Journalling

Journalling is an activity that is readily available to all – even those who have limited literacy skills, as journals do not necessarily have to be about writing (they can be a collection of illustrations such as drawings and/or photographs).

Journalling as a therapeutic tool

Journals can be a way of reflecting and processing the challenges in our lives and a journal can become a constantly available trusted friend that will not judge us, whilst helping us to gain perspective. Through journalling we can make new discoveries about ourselves, walk the paths of healing and give ourselves personal freedom.

Some general guidelines

Choose a time and place where interruptions will be minimal and consider whether or not we want others to read or look at our journalling later. If we wish to keep it private we need to find a safe place to keep it. If we are inclined to journal about our pain and distress we also need to think about how it might impact on us if we re-read this at a later date. Sometimes this kind of writing is better left to the realms of off-load writing, which is destroyed immediately afterwards as we mentally let go of hurt and pain.

Using journals for specific purposes

Whilst journals can be used as daily diaries to record events and feelings, they can also become more targeted to help us record and explore specific areas of our lives.

Some targeted journals may include:

• A gratitude journal – this is simply about finding something each day to be grateful for and recoding it.  A creative way of recoding gratitude is to make gratitude chain. Pre-cut a supply of rectangular paper pieces and, each day, write something to be grateful or thankful for on one piece at a time. Join them together to make a paper chain, adding a new piece of “chain” each day (or triangular pieces could be cut and joined to make bunting).

• A record of achievements – this could include things that were enjoyable, plans and ideas (new thoughts), challenges we came through and things that were self-caring, as well as achievements (to widen out our thinking about achievements)
• A record of creative pursuits – I have a DVD from Quilters Companion that takes viewers through the process of compiling a creative journal that includes pages for creative projects that have been undertaken. The pages include photographs (of both works in progress and finished items), swatches of fabric used (or wool), patterns, and words about the creative journey. The fabric cover is embroidered  and the result is an inspiring and attractive collection of achievements. This could be easily adapted to other creative pursuits.

• A travel diary – I find that keeping records of our travels has allowed me to re-visit interesting and enjoyable times when life is more mundane.
• Scrapbooking family and other events – this can be as simple or as complicated (with decorations) as desired. The creative process itself can be quite therapeutic as photos and embellishments are arranged and words are added in creative ways.
• Daily insights – over time this can lead to a recognition of threads that are occurring in our lives and thus to changes we might contemplate to improve our lives.
• Our dreams and hopes for the future – this can help us to keep hope alive in our life journeys and maybe provide some goals to work towards.

Useful tools and resources

Inside-out: a journalling kit, produced by Innovative Resources is a set of cards that each features a key word, illustrations, a quote about the topic and some prompts in the form of questions, statements or suggestions. It can be purchased by following this link:
http://innovativeresources.org/resources/card-sets/inside-out-2/

Creative Journal Writing by Stephanie Dowrick, Allen & Unwin, Aust 2007 contains exercises and ideas to inspire more creative journalling, and more information can be found here:
http://www.booktopia.com.au/creative-journal-writing-the-art-and-heart-of-reflection-stephanie-dowrick/prod9781741751376.html

Writing in Bereavement by Jane Moss, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London & Philadelphia, 2012 outlines exercises for groups and individuals, using a variety of genres to help those who are bereaved to voice the changes brought by grief, the unfinished conversations and memories of loved ones, and to provide a respite from sadness. It also has a great chapter on keeping a journal. For more information follow this link:
http://www.booktopia.com.au/writing-in-bereavement-jane-moss/prod9781849052122.html

Journal prompts can be found on this website:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/09/27/30-journaling-prompts-for-self-reflection-and-self-discovery/

And, of course, many people use blogging as a form of journalling. 

The patchwork of life

Lately I have been immersing myself in creative patchwork, spending lots of time transforming small pieces of fabric into patterns and quilts. The metaphor of patchwork has been applied to life by many people, and I think that this is very apt.

Life is a quilt that is never finished

Unlike intentionally created patchwork quilts, our life quilts are not completed until we die, and then the binding can finally be added. Throughout our lives new patches and decorations are added, and the fabric becomes richer as our life journeys continue onwards.

Ragged edges smooth out when pieces are joined

In a patchwork quilt, as the pieces are joined together, the seams encase the ragged edges and leave a smooth surface on the outside. This can happen in our lives too as new experiences and/ or perspectives add new patches to the raw edges of our lives, smoothing these out and allowing new patterns to emerge from discordant experiences.

Patterns emerge when things are repeated

In quilts, if blocks are repeated, they can form patterns that are not apparent when the blocks are viewed separately. So too, in our lives, patterns begin to emerge as we travel our journeys and begin to connect like experiences together (both good and challenging).

Borrowing on some expertise can help

It is often useful to follow a pattern and to tap into quilting expertise when creating patchwork – some tips and techniques can guide the process and even make construction easier. We can turn to the support and learning of others to guide our life journeys too – and sometimes theories can aid our understanding.

The background

Most patchwork has a background that sets off the applique or decorations, or may form the general pattern of the quilt itself. What are the steady rhythms that make up the backgrounds of our lives? The events which stand out are enhanced by these and would not be the same without the supportive background.

Adding new and interesting patches

Quilts can grow with the addition of borders and/or more rows of patches, and thus change in character. The fabric of our lives can also change direction, sometimes intentionally and sometimes because our assumptive worlds have been shattered – but all of these add to the rich patchwork of our lives.

Some resources

Trish McKinnon, a Social Worker from Sacred Heart Hospice in Sydney presented this diagram on the rich tapestry of life in retrospect (used to guide end of life stories in palliative care):

Innovative Resources have produced “A Patchwork Life” – a set of cards for exploring women’s journeys, designed to inspire storytelling and creativity. The cards use “the metaphor of a patchwork quilt to explore how a person’s identity is made up of unique memories, experiences, dreams and relationships, all sewn together”. They can be obtained by following this link:

http://innovativeresources.org/resources/card-sets/patchwork-life/

Today this blog is celebrating its first birthday – and it has certainly gone in directions that I did not anticipate when I was at the point of new beginnings. It has certainly enriched my life.

Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to dip into it.

Inspiration from nature

I noticed this spider's web on my verandah this morning -- look at the strength of  thin threads of web!

I think we can draw inspiration for our lives from this -- we see it all the time in the things that keep people attached despite adversity.

The big picture:

The threads of web were strong enough to pull the rope from the bell upwards, and some of the lights inwards.

The details:

Basking in the sunlight:

The strength of a colleague:

May you find similar strength in your lives this week.

Most human behaviour is not based on logic

I often had conversations with clients who were perplexed about how someone in their lives could behave the way they were behaving, and we usually ended up reflecting on how human behaviour is rarely based on logic or being rational. They could then stop struggling with trying to make logical sense of something that was not rational.

When Psychology entered the realm of science, thinking became skewed towards believing that human behaviour could be regulated and that causes and effects could be identified. This led to a proliferation of theories, but remember that theories are not facts and are subject to change as new knowledge emerges (and knowledge itself is something that keeps evolving).

A metaphor

If we were to liken human behaviour to a stream of water flowing through an erosion channel, we can see that a smooth pathway is rarely left behind, and we cannot predict ahead exactly what the next flow of water will do to the channel. However erosion channels can be awesome and mesmerising and can hold our attention, as can the struggle to understand some people’s behaviour (and how it impacts on us).

There are examples of different types of erosion channels in the photos accompanying this post.

Theories

Some of the theories that can help us understand illogical human behaviour include:

• Ego defence mechanisms -- things like projection, rationalisation, introjection, denial, intellectualisation etc.

          Here is a good chart that lists the types of defences and gives examples:
          http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/5097/5219347/tools/table1-2.pdf

• Power theories -- an interesting article on power can be found on the following link:

          http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.244/pdf

• Political theories -- this relates to ideologies and the distribution of power and resources, as well as government. In reality, politics is rarely based on rational behaviour.

• Emotions -- behaviour resulting from emotions is often not logical. An outline of four theories of emotion can be found here:

          http://webspace.ship.edu/tosato/emotion.htm

• Game playing/ manipulation -- some behaviour is fuelled by tactics that are aimed at controlling others

• Fear and anxiety -- these can cause people to act in ways that are not rational, but this becomes more complicated when the fears and anxieties are not overtly apparent to others. 

• Economic rationalism -- in workplaces, many decisions are made based on cost savings, but this is often covered up with other explanations and, if we try to debate or work with these other explanations, we often get nowhere.

What other theories could be added?

Remember: if the behaviour of others is not based on logic, then we need to try to not take it personally.

In the words of Francisco Manoel da Silva; I can not hear what you are saying, for the thunder that you are.

Email followers please note...

This is a note from Blogger:

In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

Hope this makes sense to anyone who is affected.

Putting our own stamp on things

Every time we adapt something to suit our needs, or do something our way, we are putting our own stamp on things. This can help us to feel creative, pleased, contented and fulfilled. It is something we can often do in the workplace and many times we may have done it without even realising. Those of us who work in rural environments are constantly adapting tools and resources to be more appropriate for a rural context.

What does it mean?

 Putting our own stamp on things is about doing things our way, not the way others think we should do them. It means being true to ourselves, acting according to our core values and being an individual, and it may mean having the courage to stand out from the crowd. It may also mean standing out form the ordinary and mediocre and choosing to be different to others without disrespecting them. It definitely means doing things in ways that support our growth as human beings.

The things we can put our own stamps onto

Some of the things that we can do our way include:

• Choosing how we dress, what we eat and how we live our lives
• Tweaking programs to fit our needs and the needs of those with whom we are working
• Choosing the tools, resources and style of working with our clients
• Choosing between options and how we choose to use advice from others
• How we deal with challenges
• How we choose to react to situations and the perspectives we choose to take
• How we carry out required tasks and the order in which we do these
• Daily routines
• The kinds of movies and programs we watch, the books we read and how we use our relaxation/ leisure time
• Putting our own spin on creative activities

Ways of encouraging ourselves to remember

Sometimes we need to work on believing in ourselves and building up our confidence and we can do this by reminding ourselves that we are allowed to do things our way, listening to our inner nurturing voices rather than the unhelpful voices of others and putting ourselves in the “driver’s seat” of our own life journey “cars” so that we can choose the direction and where our “car” is going to take us.

An exercise in putting our own stamp on things

In the Women’s Support Group that I used to facilitate we would regularly take a base recipe and brainstorm ways that we could vary it to suit our own needs. This was a practical way of encouraging the women to put their own stamp onto something.

Quiche

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees (Centigrade)
2. Beat together 4 eggs and ½ cup milk (low fat is healthier) and add any flavouring herbs (dried coriander is nice)
3. Line a pie plate with pastry (or leave this out and grease the plate to make frittata instead)
4. Fill the pastry shell/ pie plate with a mixture of any of the following:

• Tuna or salmon and dill
• Left-overs from main meals
• Left over Chinese (including rice)
• Chopped up hard boiled eggs
• Tomato and basil
• Any chopped vegetables e.g. carrots, peas, beans, corn, broccoli, cauliflower etc.
• Capsicum
• Spaghetti/ noodles
• Onion or garlic
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Ham, bacon or salami or chopped sausages
• Cooked chicken or left-over meat (chopped)

What else could be added?

5. Top with grated cheese and/ or paprika
6. Bake for 50 mins or until set

A smaller version could be made by halving the quantities

In the words of Fanny Brice: Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later if you are posing, you will forget the pose and then where are you?

Summer

Summer is a season of contradictions in Australia. It includes the festive season, but is also the season of the trauma of natural disasters. It is the season of struggle in the heat, but also of harvest and gluts. It moves us to the end of one year and to the beginning of the next.

Celebration and new beginnings

For many people Christmas and New Year are a time of celebration and enjoyment and this can also occur in the summers of our lives. These are the times when we can relax and enjoy life and living, and take a break from the sameness of daily routines and tasks. We can see the New Year as a time to throw a veil over the past and make a fresh start, as we step into time that has not yet been sullied with challenges and struggles.

Struggle and Endings

Conversely, summer is a time of survival, when plants struggle in the heat and may even die. In the summers of our lives we too may struggle to survive and find that we are facing the endings of some aspects, thus needing to let go of things that are no longer strong enough to give meaning to our days.

A time of harvest

Those of us who grow vegetables know that summer is the time when the fruit of our labours can be harvested. It is exciting to see the first vegetables appear, but as summer continues we may end up with a glut of produce that is difficult to deal with. It is the same in our lives – some things are interesting and exciting and fulfilling at first, but when they are experienced in over-abundance they lose their allure and may become problematic.

Natural disasters

Summer is a time of extreme weather patterns and the challenges this creates. Currently in Australia there are floods in NSW and bush fires in Victoria and Western Australia.  Both have resulted in the tragedy of losses of homes and lives, and have had major impacts on all of those involved.

I hope your summer is falling more on the enjoyable side and that 2016 is a good year for you.