THOSE OF US WHO JOURNAL regularly believe in the power and benefits of journaling — how it helps us cope with life’s challenges, relieve stress, increase self-awareness, reach our goals, and analyze and improve just about every aspect of our lives. BUT — what do you do when it doesn’t? […]
SOME PEOPLE only write their stories when they’ve got nothing to lose. But others write their truth even if they’re risking their reputation, their livelihood or their close relationships in order to do so. Certainly we can see this in books and movies. Take The Help as an example. This […]
EVERYONE EXPERIENCES FEAR. Healthy fear arises from proximity to a dangerous situation: a healthy fear of falling, for example, prevents us from standing too close to the edge of a cliff. A healthy fear of injury or death prevents us from crossing the street in front of oncoming traffic. We […]
IN CHALLENGING TIMES, it is easy to get lost in the dark or negative aspects of what is going on around us and forget to look for the good—especially when newspapers and online media sensationalize the negative in order to take advantage of our natural, though morbid, sense of curiosity. […]
They say the only constant in life is change. I believe that to be true. And if there is anything certain about change, it’s uncertainty. Just when you think things are moving along according to plan, Blam! something changes. Jobs, relationships, homes, and people come and go. Even when we […]
Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson What do you picture when you think of courage? I picture children and adults with serious illnesses who manage to inspire others by maintaining positive outlooks; activists for […]
Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Día de los Muertos, Samhain — ritual celebrations of death, the end of harvest, and the transition into the cold, dark winter. The ancient Celts believed the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead to be thin and permeable this time of year, […]
This week’s journal writing prompts are about vulnerability. For most of us, to be vulnerable means to be open to the possibility of physical or emotional injury, or to be easily manipulated, and is a state we have learned — or been taught — to avoid. In reaction, we build […]
Our journaling prompts this week are about a kind of fear we all share — the one that can stop us before we even begin learning a new skill or starting a new venture, the one that seethes beneath the surface of every creative act, the one that began in […]
