Trash Journalling

I read a book a few years ago called The Artist's Way, a curriculum designed to help blocked artists wake back up and be able to create again. I picked it up after a nudge from a good friend who knew I loved art and saw it as a spiritual process.

The author, Julie Cameron, so well articulates the innate human desire to create, as well as the human tendency to fear poor performance. In our fear we become frozen, robotic in our production of art or entirely losing our ability to create. The moment we lean into what the audience wants is the moment we lose our authenticity because the audience can be so flakey and judgmental.

Fear blocking beauty has so many applications. Spiritually if we are afraid of the God we worship, we clam up our emotions and hide our honest responses (even from ourselves!). Relationally if we people-please, we become mirrors of our companions and lose actual connection.

The solution to this fear is nurturing. For children to feel safe enough to play, they have to know that they aren't going to be hurt. They need protection, boundaries, structure and grace to fail. Adults need the same things--but from themselves.

Cameron encourages two main activities for humans who want to be set free. The first is what she calls "morning pages," but what I call "trash journalling". This is the regular (daily!) process of getting out the tangled yuck that fills each of us as we navigate a stressful world.

When I recommend trash journalling to my clients I encourage them to get a simple spiral notebook and a nice pen for smooth, easy writing and the reminder that they can absolutely throw it away when they're done. We're not writing for any kind of performance here. Not pretty poetry or impressive philosophizing, just stream-of-consciousness blah blah blah that comes to mind when you sit still for five minutes without a screen in front of you. And not just one paragraph's worth! She suggests three pages and I agree. Write till you're bored. Get it out.

Good art only happens in freedom. Having the freedom to say/write whatever you're thinking without fear of judgement, releases the mind to be honest and the heart to express whatever complicated emotions it may be feeling. You can throw it away. God already knew your thoughts anyway. It's you who wasn't aware. And now you can be!

Just as a child needs to know they can express themselves without fear of their parent losing their mind or emotionally dysregulating, we need to prove to ourselves that we can be one-hundred percent real without losing our grip. The practice of regularly facing your honest thoughts and feelings tells the soul that we are ok! While there may be surprise emotions or nonsensical blabbering that comes up, being in a calm, private place when they do makes them more manageable, especially if you are allowing the Creator to meet you there. You don't have to do anything with these. Just notice them and then let them leave.

Sometimes I use the analogy of a tangled ball of yarn in your head getting slowly resolved as a long string of thoughts that comes out the end of your pen. Let it go. Release those wild animals onto the paper.

More on Julie Cameron's The Artist's Way and the second habit of creative recovery in next week's blog.