A Telecast with Dr. Lucia Capacchione: Thursday, January 21

January 19, 2010 – 2:19 am

Want to add a new dimension to your journaling? There are specific drawing exercises that anyone can do that will help you sort out life experiences and further your self-discovery process. Dr. Lucia Capacchione is known for incorporating drawing, doodling,  and non-dominant hand activities into journaling to get to know yourself more deeply.
Dr. Lucia Capacchione, well-known author, art therapist, and journaling pioneer, explains the process of left-right brain balancing in this informative–-and potentially life-changing–-teleclass. Lucia will be discussing The Creative Journal Method: Right- Left Brain Balancing. You’ll not only learn about her remarkable techniques, but you will have an opportunity to experience a few drawing exercises as well. The class is Thursday, January 21st at 8 PM Eastern | 7 PM Central | 6 PM Mountain | 5 PM Pacific. Sign up now for this exciting teleclass!

Lucia is the author of more than a dozen books, including The Creative Journal, The Power of Your Other Hand, Recovery of Your Inner Child.

This telechat is only available (and free!) for members of the International Association for Journal Writing (www.IAJW.org). Sign up for IAJW now, if you aren’t already a member!

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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

End of year journal review

December 28, 2009 – 2:27 pm

I find it enlightening to re-read my journal entries near the end of a year.  The first thing I try to do–besides clearing a few hours of time by myself–is to start with an open, compassionate mind.  I know–that is not always easy!

Make sure that you can be genuinely upbeat, kind, and  benevolent to yourself when you re-read your entries.  If I feel myself getting critical of myself I imagine that I’m a friend reading the entries;  I would never say (or even think!) about my friends as harshly as I sometimes judge myself.   Review your year when you can adopt a somewhat detached and kind-hearted perspective on yourself.

In an upcoming post, I’ll offer three different ways that  you can review your journal to learn more about yourself.

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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Journal Your Way to Personal Meaning–Teleclass with Eric Maisel

December 8, 2009 – 11:45 am

If you are looking to create greater meaning in your life– to move away from a life of going through the motions to finding a more fulfilled life with a true sense of purpose– join Eric Maisel in a free teleclass “Journal Your Way to Personal Meaning.” In this one hour teleclass on Thursday, December 17th at 8 PM Eastern time, Dr. Maisel will explain a simple, step-by-step process you can follow for using your journal as your primary tool for making personal meaning. Dr. Eric Maisel, well-known author, family therapist, and founder of the professions of creativity coaching and meaning coaching, explains this step-by-step process in this informative—and potentially life-changing—teleclass.

Eric Maisel is the author of more than 30 books, among them Fearless Creating, The Van Gogh Blues, Creativity for Life, Coaching the Artist Within, and Deep Writing.  Eric Maisel is a Journal Council member of IAJW, the International Association for Journal Writing.

If you are a member of the International Association for Journal Writing, (www.IAJW.org), this teleclass is free, one of many membership benefits.  If you’re not a member, join now and not only can you attend this teleclass, but you’ll juice up your journal writing for 365 days!  (You’ll journal more consistently– enlivened, energized, and empowered!)

This teleclass is one of a series of monthly teleclasses by different leaders in the field of journal writing. Past telechats with leading journal experts–Kathleen Adams, Gabriele Rico, Sheila Bender–are recorded and available to IAJW members. Learn more about how to join IAJW and attend the teleclass with Dr. Eric Maisel!

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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Interview with Gabriele Rico TOMORROW, October 29

October 28, 2009 – 12:45 pm

On Thursday, October 29th at 8 PM Eastern (7 PM Central, 6 PM Mountain and 5 PM Pacific) there’s an hour long live telechat with Gabriele Rico.  Dr. Rico developed the  “clustering” technique while working on her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University.  Clustering is a writing tool that reliably transports you into the right hemisphere of your brain–the creative, associative, non-linear side. (You know, the part of your brain that is just out of reach, but which you know is a warehouse of insight and original thinking.) You may also know Gabriele Rico as the author of the book Writing the Natural Way which has sold 500,000 copies!

Come be a part of this extraordinary opportunity to listen to and ask questions of Gabriele.  This event is only open to IAJW (International Association for Journal Writing) members–but once you are a member there’s no cost to attend this telechat and the other ones coming up every month!  There will be time to ask questions of Gabriele, too.

Become a member of the International Association for Journal Writing today and you’ll be inspired with your writing and journaling by this leading figure in the writing world.

Sign up now! The telechat is tomorrow, October 29 at 8:00 PM Eastern time (7PM Central, 6 PM Mountain, and 5 PM Eastern).  Hope to see you there!!


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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

The International Association
for Journal Writing:
www.IAJW.org

October 13, 2009 – 7:41 pm

I have some terrific news for all journal writers:  The International Association for Journal Writing (www.IAJW.org) is a new membership website that brings together 30 journal experts (the Journal Council) to help you enrich and deepen your journal writing. And, with time, you’ll be enjoying a more enriched and more meaningful life, too.

The Journal Council is filled with the top names in the field: Kay Adams, Christina Baldwin, Gabriele Rico, Lucia Capacchione, James Pennebaker, Eric Maisel, Sheila Bender, and two dozen more. These experts generously share their knowledge, their practical how-to advice, their full enthusiasm, and their years of experience to help YOU find best ways to understand yourself better, productively express and manage your emotions, work toward better health, improve your creative writing, and deepen your spirituality.

The IAJW is an interactive place: Not only are there dozens of articles written by the Council, but  IAJW offers a wide variety of ways to connect with the experts and other journal writers. Sign up for webinars, online classes, online groups, teleseminars, audio interviews led by different Journal Council members.  Whether a new, occasional, sporadic, or dedicated journal writer, you will learn ways to more fully connect with your inner wisdom and authenticity.

Go to www.IAJW.org now to take a peak. Learn how joining the International Association for Journal Writing will help you juice up your journaling: to write often, in your own voice, and move into new and deeper territory. To help you find the gold in your journals. To help you know yourself better. To help you make connections, gain insights, see life patterns, and ultimately make the life changes you want–whether it is to improve relationships, to figure out how to move forward through a transition period, to balance your emotions, to improve your health, or to become a better writer.

Juice up your journaling, juice up your life at www.IAJW.org!

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A Post about Journaling as a Form of Meditation

September 24, 2009 – 10:11 am

I enjoy reading the Daily OM. There was a post they ran two days ago,  Mapping the Inner Journey that I thought was  an interesting perspective–viewing journal writing as a form of meditation, an active meditation.

I agree there are many parallels between the two activities.  I wonder if any studies have been done comparing/contrasting meditation and journal writing.  A quick Internet search didn’t bring up anything of note. Please send me an e-mail if you know of any such studies.


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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

The Dilemma of the Memoir

September 1, 2009 – 9:48 am

There are a couple of articles in the NY Times in yesterday’s and today’s paper about dilemmas that crop up with writing memoirs. The first article,  A Mother’s Memoir, A Son’s Anguish is about the memoir, The Lost Child: A Mother’s Story.  Author Julie Myerson has written about her son’s drug addiction. The son claims the book exaggerates the story, says he feels exploited, and condemns the book.

The heart of the article is about an issue that often comes with memoir writing:  What are the limits to writing honestly about one’s family?

Four authors–three memoirists and a psychologist–discuss this controversy in NY Times article “The Memoir and Children’s Privacy.” If you’ve ever contemplated writing a memoir–perhaps using your journal entries as the resource–these articles offer food for thought.

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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Journaling and Centering

August 17, 2009 – 9:29 am

Many people start with a calming or centering ritual before they write.  However, I’ve noticed  that at times—most recently when I awoke at about 3 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep—that the process went in the other direction.

I awoke for no particular reason that I was aware, but was clearly and suddenly awake.  I didn’t remember the preceding dream, but I awoke worried, a little confused, and after a few restless minutes of trying to go back to sleep, I knew that that was pointless.

So I left the bedroom so as not to wake up my husband, opened my journal, and then started writing.  I’m not even sure what I wrote—I wasn’t sure what I was thinking, but I knew that the process would take me somewhere.  So I wrote on, inking whatever words tumbled out. Then suddenly all the extra frenzied, frenetic energy that I was swimming in disappeared and poof! in an instant the clouds parted and I simply felt my core, my center, and reconnected with it.  I took a deep breath and felt relieved.

That was it.  I didn’t need to write any more, I could simply go back to sleep knowing that I was back in touch with my core self.  I went back to bed and promptly fell asleep.

Of course, each one of us is different. Let me know what happens to you in the middle of the night if you can’t sleep and begin to journal.  What’s your process of writing and get back to sleep?

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The Information Age

August 3, 2009 – 1:08 pm

The Information Age.  It’s the era in which we’re currently living.  But, do you feel better educated, better informed, better entertained?  Most will probably answer, yes, you are more informed.  But consider this: do you also often feel simply overwhelmed and moderately unsettled?! Some of the information you receive conflicts with other information that you have; some information is difficult to ingest because of new terms and concepts; some information comes from unknown and unreliable sources; and some information is simply depressing and information you don’t want/need to know!

In the end, there’s only so much information that you can absorb and filter.  But MORE importantly–how much of this information can you make sense of, can you apply, and make meaning of in your life? What’s important to you?  What’s relevant to you? It’s one thing to stay informed about your world; it’s another to be bombarded with information.

It takes a bit of conversation with yourself–to quiet down and hear yourself think, to listen to your innermost thoughts–to focus on what is most important to you. It takes time and intention to really hear what is below your mind’s surface chatter to tap into the deeper, wiser conversations with yourself and make sense of new information and apply it to your needs.

One of the best ways to do this is to write in your journal. It’s a place to process new information, to figure out what is important TO YOU, to see what you need to know and what is extraneous “noise” that isn’t of value.  Your journal is the place to focus on and make sense of all kinds of information and turn it into YOUR information. Use your journal to turn The Information Age into Your Information Age.

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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Write in your Journal: Defrag your brain!

July 24, 2009 – 10:12 am

I was recently talking with Kay Adams, the author of Journal To The Self and the director of The Center for Journal Therapy.  She had a wonderful analogy about journal writing that will make total sense to anyone who uses a computer.  When she writes in her journal she feels like she’s defragging her hard drive–cleaning up, re-organizing, dumping the clutter, and clearing her brain.

After defragging your computer, the computer runs more efficiently and productively. Performance is better. There’s more open space.

So, if you’ve been through a busy, overloaded day/week/month where your brain is in a state of overload take even 10 minutes to  write in your journal and defrag your brain! You’ll ultimately be more productive, perform better, and have a feeling of spaciousness.

Run, don’t walk, to your journal and start writing!

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By Ruth Folit | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (1)

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