I decided to post some pictures today. I wanted to show you guys and gals that I'm actually practicing what I preach. This is a picture of just a few of my "tools" for healing, along with my completed task for the day.
"Finding Angela Shelton" - Day Seven...
Whoever said this healing thing is easy is a liar. I feel like I'm in college sometimes with all of this researching and this reading and this writing. But the beauty of Megan's Healing Journey 101 is that I am my own professor. I decided when I started this healing course that there will be no deadlines, no grades, no pass or fail. I didn't want to put too much pressure on myself or rush into that quick-fix mode that so many survivors seem to get stuck in. But just because I've decided to be a lenient professor doesn't mean the course is easy. There are days when I want to withdraw because the work is really, really difficult... but I know full well that withdrawal from this course will do nothing but stonewall my growth as a person and block my path to self-discovery and empowerment... so I just keep on truckin'!
Today's task is to freestyle write for five minutes in a journal or a notebook about anything and everything that's been surfacing for me since I started this journey. I've kept a journal off and on for about 15 years. Sometimes I free-write. Sometimes I write poetry. Sometimes I draw pictures. I do whatever I feel like doing at the time, unless I am working on a specific type of exercise from one of the books I'm reading.
Here's my five-minute free-write for today (I typed it out for you below the pictures just in case it's too difficult for you to decipher):
"Finding Angela Shelton"
November 14, 2009 Day 7
5 minutes free-writing
Today's task is to spend five
minutes writing about everything
that's come up for me since the beginning
of this journey. WOW! Where do I begin?
So many amazing things are happening in
my life since this whole thing started,
but there have been some real eye-
openers too... like the fact that I
really need to deal with the rape.
I guess I hadn't realized how far I
had tucked that one away. I've done
an awesome job dealing w/everything
else I've tackled thus far, but for
some weird reason (maybe the feelings
of humiliation and shame) I've kinda
ignored that trauma... but overall
I feel like this is just a huge positive
in my life and I feel like it's sorta
reinforcing all of the things I've been
working on since March. GO ME!
P.S. I just felt like drawing a picture... it's a good day!
Freestyle writing is an excellent way to just let things out. There's no particular form to follow in free-writing, no rules or regulations about what to say or how to say it. You don't worry about spelling, sentence structure or grammar. You set aside an allotted amount of time for yourself and you just write. This style of writing is a perfect example of the emotional puke fest I wrote about yesterday. When you get stuck, you make sure your pen keeps moving. You write, "I don't know what to write" or "I'm not sure what to say now" or "Blah, blah, blah" and you don't stop writing until your allotted amount of time is up. It's a really great way to get in touch with your feelings, and oftentimes when you think you have nothing to say, you'll find that there's plenty there just waiting to come out if you can just get yourself started.
As you can see, my free-write today was a pretty positive one. Let me assure you, I have loads of journal pages that are laced with profanity and angry words. Healing is not always a page full of happiness and pictures of flowers and smiley faces and hearts and music notes and big block letters that scream "JOY!" Sometimes it's a few lines of curse words and skulls and crossbones and scribbles and storm clouds and big block letters that scream "I HATE THINKING ABOUT THIS S***!"
No matter what ends up in the pages of my journal as the result of a free-writing session, I am proud of myself each time I've completed the exercise because it's tangible proof that I've chosen to do the work it takes to heal. Even if today's journal entry had ended up being a full page rant, I'd have been proud. Heck, I'd have been proud of a page full of "Blah, blah, blah." The point is that each time I write in my journal, I've taken the time to sit with myself and my thoughts and I've chosen to stay in this "class" another day... I've stuck it out and I've completed another assignment, and I'm one day closer to earning my Ph.D. in J-O-Y.
3 comments:
This managed to be funny while setting an example to help others. Way to spread joy and enlightenment. Of course, my free-writing usually ends up being notes for some weird tale. But that's just me. I love your doodles! Truly classic. Great job again, Megan. I'm going to have to stop saying that, however, because one of my eccentric peeves as an author is not to be redundant. Sorry, I'm just going to have to start saying I don't like it for a change, even though I did. But not this time. :)
Okay, I won't really be able to do that. I dislike lying even more than being redundant. Oh well. Please excuse my redundance. I'll just have to make an exception in your case.
Haha! Thanks again, Lori! How can I go wrong with such great support? =)
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