Journalling

I've been journalling since mid-April, when a friend gave me a book and pen for my birthday. I don't journal much, I would start here and there, especially since I love notebooks and stationary, but despite my love and passion for writing, I never enjoyed journalling. There are a few reasons for this, first, I am left-handed so I have found that writing can be strenuous, two when I was about 20 years old someone snatched my journal from my purse and read it, and I was traumatized, and three, I often think of what I'll leave behind when I leave this earth, and my deepest more intimate thoughts immortalized on paper isn't one of them.

But, out of deep appreciation for my gift, along with a sincere desire to keep an open mind in my recovery, I have rather dutifully been logging my day-to-day experiences (for the most part). About a month and a half ago I suppose it was, someone close to me asked what I have learned from journalling, and while I found it a strange question, I realized that I did in fact have a major breakthrough in recognizing a deep-seeded fear that I have, which is chronic and twists my thinking into a lie that traps my happiness. Since this realization, I have not had a single defeating or fearful thought of this nature which wants to corrode me from the inside out.

I journalled last night for the first time in about two weeks (so my statement of "daily" journalling as of late has been more of an exaggeration), and while I do not ever go back and read earlier entries, I decided to read a really short one (probably because it was short). I underline the dates, and sometimes I let the underlining go, so I'll revisit them. In retrospect, I suppose this is another thing to log - why do I so meticulously keep record when I have no intention of keeping the journal (I have thrown out every journal I have ever written in).

I do remember writing that entry. I had gone to bed and I felt an indescribable urge to write what was on my mind, kind of like an inventory. I turned on my nightstand light, and scribbled down my feelings which I felt the need to do because they were new, and a major breakthrough. I wrote that I was in the midst of the hardest point in my life, but that for the first time, it didn't feel like punishment.

Last night I felt it necessary to write given a change in my life that whilst welcomed can take me down if I don't practice the principles of right living. I started it out as honestly as I could, which is hard, even though rationally I know no one will see it. That said, self-appraisal doesn't come easy for me. I saw after writing that it was a complete flip from what I had written last.

I was not being melodramatic two weeks ago, I was truly at the lowest point ever. It wasn't a depression in the least, it was rather life throwing everything at me in every single facet of my life. But my prayer life has been strong since mid-February, and I felt the hand of God on my back, moving me along the entire time. I knew deep down it would pass, I knew I had the power sufficient to change my attitude and bring about change. And last week, everything got sorted out. And because of the understanding that I now have from my private writing, while the roots are still tangled, the soil is rich and full of life-giving nutrients.

I romanticized about journaling when I was a child, when the only problems I had were my parents smoking and my best friend not giving me all of her attention some days of the week. I read books where the characters wrote in journals, and I began my entries with "Dear Diary", like every quintessential little girl does. But today, it's not "Dear Diary", it's more like, "Dear Higher Self - what are you going to heal tonight?"

What a gift that a gift was the tool to, and the journey which this journal had aided in, with reconciliation, to a friend, to family, to God, and to myself. Amen.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first had passed away...And I heard a loud voice saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man...He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.'” - Revelation 21.1+3-4