Reconnecting
I've journaled most of my life but in the past year, the rush of work and trying to return to a semi-normal life meant that I struggled to make time to take a step back and reflect on paper.
As I took a hard look on the past year, I realized how much of a mistake that had been for me in terms of mental health, of getting clarity on what I wanted and what I needed to do. I told myself I wouldn't make the same mistake again in 2022 so I have been writing, journaling every day since the beginning of January—well, I missed four days—and already the benefits go beyond what I could have imagined. While my mental health is still giving me grief and I still struggle with fluctuating energy levels, journaling has been a steadying force to help me through these first months of the year. Here’s why.
Having fun
I’ve been participating in a “light” version of The Artist’s Way program proposed by the London Writers’ Salon. I discovered Julia Cameron's concept of an Artist date, which I have to set for myself every week. I feel very grateful for this tool: I've wanted to explore and experiment with different creative outlets for a long time but never committed to taking the time. I would hide behind the fact that I had other priorities, that whatever activity I wanted to do required money that I couldn't spend and just sat with my frustration. With this invitation to explore deeply rooted in simple, non goal-oriented fun, I've already managed to re-fill some of my creative and artistic cup, even with just a short hour-long painting session or testing a new bread recipe. Having these artist dates has helped me reclaim the creative side of myself through my hobbies so that I can keep growing but also find and integrate mischief in my week.
Owning time
I've struggled with the passage of time more as I've gotten older. This isn't to say that my age is a problem to me (it's not) but I’ve felt, especially since I started working, that every day flies by faster than it did the year before, almost to the point where it’s been sometimes quite hard to feel like I can really enjoy moments or achievements because they're swept away so quickly by other obligations, projects and priorities. It can be quite overwhelming. Writing every day for myself and sticking to a rule of not skipping this time for self-care has been invaluable in helping me take control of my time. While I still get taken aback at how quickly midday or 5 pm come by when I am working, when I write, I can also feel time expand and realize all that is possible in the hours that are made available to me.
Leaving bad habits behind
As part of the soul-searching I did to understand why I found 2021 to be such a difficult year, I saw how much I stayed stuck in my difficulties rather than figuring out ways to make things easier on me, to get help or to find new behaviours to try out in order to get out of a tight spot or place of unnecessary discomfort. As I've explored the two main tools of the Artist’s Way, which are journaling and the Artist Dates, and seeing my resolve in sticking with these new habits, I can feel that breaking bad patterns is within reach and that change is afoot.
Being a writer unapologetically
Though most of my work centers around words—whether they're my own written for others or those of others that I'm translating into a different language—I struggled to feel legitimate of the writer name and identity in the past year. Though the journey of this program is 12 weeks, already in one month of reconnecting to my creative self and simply taking up my pencil every day to write for 20 to 25 minutes about whatever is going on in my head and my preoccupations, I already feel that I am much more in line with this name with which I usually describe myself. Part of it is because I am writing for me more and that, simply put, a writer is someone who writes. But it is also due to the fact that, through this work, I've gotten to explore just how much writing is central to my thinking process and how deeply I want to do it in order to feel whole. I am a writer and every day I know it more and more.