Writing: It’s for everyone!

Words pour out fast and easy for me, and always have, kind of like that “double R” letter in the Spanish alphabet that makes some, not all, of our tongues roll fast and easy. It was even identified early by teachers as a gift, yet I have found writing WELL to be a lifelong, slow process which I will never find the end, such as eliminating unnecessary words and nonessential details.

Regardless of whether words come fast or flow to us or where we are in our writing skill development, I have been learning how writing with a pen in hand in a journal can benefit us all. Would you take a minute and let me count the ways with you? I believe it to be a worthy investment of your time.

Have you ever been inspired by a new thought or quote you heard in a podcast, movie, sermon, or class and then tried to recall it less than a week later, and it’s gone? I’m amazed at how fast things leak and evaporate out of my mind. I’m learning to write them down and have a new journal I started with my 6th decade of life to put them in. I’m calling it my “Catch-All Journal.” It’s for no one else but me so I can hang on to these words of wisdom I’m gathering and everything else I “catch.” 

Here’s another “have you ever” I’m asking. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night or too early to get up because stress, emotions, and thoughts are swirling around in your mind, landing in all the wrong places, like the leaves falling in autumn swirl around in the wind and land everywhere? I’m learning to put pen in hand to process them, and I’m finding, just like the wonderful lawn maintenance men who process all the leaves in our yard and bring it all back to lovely order, that I usually walk away from these sessions with clarity and a plan of next steps. Sleep is wonderful, so fight for it with your pen!

Here’s another reason to journal – to bring out our unique beauty into this world of ours. I read (and wrote down, so I have it today to share with you) a lovely definition of how we all carry our Creator’s beauty, as male and female, each one of us as different as snowflakes. Our beauty comes in five areas: 1) our voice – our own unique personality; 2) our vessel – our physical body; 3) our “womb” – our creative potential; 4) our scar – our painful story;  and 5) our sway – our influential legacy. This needs to be written and developed as thoughts on a page so it becomes ready to be shared. Our world needs each one’s beauty, even as we need oxygen.

Another assignment for our “Catch-All” journals is gratitude, as it is so much easier to complain and grumble about things that happen to us than to find something for which to be thankful. Have you ever tried to stop complaining? I am trying because I believe that all that complaining does is attract more negativity to us. It’s SO hard to stop (whoops–that’s a whiney complaint!)  Let’s instead challenge ourselves to find ways to be thankful and write them down daily. If you need more inspiration, read Ann Voskamp’s lovely book “One Thousand Gifts.”

Last reason, and I’ll start with a quote by Emmitt Smith, which I also had written in my journal, “btdubbs” (Short for “by the way,” in case you didn’t know. “Dubbs” is short for “W,” or “double U”). “It is only a dream until you write it down. Then, it is a goal.” There is famous research from a group of 1979 Harvard Graduates: the 3% that wrote down their dreams and turned them into goals made TEN TIMES as much as the other 97% combined. Let your dreams come out of your pen, and don’t let fear of failure, rejection, impossibility, or any other dream-killing fear stop you. There is wisdom, creativity, leadership, and imagination in all of us, and it deserves the attention and power of pen and paper to make it a goal and then work to make it come true.

In closing my case for writing, I will use another quote (yes, I wrote it down) by Jim Rohn: “I’m a buyer of blank books. The reason I pay $26 (for a journal) is to challenge myself to find something worth $26 to put in there. If you ever get ahold of one, you’ll find it’s worth way more than $26.”

Happy Writing!