#Journaling was a practice I started young, pouring my big little heart out; capturing all the prose that flowed through my mind without abandon; 👩‍🎨drawing and describing the big ideas, inventions & dreams I had (many of which have come true when I flip back!); working through and capturing my ever undulating life and emotions.👩‍🎤

💪I kept the practice strong through college - indeed my closest friends and I often spent time together, separately mapping out and creating beauty and tears, and then talking about and working through our discoveries together.

It was after college, when I became basically a full-time corporate communications writer, that I dropped the habit. 

🤦‍♀️More words seemed too hard. I was all of sudden judging everything I wrote, editing as I went - not just from grammar or structure, but also for story -- MY STORY. 

I stopped being honest - in my own F*in journal!!! 

I stopped being messy and creative - in my journal and elsewhere in my private life, saving it for the office....

And then I stopped being the real me, shifting into what I believed was expected and successful.

👩‍💼It took me ELEVEN YEARS to build back my personal writing practice, really just with renewed effort in the last two-three years after I left my corporate role 150% depressed and started my journey back to authenticity by exploring my artistic roots.

I believe my new practice -- even if just 5-10 minutes a day -- has been a huge part of my recovery from constant stress and anxiety to genuinely happy. 🧚‍♀️

📓GETTING IT OUT OF MY HEAD and on to a piece of paper helps 🤔rationalize and see the inner critic for what it is, 😮helps us grow awareness of the situation we're in and who we're being, 🧐gives us space to build language for how we are feeling and how we want to move forward, 🤗can help keep ourselves accountable to our values and goals -- and frankly, have some fun dreaming big without fear of judgement. 😍

✍️If you've every considered journaling, START TODAY - even if it's just a few sentences you send to yourself in a text, save in a note, post below or jot on a sticky note that you then crumple and trash. 

JUST GET SOMETHING WRITTEN!

📱Find a place to sit and ground yourself with a few breaths, set a timer for 2-5 minutes (yes, that’s it!) and answer one of my many #journalANDshare prompts in the Truly Creative, Confident Women Facebook group to get started!! http://bit.ly/journalANDshare

CREATE A NEW HABIT 💟 by trying to build it into your routine at a time that aligns with your goal (morning is known to be good for flow of thought and creativity, while evening is known to be good for working through situations and feelings). 

🤓YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT EVERY DAY - but you want to DO IT MORE THAN NOT for 66-144 DAYS (yes, it takes time, but it can be an easy slope to climb!), and after that, this soul saving and creativity boosting habit will be ingrained and you'll FEEL THE POWER OF JOURNALING!!!