Leaf Thirty-eight: Journaling my little heart out

Tonight I pulled out an old journal. As I flipped through the pages, it was around this same time last year that I was writing my heart out to get through a challenging transition period. Currently, journaling has become my greatest release since beginning the toughest, most rewarding work of my life. Through words, I have been able to navigate through the pieces of my soul that have been touched, hurt, and tried on a deep and provocative level. My writing often externalizes many of the feelings that hit on the inner parts of my identity, alleviating the responsibility of having to contain everything all at once. During my perfectionism days, I used to worry about what I wrote down, even if privately in diaries or journals, I felt I needed to write in a careful way, in case someone read my words one day. As an adolescent, I also took to journaling, but I would often read through past entries and eventually tear things out, feeling shame for what I had wrote. A lot has changed over the past year. Now, journaling has become the opposite. Whatever I think or feel goes onto the paper. Because at that moment, whatever it is, good or bad, the experience is affecting me and it deserves to be captured. One thing I have learned about my writing is that when I complete it without judgment or criticism, I am left feeling relieved and free. My writing, like me, is imperfect, and often the imperfection is what makes it beautiful and inspiring.

 

I often help my clients build a repertoire of coping tools to rely on when they are dealing with difficult emotions or circumstances. Rather than numbing the uncomfortable sensations associated with particular experiences, I have become a firm believer in sitting amidst the turmoil. When we numb challenging feelings, we never actually learn how to navigate through them. So the next time we feel sadness, hurt, anger, shame, etc., the experience is often more powerful and tougher to get through. In the past, I worked hard to avoid emotional turmoil because it was always “too much” for me to take on. I hated that I felt deeply, cried easily, and was extremely sensitive to the world around me. Instead of dealing with the discomfort, I numbed by attempting to be perfect. What happened was that I could only mask the emotion for so long before I had a breakdown and was left feeling more down than before. One of the greatest things I have learned along my personal journey to a wholehearted life is that to be happy and healthy is to still have the stress, anxiety, and any other inner turmoil experienced in life. We become our greatest selves as we are able to sit within the storm and use personal strengths and resources to survive it.

 

 

“Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”

-Muhammad Ali

 

As I thought about this quote and finding my will, I thought about what I did to hold myself  accountable and continue to stimulate my desire to accomplish my dreams. Work today was especially challenging as I faced a case with characteristics and behaviors I had yet to encounter in my clinical work. After the session I felt exhausted, helpless and self-critical. There are some circumstances, that no matter how much education or research you have done, there is nothing to fully prepare. I cried in my office for a few minutes allowing myself to feel what had happened. Then I sought out feedback from my supervisor, took a few deep breaths and got back to my responsibilities. Later I consulted with the school psychologist to debrief as well as obtain collaborative input on how to best handle the situation. After work, I left time to rest for a bit then went to my Bar Method class, and now I am taking the time to write about what happened. In each of those simple steps, I dealt with the challenging emotions I faced earlier on in the day. Rather than putting on my “perfectionism” mask to get through the experience, I owned my feelings and reached out for support, both from others and within myself. As I write this entry and reflect on the day, I feel stronger and more prepared for tomorrow. My “will” is tried daily and in order to keep it alive, I must nurture it. For me, it’s exercise, journaling, and connecting with others. I use my repertoire daily, it requires a lot of practice and self-awareness, but the benefits make everything worth it.

 

How do you nurture your spirit?