New Journal Day

It's new journal day and I can feel myself getting all tingly inside.  I LOVE shopping for a new journal.  When I shop for a new journal I'm at the peak of my creative process.  I start to think about what store will I go to, what color will the book be, how will the pages look?  The thought of having a new journal to write in fills me with peace and inspiration.

I've journaled since I was a kid.  An empty place to hold my thoughts and words has always been my best friend.  Once on the advice of someone I trusted, I threw away all my journals. So sad, I know.  This person told me that keeping all those past memories under my bed was preventing me from moving forward, so I listened to them and threw them out.  I only regret throwing out one, it was my sweet little diary.  The one I'd had since I was eight years old.  It was orange and had a lock and a key.  It was my first diary.  I miss that one, still.  So note to anyone who is reading this and is a journaler - don't throw out your journals!  Maybe bury them or lock them away, but don't throw them out!

I moved into a new phase of journaling when I started working The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, and she taught me about Morning Pages.  Morning Pages have become my sweet, sweet, quiet time for reflection, meditation and insight.  At first I thought that if I wrote three pages, every day, I wouldn't have anything else to write, but it's been just the opposite.  Doing that mind dump in the morning frees up my thoughts. 
I look forward to writing my Morning Pages.  And thus far, in a process of 11 weeks, give or take, I haven't missed a day of writing my Morning Pages.  I plan to continue them even after I finish the workbook and I only have one more chapter to go.

The changes have been profound.  Julia Cameron got me to see myself as an artist, a label I would have never attributed to myself, since I'm not a painter, a dancer, a crafter, etc, etc, etc.  But I do have a good sense of color and magic, magick, and mystery, and ritual, and that makes me a creative person.  The other day I found a magnet that reads "Artists Always Welcome".  I bought it and stuck it up on my wall, in my creative space.  It makes me smile every time I look at it.

And then there are the Artist Dates, where you take your inner child artist, on a date.  It's all about them.  We've had a blast, buying silly, goofy, things and also some things that a little girl always wanted. Its funny, as an adult, you grow up learning to put your child self away, but what I've learned through the Artist's Way, is its the child inside, who is the most important part of your adult life.

So, I'm off to find a new journal and maybe even a new pen -ooooh, won't that be special!

End Trans 1/23/10