Untold Stories Part II – Our Own Stories

Gathering the Harvest - Feeding the Soul

Deciding to keep a journal is not necessarily a world-changing event. Incorporating journaling as a habit, letting it take root over time does however, have the power to change your own world. It’s like a mighty oak that grows out of a small acorn seed. Journaling can produce greater awareness, recall, the power to reframe and interpret through greater perception and can even bring a measure of healing to wounds that might otherwise be neglected.

In my own life stories tell themselves back to me in my ongoing relationship with my journal, and with the passage of time they self-enrich. The more context given to singular events, the more they divest themselves of enigma and begin a narrative that has potential to transform into story. Events transformed into story have power to add value to the way we live. We narrate our own lives whether we are aware of it or not. Journaling allows us to wake up to the ongoing narrative and add (author)ity, meaning and an element of purpose to the story rather than leaving it to random encounters with the circumstance of the moment.

Awareness is enlivened in at least two ways as we journal. Initially the information we record into our journal is a first hand, unfiltered, raw expression of our interface with the world outside ourselves and with our own interior landscape. Whether it’s a painful interaction, mere frustration with the glacial pace of life’s minutia, or falling head over heels for someone or something that sweeps us off our feet, it’s all the real deal. It’s in the moment and for the most part it’s genuine. As we write, we are reinforcing the experience and making it live again, we are gaining awareness.

As we take time for second pass over our journal entry, even a third pass or more, without fail we find some quite unexpected benefits. Perspective for one, which is an artist’s friend, and our lives must be seen as a work of art if we are to live intentionally.

Without some way of accessing recall, an isolated event remains monolithic. Recall gathers related memories into meaningful sheaves of harvest, one grain is just a grain of wheat, a sheave of stalks is the potential for a loaf of bread, which fills the house with sweet aroma and feeds the hungry soul. Our journal gives us context. And it is a simple and powerful tool for storing memories and making them available for recall.

It’s been a great challenge for me to become a more whole person. Wholeness requires delving beneath the surface and for me, that’s been a forbidden zone for most of my life. As a survivor of childhood violence one of the main obstacles to honest confrontation with myself has been my childhood savior, denial. As a child, pretending that I could disappear into a place where the unthinkable was not actually happening saved me from having a completely broken self. As an adult, it has become a huge albatross around my neck. I’ve come to understand that if I want to be healed, I have to be present and I have to be honest. Keeping a journal is good practice for both. Healing is making its way into my life.

In being present, what helps and what hinders you?

Writing Prompt Word For the Week: Whole