November 13, 2013

Journaling, My Nemesis?

I am grateful that my writing practices are basically positive ones.  At this point in my life, I am not finding journaling to be that helpful. In fact, every key stroke that I type and every bit of handwriting, will create pain in my elbow, arm, and hand. I am grateful to be getting better, but.. getting better necessitates that I limit my writing time.  

Ironic for a writer. 

Last night,  I called a friend in program, to get perspective because my thoughts were circling round the drain.   I had wanted to cry. When she heard this,  she thought journaling would help me. I found myself telling her, that I typically write when I am feeling good, and that I've not journaled in awhile.   

I don't think she really understood that I write every day already.   I know have to feel good physically to write, or I will end up with problems in my right arm. So I limit writing time on screen to productive positive writing, typically. 

Journaling, I have done lots of.  I love what I find in my past writing.  But by my mid-30's I found that writing out my life when I feel down and confused can take me around in a big endless loop. Anyone recognize that pattern and found a better way to journal?  Let me know!

It is just that for now,  my body says no to this particular labor with words.  "Problem" writing comes at the expense of the writing that feeds me.  Rather than explaining that or naysaying her positive idea, I did my best to move our conversation on. 

Since I need to be careful in using my right arm (my dominant one) to write out problems, maybe I could  just compose a simple list, of all my problems, using my left hand.
I will read it out loud, without commentary and ask myself out loud what I can be grateful for. 

Then I will use my body to do other things than write.  

God willing, later I will feel up to working a half hour on that essay I have due on Sunday. Mulling over my topic choice might be better done offscreen....

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