Many of us skim the headlines and the first few paragraphs of a news article to stay up to date with the current events. But we often turn to the op-ed page to learn from people who we consider more knowledgeable than we are and whose values are aligned with ours: Frank Rich, Peggy Noonan, [...]
February 22, 2010 – 4:33 pm
My 86 year old mother and I flew up to New York City to attend the funeral of her best friend, Judy. Not only was Judy my mother’s best friend, but she was also my second mother from the time that I was three years old.
My siblings and I all attended and we spent the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]