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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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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Gabriele Lusser Rico talks about the benefits of journaling

June 12, 2009 – 2:24 pm

Gabriele Lusser Rico wrote in the early 1980s a seminal book called Writing the Natural Way.  It introduced a writing technique she developed called “clustering.”  Clustering is a non-linear brainstorming technique that uses the right brain, the non-linear, whole pattern, image-producing  part of your mind. The clustering technique brings the creative and playful part of your brain to the fore and make its associations visible, where you are better able to detect patterns and make meaning.

Clustering starts with writing a word in the middle of a page, drawing a circle around it, and then drawing a line from that circle and writing a new word that pops into your head. Circling that new word and then drawing a line, you repeat the process until you have a “cluster” of words. Or, draw a second line from a circled word and continue to move through the process. Words and phrases are clustered onto a page, giving you a starting point from which to see and understand your world from a new perspective.

I spoke yesterday with Dr. Rico, recently retired professor of English and Creativity at San Jose State University in California, about clustering and journaling.  I asked her the question of how journal writing has benefited her, and she kindly offered a 1-2 minute response. LIsten to her on blog.lifejournal.com/talkingpage.

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Anne Frank’s would-be 80th birthday approaching

June 5, 2009 – 2:34 pm

Next week, June 12th, Anne Frank would be 80 years old if she had survived the concentration camps of World War II.

If you have never read Anne Frank’s diary, I recommend you do.  I read it as part of a high school English class in the late ’60s, which especially for me, a Jewish teenage girl, was a very intense and powerful experience. However, no matter who you are, reading her diary will thoroughly sweep you into her world.

Read the article, In Celebration of Anne Frank and All Writers at Huffington Post to learn more about Anne Frank, especially within the context of a testimony to diary/journal writing. The author Elizabeth Donoghue declares “Every diary is a rendering of life that is truer than any form of writing.”

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Keeping different journals–a dream journal, a health journal, a daily journal…

June 3, 2009 – 11:10 am

People who keep paper journals often keep several–a dream journal, a health journal, a work/school journal,  a daily journal.  I’ve never done that.  But I do understand the reasoning–it’s a way to be more organized, to be able to find the journal entries that you are looking for, and to see a progression of writing about particular topics.

The downside for me is that by necessity there’s a splintering of one’s world.  My dream life is a part of and influences my work/school life. And my health influences my everyday journal.  This is actually one of the dilemmas that spurred me to create LifeJournal (www.lifejournal.com), the journal software.

For those, however, who are more comfortable in the handwritten journaling world, there may be a mini-solution:  If at the end of, say, a dream journal entry, you realize there’s meaning in the dream that would influence  your health, you could create a journal entry in the health journal and add a “hyperlink” at the bottom of each of the two entries. At the bottom or the page or in the margin of the entry, write the date and type of journal entry of the other related entry . Then, when you are re-reading and looking for common threads  you will see the connection between the two journal entries.

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Catch ‘em doing something right. Then write!

May 27, 2009 – 4:12 pm

Last night at a writing workshop webinar that Sheila Bender and I are facilitating, (if you are interested in joining the webinar, send me an email at rfolit at lifejournal dot com–it’s not too late!), a participant told us of a writing exercise that I consider brilliant!  When her children were school age, she would “catch” them doing something right–helping a sibling, being kind to a friend, cleaning up a mess without being asked.  And then sometime before dinner she’d find a few minutes to write about the anecdote.  Later, at the dinner table, she would read the story to the entire family.  What a creative way to squeeze in some daily writing, and also be an outstanding parent! And let’s not forget, she then has a compilation of some of the best moments of her children’s early life.

What are you waiting for?  Find your child or grandchild, spouse or friend doing something right.  It’s not only kids that would be honored by a catch-’em-doing-something-right story!

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Writing with your non-dominant hand

May 1, 2009 – 5:52 pm

When journaling, have you ever found yourself  writing about the same issue over and over and over and you feel like you are not making any progress? Here’s a tip that will help you make some headway:  Write with your non-dominant hand.  You might even want to start a conversation between your dominant and non-dominant hand.  If you usually use a computer to journal, this would be a good time to handwrite.

With your non-dominant hand (i.e. if you are right-handed, write with you left hand), start writing about the issue or problem where you feel stuck.  Writing with the non-dominant hand feels very awkward, of course, but this exercise can bring out a part of you that doesn’t usually have a voice.  It can be your younger self speaking, or perhaps some unacknowledged thoughts or feelings that have been hiding. Let your non-dominant hand write on and on.  Once that hand has finished, you can then answer writing with your dominant hand, and then switch back to your non-dominant, and then respond with the other hand.  Try it out!

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Monica Seles: “Big on journaling”

April 27, 2009 – 11:51 am

Last Friday, NY Times Health writer, Tara Parker-Pope interviewed tennis star Monica Seles.  Seles was in the height of her career in 1993 when, during a tennis match in Germany, a deranged spectator stabbed her in the back with a kitchen knife.  Not surprising, that incident affected Seles deeply and she left the game for several years.  She became a binge eater, unhappy, and eating for comfort.  She knew she had to make some life changes. She had hired nutritionists, trainers, and coaches and read all kinds of self-help books.  Nothing was working. Finally Seles banished the experts and knew that ultimately she had to do it herself and “figure out my emotions.”  Read the interview to learn how she changed her behavior and got out of her difficult emotional situation.  (Hint: an eight letter word starting with the letter “j.”) Read the interview!

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Journal Writing and Focus

April 24, 2009 – 1:03 pm

During the last 15 years, my husband and I have taken a handful of bicycle trips overseas.  We’ve planned our routes, carried our clothes in panniers affixed to the rear of the bike, and for some trips have even brought our own bikes with us.  It’s a lot of work but carries with it its own rewards: traveling at human-scale pace and distances; incorporating the traveling itself as a large part of the adventure; feeling virtuous and victorious that we used our own leg-power to transport ourselves over hundreds of miles of foreign territory.

I have found that bicycle-traveling requires lots of focus, and more than that I’ve noticed that it’s not just focus that’s required but a constant questioning and decision-making about what to focus on. Sometimes I have to focus on immediate road hazards–bumps in the road, nearby cars; other times I have to concentrate on directions and navigation; and other times I can focus on the new landscapes and vistas I’m traveling through.  These are very conscious decisions which make or break a trip: not being watchful for road hazards may flip me over the handlebars; soaking in a spectacular scene may flip me out with wonder and awe!

When writing in my journal or diary,  I also make decisions on what to focus when recounting the day. Do I generally write about what is going smoothly?  Or what’s the looming life challenge?  Or about my disappointments or about my victories?  Or do I take the balanced view–more like bike riding–where I have to shift focus constantly to try to capture it all.

I’m certainly not advocating that one approach is better than another. I think it would be interesting to go back and re-read your journal entries and learn what you most often focus on when writing in your journal or diary. Let me know what you find!

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Journal writing: from jumbled entry to meaningful prose

April 22, 2009 – 1:57 pm

I just re-read a journal entry I had written and found myself laughing aloud! My entry–hastily written in free flow– sounded like it was written by a barely literate drunk. Misplaced modifiers, a soup of typos, crazy shifts in tenses and viewpoints.  And I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person?! HA!  However, with some some restructuring and editing, I’m able to re-string my words into a more coherent whole, that not only communicates better with an audience but helps clarify my thinking as well.  Here’s an example:

The Journal Entry:
Perhaps the morning pages hsouldb ecome eveing pages–squeezing out the worries of the day before going to bed a tnight.  Is it a kind of moving mediation that brings toether my hands, barn and harte into a full-sized unisficaiton, that is ulimted pouring of myself into a page.  poured out into lines and squiggles of inkey piece of turhth. doths this outpouring–tghey that is th eowrd–OUTPOURING–bring me peack, ratining the worry, the loose end,d the imagion of UNSPOKEN fearst that rattle aroud quietly in my brina that are not able to and really dont want to) ignore.

Keeping a journal helps stay in touch with yoursefl as best as possble.  To know yourself is to be more powerful.  To move int eh world.  To capture snapshots of days which when placed together creates movies of you–creates a narrative, a story, the meaning of one’s life.  Some people are lucky– and know intuitively what theri life purpose, life work is.  For those who don’t, you have to grope your way to find it–writing can be the way to find their oultines, their shpaes, the edges and images, the shadows and light which define their lives.  Keeping this stuff bottled inside creates a pressure which compels or impels it to flood out, cascading words which spill beyond the interim sluiceway–once the gates are open. The trick is to know when to hold back and when to let the worlds flow.  Perhaps ita great interplay that we enjoy.

So…. from that scramble of thoughts I took out what was worth keeping, what needed clarification, and edited and re-engineered to make it more understandable:

My journal is where I wring out the worries of the day. When I write it’s a moving meditation the unifies my hands, my brain, and my heart. It is an outpouring of myself onto the page.  The lines and squiggles of ink/pixels are a piece of my truth sitting in front of me. I can read it, touch it, examine it and leave it–and then return years later.  Writing brings me peace, brings some rational thinking to my worries, brings together loose ends, and brings to the surface some of the unspoken thoughts and fears that rattle around in my mind.

Keeping a journal captures the snapshots of my days, which when placed together in sequence, create a flip book of my life. My journal writing creates a narrative, a story, and ultimately helps me develop  the meaning in my life. Writing helps me outline the shapes, the edges, the shadows and the light which help define who I am.

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