself. It is a tool you can use to gain clarity and reconnect with your inner self. This connection is vital for your health and happiness. It might also help you make a difference in our world.
I recently asked Jacob Nordby, author of a new and amazing book called The Creative Cure: How Finding and Freeing Your Inner Artist Can Heal Your Life, about his experience with journaling and here is what he had to say:
L: How long have you been journaling?
J: I started one or two diaries as a kid. My mother invaded one of them and punished me as a result of some of my private thoughts, so I abandoned the practice until after I left home. I eventually burned that journal in an oil drum. No, she’s not a monster — she was doing the best she could at the time. I kept a journal during the summer of 1992 while I was a baritone in a gospel quartet and visited thirty-eight of the US states. I still have that one. I didn’t keep a regular journal again until 2009 when I first read Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. My life as I knew it had dissolved and I was seeking to reconnect with my boyhood dream of writing. I was also in a period of deep self-discovery and psychological distress. I now credit this practice with restoring my sanity and reconnecting me with my inner self.
L: How is your life different or better because of journaling? What do you get out of it?
J: I learned through journaling that I could listen to myself in ways that no one else seemed to know how to do. This became a lifeline as I was always a sensitive person with big feelings. Learning how to journal regularly provided a space in which I could express my most private thoughts and feelings, without any logical order. It didn’t matter if I understood what came out on paper and I certainly didn’t need to defend these things to anyone else or take care of their feelings about what I said. As I dug deeper, I learned that the act of journaling engaged my psyche on many different levels. This led to my current practice of daily journaling as a rich, intimate conversation with myself and the greater intelligence of the universe. I now know that journaling is a key part of my daily psychological and emotional hygiene. I am able to sort out complex problems, allow subconscious patterns to surface, and discover my true thoughts and feelings about my life in the pages of my journal.
L: Why do you believe creative self-expression is important for living a happy and healthy life?
J: I am convinced that self-expression is meant to be as natural as breathing for the healthy individual. This doesn’t always mean words. Some people express through sounds (music, singing, drumming, etc.), others need physical action or concrete objects that take the shape of their thoughts and feelings. For me, and for most, the act of journaling can be a precursor to other forms of expression as it allows for what I’ve come to see as a virtuous cycle: self-discovery, self-acceptance, and transformation. For me, transformation is simply and literally the process of discovering and becoming who we really are. Any individual in the continuous process of transformation will discover many ways to express themselves. If we look at the roots of the word, “express,” we’ll find that it means, “an action or creation that expresses feelings.” It also means, “to squeeze out of.” From the more concrete idea, what if expressing ourselves means to squeeze out of the essential self what is most true, pure, and valuable? If that can become more and more true, we will find that self-expression simply means to offer the world our most unique, precious essence.
Journal Prompts:
How do you tap into your inner ways of knowing?
How do you connect or reconnect with your inner self?
What are ways you creatively express yourself?
“Self-expression simply means to offer the world our most unique, precious essence.” Jacob Nordby
What is your unique, precious essence?
What is your offering to the world?
—
This post is republished on Medium.
—