I have never kept a successful journal in my life. Even in my Advanced Directing class, I could not complete the journal project that accompanied all the scene work I was doing with my actors. I finally went to my awesome professor and said, "I'm so sorry, but I am a terrible journal keeper. Can I do something else instead?" I love having open-minded profs who say "Yes." I couldn't keep a journal when a grade and a degree depended on it, so why am I revisiting the topic now?
Because I read this article via Sal at Already Pretty (LOVE HER). It has stayed with me for almost five months now (a long time for someone who cannot remember what she ate for breakfast yesterday). Five months of thinking, "This could be really good for me." Which then turned into, "This could really be good for me and for my friends." So I looped in three of my best girlfriends. On September 1, we are beginning our journals and following along with this crazy, inspiring, brilliantly written book. I have had a copy for a month and have been flipping through it and reading all of the wonderful journal prompts and I CANNOT WAIT TO WRITE. I cannot wait to discover me, to empower me, to view myself as I really am and not how I interpret myself to be.
I get down on myself ... it happens. I think everyone does it - I've yet to meet a person whose biggest critic lived outside of their body. Maybe a year of writing positively about myself, about my body and about my mind will improve how I view the world and my place in it. If nothing else, I think it is an excellent way to keep things fresh for a year- a new day, a new page, a new prompt.
And who knows? Maybe there is a journal keeper lurking inside of me somewhere :)