Drawing on "The Artist’s Way," by Julia Cameron, Phelan adopts the practice of doing "'three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-conscious,' done as soon as one wakes... 'In morning pages, we do not set a topic. It is as though we have A.D.D.: jumping from topic to topic, gathering insights and directions from many quarters.... Jungians tell us we have about a 45-minute window before our ego’s defenses are in place in the morning... Writing promptly upon awakening, we utilize the authenticity available to us in that time frame."
Phelan says, she'd "felt stuck":
I was nearing 30... unhappily married and dissatisfied with my career. Worst of all, I had no idea what would, theoretically, make me happy. I didn’t know what I wanted.
Then journaling provided me with an important outlet for the debilitating anxiety that had come to paralyze me at odd hours each day... And... today, as I write this, just two years later, my life has completely changed: I split from my partner of 10 years; began a new, fulfilling relationship; enrolled in an M.F.A. program; rekindled my freelance writing career; and am planning a move to Los Angeles....
[Journaling] put me in contact with my very own spiritual guide. Certainly, I got to know the dusty corners of my brain better, and, when I did, my true desires became harder to ignore....
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29 comments:
I wrote two books without using this method.
I never journal. Takes time away from writing.
That dissatisfaction is what sends the man on quests, which he may or may not screw up but he went, and she gets to show him she's satisfied with him. Repeat until death do us part.
Her brain has dust and corners. No wonder she suffered from debilitating anxiety.
"more to Los Angeles"
Things will be better someplace else syndromoe.
Journal and diurnal have the same root, day.
Then journaling provided me with an important outlet for the debilitating anxiety that had come to paralyze me at odd hours each day... And... today, as I write this, just two years later, my life has completely changed: I split from my partner of 10 years; began a new, fulfilling relationship; enrolled in an M.F.A. program; rekindled my freelance writing career; and am planning a move to Los Angeles....
It's almost like when Donald Trump discovered Twitter. "Today, as I tweet, just a few years later, my life has completely changed: I split from some of my partners; began new fulfilling relationships; ran successfully for President; rekindled America; and am planning to stay in Washington D.C. even longer!"
I went to grad school for psychology. I had a Jungian professor who was big on writing. That's fine, but if you are writing for a living instead of therapy you write when you have to, not when you want to. It's work.
Selling your work isn't about your feelings. It's business.
I guessed New York Times for this women's magazine cr4p, and I am not a woman. Who says there is no difference between the sexes?
Jungians tell us
I'm sure they do.
we have about a 45-minute window before our ego’s defenses are in place in the morning.
I'm well into my garbage collection route 45 minutes after waking up.
[Journaling] put me in contact with
A journaling filesystem will do that for you automagically. Just sayin'.
my very own spiritual guide.... ME!
my true desires became harder PORN!
She sounds like every woman that reads the NY Times.
Especially the move to Los Angeles . Thank God. Get her out of my town !
lol Henry: Jungian tweeting is way ballsier than Jungian journaling. Yesterday MBTI, today Jungian journaling. Can't wait to see what's next.
Structuring your unhappiness. It might work.
Looking outward, helping others, pleasing a customer. That works too.
First, you dump the S.O. He's holding you back!
Of course.
Too much navel gazing.
These women in the NYT are just tiresome.
Is everything in the NYT about unhappy well-to-do women?
I guess it plays well to their audience. The unhappy readers will sympathize and the happy ones will feel superior.
She should take up meditation. GO watch a Bob Wright BHTV DV.
It will save paper and ink.
I've tried journaling many times, but can't keep it up. Too little of my schedule is my own to do with what I will.
First thing in the morning would be a good time since I am up way before anyone else in the house, but I have to feed and walk the dog first. So the first 20-30 minutes are spoken for. That doesn't leave much of the 45 minute window.
The Times' appetite for first-person memoir from people who haven't learned much -- except about themselves -- is beyond parody.
Publishing a self-referential article explaining the importance of journal writing -- a practice that dates at least as far back as St. Augustine -- is evidence of one person's blindness to the larger world, which is filled with people who have more difficult lives and could benefit from the kind fellowship. It also is evidence of a mental health system devoted almost entirely to treating the suffering of the worried well instead of assisting the psychotics and PTSD people who live homeless on the street or in jails or prisons.
At least Augustine made a point of promoting the practice of humility.
Henry wins the internet today. That had me snorting my coffee.
She will return to New York after the porn industry in LA spits her out the bottom.
"[Journaling] put me in contact with my very own spiritual guide."
These people are impossible.
“I write this, just two years later, my life has completely changed: I split from my partner of 10 years; began a new, fulfilling relationship; enrolled in an M.F.A. program; rekindled my freelance writing career; and am planning a move to Los Angeles....”
I love these self-help great awakenings. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Does she, by any chance, mention the name of her life coach?
One of the most effective acts of self-care is also, happily, one of the cheapest
I can't stand the term "self-care." I work on a college campus and I see it all the time. The kids are so stressed, you see, from the rigors of modern college life; it's important for them to take some time out of every day to just focus on themselves. Retch.
Not surprised to see the term in the NYT. They know how highly their audience thinks of themselves; it's a demographic that would read of "self-care" and immediately think about how they need and deserve some too. Maybe take a break from posting self-righteous comments on New York Times articles, go to a spa, and underpay an Asian woman to give them a pedicure.
12:15 journal. I cut down large dead smooth sumac tree out front. It has been dead a couple of years (smooth sumac commits suicide at a certain age) and was surprisingly easy to saw through. I had to jack it up a little to open up space for the final cut. It didn't fall over because it's held up by other smooth sumac trees. I grabbed the bottom and pulled it lawnward very fast away from the house and it fell cleanly onto open space by the house. It was so light that I could drag it as a whole to the back fence without cutting it further. No water content after a long death.
The stump also commits suicide and can be wrenched from the roots easily and also dragged to the back fence, leaving no visible remainder.
I feel so much better.
I hauled the stump to the back fence with a rope and a timber hitch.
The point of specific knots is that they serve the purpose but can be esilty untied at the end.
A lawyer friend had a Berkeley professor who published prolifically using a very simple technique: Upon awakening, every morning without fail, he would roll over, grab a yellow legal pad and pen, and write in bed as rapidly as possible for at least an hour and often more, never pausing to edit. He knew that getting a shitty first draft of a book meant he was more than halfway there.
First drafts are by definition shitty.
They just have to be written before you can go on.
Writing, for me, is three mountains. The first is writing a book. The second is getting it published. The third is marketing the book.
I love diaries. I have the complete Sam Pepys from the U. of California on my shelf, fully annotated so I know who he's talking about.
There's also a fellow who wrote a diary for nearly all his life, whose name I've forgotten. He was a NYC police reporter and journalist, and his edited diary was a tedious as they come. He met so many famous people, yet he couldn't come up with an original observation or anything about them that he couldn't publish in the paper.
Glad to see this woman's journal helped her, so long as I don't have to read it.
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