Happy New Year! Let's Get Started...

We are two weeks into January. How is your new year going so far? Have the resolutions you made on the first already become points of contention about your commitment to change? If so, let's take a different approach and revisit the post on December 31st - making a commitment to you. Part of making that commitment was starting a journal. If you haven't already begun, this post may help you get started.


Journaling can take many forms and use different media. It can act as a witness to your life by recording a chronicle of your experience, a safe space to vent private thoughts, a platform for reflection and learning, and/or a sacred space for grace and gratitude. Consider these forms and others you may choose as you also make choices about the medium you will use to preserve your thoughts.

Before you choose a medium - paper and pen or digital - take a few moments to ponder how your commitment to yourself will be reflected in the way you memorialize your musings. You might take a moment to check in with your body and mind to ask what fits your life and sensibilities best. How will the medium you choose authentically reflect your commitment to reflection, learning, and change. It may be easy to disregard the sensory experience of writing in a journal, especially long-hand as your pen glides over paper. What will your journal look like, feel like, smell like, sound like?

If you love the smell of bookstores and libraries, a long-hand journal may suit you best. When you choose your journal, honor your senses with regard to size, color, paper type, lined or unlined, guided or free form. Let your inspiration guide your choice. This is not an instrument you want to skimp on and neither is your writing implement. They are the vehicles of truth and insight from which the thoughts emanating from your head and heart flow through your hand. Remember the bard's words:

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 54

If you love coffee houses as well as the flexibility and convenience of technology, choose a platform or app that allows you to incorporate different types of media like pictures, diagrams, and mind-maps into your daily entries. Tech can instill a different kind of portable beauty enabling you to transform your thoughts into action through sharing when you think it appropriate and mutually beneficial.

This initial step, choosing your journal, comes to fruition when you make your first entry. You might consider possibly reflecting what your process of choosing the form and medium for your writing. Add to it your thoughts about the space (where you will write) and timing (when and how) of your writing practice. To solidify your commitment, put your writing practice on your calendar. By doing so, you consciously create the time and space, as well as give yourself permission to reflect and learn. By the end of this year, you will look back and see how it was time well spent.

See you in February when we will dig into prompts for the content of your journal. In the meantime, have fun creating your writing environment, whether physical or virtual.

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