It is March and the season of "Madness".  Madness is created for me when I think of how often therapists, self help gurus, coaches, even friends will say to a person, "You should journal."  The maddening part of this statement is not the advocation of a tremendously effective tool, but the fact that this is all that is said.  How to use a journal is seldom discussed and how a journal (or writing for that matter) works to be such an effective efficient tool.  One of the reasons people resist using journals is because they don't know what to write.  Often I hear that people have received journals as gifts from family and friends.  These books will typically find themselves stacked in a drawer or sitting empty on a book shelf because the recipient doesn't know "what to write".  If people knew how a journal worked, then what would be known is that is doesn't matter what you write, simply that you do write.

How  does this journal or the process of writing work?  It produces results in both scientific and metaphorical ways.  It works scientifically in that you cannot write as fast as you think.  Because you cannot write a fast a you think, you have automatically edited out some of the thoughts that exist in your mind, the ones that keep circling for landing and never seem to reach their destination.  While in your head these thoughts can remain in this holding pattern for days, weeks, months, years, generations.  These continual tape loops are not edited out and therefore are not released.  Writing is a natural editing process allowing you to bypass some of the seemingly permanent thoughts that continually float around in your head.  You are able to side track your normal tape loops simply by the act of committing them to paper.

Writing allows you to take thoughts that consistently exist in your peripheral vision and focus your attention on them narrowing a too wide line of vision.  One day, I was sitting on my deck entertaining some friends when a bird flew by my head.  I jumped out of my chair spilling the lunch that I had been holding on my lap.  Everyone in my party began to laugh.  I didn't see what was so funny because I has almost lost the side of my head to a bird when one of my friends said, "I have never seen anyone move so quickly out of the way of a fly, Michelle."  I turned to see what had caused me to jump and it was simply a normal size house fly.  When I put my attention directly on the fly I could see it for what it was.  While I had been sitting in the chair, the fly had only managed to make it into my peripheral vision.  By writing the thoughts floating on the edges of my mind you put our attention upon them.  Taking these thoughts out of the periphery they become more manageable in size.  What looked like a mountain is now the proverbial molehill.  Writing takes things out of the blurred state and puts them into focus.

Further, journaling allows you to let go.  It is a release process.  Simply by taking something out of your mind and writing it down, you have let it go.  Even writing a grocery list is a process of letting go.  There is no longer a need to focus your valuable mind attention on whether or not you need to pick up bread at the grocery store once you write a list.  In fact, this is such a perfect example of letting go that if you forget the list, you often forget what to buy!  What does it release to write things down?  It allows you to let go of anything; emotions, too consistent ideas, even songs that keep running through your mind.  One day I was singing the them song from a commercial.  It actually seemed to be stuck in my head for hours.  Every time I told my mind to stop singing it, I'd be OK for a few minutes and as soon as I wasn't completely focused on its absence, I'd be right back at it.  I finally decided enough was enough, and so I wrote down the particular lines of the song and I was repeating.  After that, I was freed from this torturous set of lyrics.

Once something is written onto paper, it is tangible.  Journaling makes things more real.  Writing creates the ability to develop meaning because it produces a tangible piece or proof in ink or pencil of who you are.  Writing produces something you can hold in your hand.  This information can be used as a reference to your thoughts, feelings, beliefs and actions.  The journal allows you to see patterns clearly.  Your life story can be reflected in a journal - by writing about events which occur in life, the thoughts, behaviors and feelings being experienced.  In a journal you develop a process which allows you something to view so that you can recognize continuity and assimilate voices in your life - those pictures, values and voices which are representative of your beliefs.  This sorting process allows journaling to produce a resolution process.  The clarity a journal causes allows you to resolve the conflict between your authentic self and the values and beliefs of that self and the politically correct, conflict resistant self image one typically presents to the world.  The journal helps you organize your life for meaning and intent.