Have I ever shared with you how I began my daily journaling practice? After years of wanting to, intending to, planning to … but never getting to it, I finally took a real first step. I’d read Julia Cameron’s, The Artist’s Way, where she said: “You must begin the practice of brain drain – just write what flows through your mind – every day, first thing out of bed. Write until you have filled 3 pages.”
To which at first I said, “THREE PAGES?!!!!!!!!!! You have to be kidding! I can’t take that kind of time.”
Then I decided to start small. I made a commitment to 3 minutes of writing first thing every day. Seriously! I set an alarm for 3 minutes so that I could forget about time but not overdo it and miss my next urgent commitment. Are you smiling yet?
Here is what happened. Those three minutes were easy to keep and I did… until they flowed into 5 minutes and 15 minutes and … Well, they flowed into a practice which amounted to:
“I can’t wait to sit with my journal each morning and write until I am done. Sometimes it is three or more longhand pages. Sometimes, it is writing until the tears flow and whatever is blocking me for the day brakes open and I am freed. Sometimes the words flow until a poem or song appear, unannounced and unplanned.”
What is it that you want to begin?
What small, consistent step will you take in that direction …
starting today?