I began a new journaling practice I learned about online called ‘morning pages’ where you write at least three pages in a journal, long-hand, first thing in the morning. It’s a way to clear out the clutter in your head before you start the day. I have been doing this for six days now and found it has helped unblock my mind. I forgot how much more creative I am when I write by hand. I’m even starting to rewrite one of my manuscripts this way. I will post an entry every now and then to share, and I encourage everyone to try this method if you feel you have so much in your head that you can’t concentrate.
I don’t have a lot to write about, really. I wrote furiously in bed after an emotional guided meditation where I meet my inner child. I always get emotional meeting her, and it’s usually through a guided meditation. Sometimes I get a bit too emotional. Am I longing for that creative innocence again? Or do I weep because I know about everything she will go through, also knowing that she won’t be able to change her path? The heartaches, the losses, the mental anguish, issues with her weight, her developing mistrust of others, the choices she made in school and the ones she’ll make after.
I realized in therapy a few years ago and through guided meditations that I never wanted to grow up. Hell, who does? But I can’t blame myself after having an adult retrospective of what I went through.
I’m not looking to throw a pity party; I’m only just beginning to realize why I have held myself back from taking risks all these years. It’s because I have a hard time trusting myself and whether or not I’ll be able to cope with that first step, then the second, and so on with trying something new. Whether it’s posting to my blog to an audience I’ll never meet or even just participating in local events to meet new people.
While we’re on the subject of risks, I’m going to a writers group at the local library this Saturday. I have no idea how their one-hour meetings are. I know that there are some groups that share their work and the members give advice and constructive criticism, while other groups just write quietly on the same prompt. I’m more nervous about the former, but I am working on listening to criticism. That’s part of my trust issues. “You’re not good enough” is the megaphone voice in my head when it comes to my creative works.
Damn, I sometimes feel like a broken record when I lament over the same things. Get over it already. But I think the only way for me to get over it is to keep forging ahead. Continue creating and putting my work out there until my keyboard sticks and my hand hurts.
I put so much anger onto the page last night but I can’t be redirecting that anger back to me. Especially not to my inner child who is desperately trying to keep alight the spark I have left in me. A lot of what she went through was not her fault. She was young and naive and had to grow up fast due to early pubescence that drew leers from older men until one finally ensnared her. She didn’t know any better, and she hid her shame from the people in her life she actually trusted.
I feel like I wasted my youth because of the choices I made. I guess the only thing left to do for my inner child is to make her older year kick ass.
— MJ
“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mysti Gayle 
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