Journals: The Sort-It Detail

We all talk to ourselves, even if we don’t do it out loud. A journal performs the most important follow-up function to inner dialogue, what I call the Sort-It Detail.

It’s much more difficult to sort what we’re learning and how patterns repeat themselves without annotation—like trying to do math in your head. Journals are spreadsheets. They allow you to “go figure.”

Since I am a writer, the habit of writing my thoughts and feelings is natural to me, but my journal has morphed over time to a custom fit. I invite you to try on some journaling styles until you find the one that’s perfect for you. Like a comfy pair of shoes, your journal needs to fit well but boast a style that’s yours alone and makes you feel like a million.

Since I live at my computer, I have developed a Word template for journaling. I print out the pages in color and prong them into a three-inch binder, the kind with a clear front pocket, so I can make a custom cover. At the end of each year, I reread and relive my 12-month journey and contemplate where I’m headed next. My journal has sections in the back for greeting cards and other keepsakes.

My template header, in a fancy font, says Joyce’s Journal. The subtitle is Learning, Growing, Spirits Uplifted, Stuff Sorted. Below that, I type the date. I insert an ever-changing graphic beside the header to fit the content of the day’s summary. For example, on a day I was angry, the clip art was an explosion. These “icons” show me, at a glance, the quality of my days and how my moods are shifting.

The most important part of my journal is a box on the left that runs the longer side of the page, Things I’m Grateful for Today. Each day, I find at least 10 things. It’s not difficult for me. I have a lot of practice.

I believe that the universe gives back to us as much as we appreciate the gifts we are given. When we send out gratitude, more abundance flows our way. But that’s not why I journal thankfulness. It’s just polite to say thank-you for generosity. It’s who I am, how I was raised. Maybe your custom column is Blessings I Count. Observations I’ve Made. Positive Experiences.

Speaking of the universe and sky, once it turns dark, we dream. I have a different template for my dream journal, and I mix the pages in my binder—waking and dream accounts. I simply sort them by date in chronological order, the most recent on top. For example, on June 3, there was a journal entry. On June 13, I wrote down a dream. This isn’t strange to me, as I revere the information from the subconscious as much as consciousness. I’ve learned to “play the symbols” in various careers, especially as an astrologer and dreamworker.

Perhaps the most important thing I do in either my dream or journal entries? I give them titles. Whatever we choose to name our entry is an intuitive key phrase for the experience, day or night. You can do a quick review of your journal at any time, just by paging through and reading the titles. You’ll be surprised at the sensation of your whole year flashing in front of you!

Best of all, my journaling technique led me to realize I could use similar techniques for telling my life’s story. What a fabulous discovery while writing my memoir with the same name as this blog, Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights.

May all your insights be cool!

~~~

Honorable Mention - This article won Honorable Mention in the 2008 annual essay contest on Be the Star You Are! The mission of this wonderful not-for-profit corporation, is to provide, promote and distribute its library of books and other media to empower women, families, and youth-at-risk to improve their daily lives. I love their slogan, "To Be A Leader You Must Be A Reader!"

Thank you, Cynthia Brian and the judges, for allowing my star to shine in your galaxy!

Photo credit: GIRL LOOKS THROUGH WEEKLY JOURNAL, © Zigf Dreamstime.com

Watts New? A Contest!

Sometimes Cool Insights are more literal than those figurative light bulbs of meaning that pop into our heads more often, the longer we live. After reading my last post on eco-shopping and the Sierra Club Sock-athon, the PR staff at Home Depot asked if I’d share this cool contest with you. I am happy to oblige:

The Home Depot wants to know how people are saving energy in their home in its video contest: “Save Money. Save Energy. Win Big.” Just shoot a short video to show how you're saving money and helping the environment by making your home more energy efficient.

Anyone can log on to www.homedepot.com/youtube to enter their video between now and Nov. 9, 2008. The contest winner will receive a $5,000 Home Depot gift card and up to $2,000 for installed insulation or radiant barrier products from The Home Depot.

Good luck! May the best bulb win—the idea that turns into the best energy savings.

The P-Word and the F-Word (Patience and Faith)

Most people have a basic knowledge of astrological signs, even if they know little else about astrology. You probably know that the sign of Aries (March 21-April 19) is symbolized by a Ram. Rams push head first into any endeavor. They are the trailblazers of the zodiac. Ruled by Mars, the sign of do it now, they are usually long on action and short on patience.

God Is Not an Aries
I wrote a humorous article once called “God Is Not an Aries.” Why not? You may have noticed, the Divine One takes her sweet time about making things happen. Prayers usually take minutes, if not seconds, especially when invoking or acknowledging the presence of Spirit in a rough moment. While prayers take seconds, answers often seem to take forever.

There’s a little Aries in everyone, and today I want to talk about one of the most quoted litanies of the nuns in my Catholic grammar school: “Patience is a virtue; possess it if you can.”

My friend Jessica has five planets in Aries. This funomenon is known as a stellium when you have at least three planets bunched up in the same sign. She has that and a couple to spare. One day Jessi was ranting about someone or something that wasn’t getting done fast enough for her. I told her she needed to learn the P-Word. She had no idea what word I meant. Jessica was the inspiration for the “God Is Not an Aries” article.

The Best Things in Life Take Time
If God/Goddess/All That Is takes His/Her/Its sweet time, there must be some higher reason why things we want take so long. It reminds me of that sign you see in restaurants. “Food made to order takes time to prepare.” Once an old friend of mine complained, “People want Cup-a-Soup relationships.” You know, add a little water, stir, and voila!—happily ever after.

Nice dream if you don’t mind a wet noodle. A generic or so-so fix can materialize in a hurry. The speed part of this equation is the answer to any prayer. However, if you want a quality solution--if you want your life to run like a top-- quit blowing your top and tapping your fingers. Have a little patience—and faith.

The Manifestation Twins, Patience and Faith
Faith is the flip side of patience. Faith supports patience like a life preserver when we’re dumped on the choppy sea of uncertainty with no land in sight. It keeps us afloat, especially when we ache to know if we will ever be fulfilled in some important area of our lives. Will it ever happen? When we’re impatient, our faith is getting frayed. We get more patience by bolstering our faith. Each of us reconstitutes our faith in our own way, but I find words of inspiration really amp up mine. Let me share an example.

Nothing has tested my patience more than trying to get my book published. Writing a book is hard work and takes a lot out of you, especially a book as self-reflective and self-revealing as a memoir. Mine took years to experience, much less write. Now it is taking what feels like forever to find its way to the market. To top it off, the publishing industry is changing rapidly. It’s more difficult than ever, in some ways, for a first-time author to break in. I am trying to get my toe into the door of a moving target. It’s one of those revolving doors in big buildings; the passageway flies by before I can jump in.

I have many days where my inner dialogue is dismal and sometimes my outer complaining. (My poor husband.) You might recognize these phrases from your own times of frustration:

· I must be crazy to want this.

· Maybe this is a sign I’m not supposed to do it. Maybe I’ve misread the other signals (awards, publications, positive reader feedback).

· Maybe I’m actually no good at this.

· This is impossible.

· It’s too much work.

· I must be crazy!

Note these circular thought loops always start and restart with “crazy.” Sanity checks are always a good policy, but considering the number of books out there—more than ever—if writing is an insane undertaking, there are a lot of nuts running around loose. (Sometimes I think writing as an undertaking is more likely to get me to the undertaker prematurely.)

Now for some better dialogue, one of my favorites by Oscar Wilde: “Skepticism is the beginning of Faith.” If I’m at Doubt Station, I must be on track! Other wisdom from great minds:

· Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to. – George Seaton

· Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. –Martin Luther King

· Faith is an invisible and invincible magnet, and attracts to itself whatever it fervently desires and calmly and persistently expects. –Ralph Waldo Trine


The Extra Added Ingredient (the C-Word)
So, if we’re to believe Ralph Waldo Trine, the Manifestation Twins are actually Triplets—add the C-word Calm to Patience and Faith. (Persistence is implied in patience, already covered.)

This brings me back to the beginning—astrology. When we are overdoing a certain characteristic of one sign, in this case the impatience of Aries, the prescription for balance is to become more like the opposite sign. The opposite of Aries is Libra. It is literally the sign of balance. Librans are known for being laid-back and easygoing. The message of Libra is the same as what any cool young kid would tell us to do—chill. It’s what the great metaphysical minds tell us to do, to quiet our chatterbox minds, whether with meditation or other right-brained activities. Naturally, my Synchronicity Meter was on target when I found the Trine quote, too. A trine in astrology is an agreeable, easy-flow of energy between two planets 120-degrees apart, a sign of ease or calm.

Join me in a mantra of patience, faith, and calm—for the publication of my book and the realization of your dreams, too. Let me know how keeping your wits—calm—and accepting the doubt in your mind as normal part of the process helps pump your patience and faith, too.

Edgar Allan Poet

“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
--Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

The title of this post followed me home like a lost puppy. I knew it was a message from my GPS—God Positioning System—telling me I was supposed to go somewhere with this idea fragment.

As the poster girl for Follow Your Inner Guidance, I trusted and allowed myself to get sucked into the adventure. Here is what I’ve pieced together, so far.

Tracking the Mystery
Edgar Allan Poe was indeed a poet, among other things. I never knew he was credited with creating the detective-fiction writing genre, one I dabble in. (I like to say I write M-in-M’s for memoir, inspiration, and mystery.)

Mostly, he wrote a lot of dark, macabre stuff—also a lot about mourning. Not only have I experienced a lot of losses in the last year; I also realized this week how much I miss writing poetry. It was great to reconnect with some poets at a recent writers’ conference and to get reacquainted with my own poems. I wrote many of them in the ‘70s, when a number of them were published in various literary journals. I was into the local poetry scene, enjoyed reading my work at coffee houses, and taught in the Poetry in the Schools program.

I even met my first husband at a poetry reading. He was an angry heckler. When I moved into his building a few months later—a big surprise to us both—he was so nice to me, I didn’t even recognize him as the awful guy from that night. When he copped to it, I thought he had to be kidding. Love is blind.

Back to my visit from the muse bearing the nagging words in my head, “Edgar Allan Poet.” I suspect her point was stop mourning and start celebrating poetry again. How did I get to “nevermore” when it came to poems? I used to be ravenous about the genre. Heaven knows, I can always be reached by wordplay if all else fails or I have accidentally turned off my GPS.

Maybe I’ll start on the road back to poetry by sharing one of my poems from my archives with you. I found a more recent one (only 10 years old instead of 30). It even has a boomer theme. Here goes:

Poem by Joyce Mason

To My Childhood Friend at 50…

Where did the time go …
the bus stop …
old neighborhood …
avoiding Fran in the cafeteria …
dances at the ‘Y’, raging hormones, neuroses… acne?

Adolescence merged maturity,
not so much an off-ramp as an artery,
just another turn in the road,
a road not taken by most of us at heart
(we’re called baby boomers):
Mid-youth
gray hair
menopause.

Did you get your card from AARP?
Did you think you’d see the day?
Yet there is a freedom here:
a time to re-evaluate
to quit worrying over meaningless things
to know that we won’t be
in this bottleneck forever …

… and that, too, is a godsend.

Now, for the dreams not realized:
we still have time to catch up
without killing ourselves.

Before we go:
a book for me,
the starring performance for you …


… but above all, knowing
that if life is measured
by the friends we choose
and love we gain
we’re on the expressway
together
in the car pool lane.


Quote the Maven, Evermore
It’s clear; I still love poetry. Lots of people don’t, but poetry is all around us—songs, jingles, prayers, an especially good comeback. Some precocious pearl that pops from the lips of a child. Poetry all.

I’d love to hear your comments on poetry and things poetic—even if it’s only poetic justice. It doesn’t need rhyme or reason.

Think about this, too. Have you have said “nevermore” to certain passions of the past? Is it time to reconsider?

Memoir “Evolution”

A memoir is how one remembers one's own life,
while an autobiography is history, requiring research,
dates, facts double-checked. It is more about what can be gleaned

from a section of one's life than about the outcome of the life as a whole.

--Gore Vidal


When I first started writing Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights circa 1996: I didn’t even realize it was a memoir. I wasn’t familiar with the genre. I’m not sure I had ever read one. Autobiography, yes. Memoir, no.

Good thing my busy life forced me to back burner the book for many years till I had the time to figure out what I was doing. A few years ago, I ratcheted up my learning curve. My book wrote itself, once I understood the purpose and perspective of its “type.” I quickly found out--memoir is just my type!

I’m here to tell you, it just might be your type, too. As a genre, memoir has been extremely popular over the past ten years. You used to have to be famous to sell one. Now you just have to have led an interesting life. It helps, too, if you’re funny. Some of today’s best selling memoir writers and their stories are hilarious—David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, and John Grogan, to name a few.

Memoirs aren’t necessarily just fun and games. They often reach into the deepest pockets of who we are, pulling out illuminating our personal mysteries and our unique learning about life and living. Two of my favorite memoirists in this camp are Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott. This isn’t to say that their books aren’t also sometimes sprinkled with funny.

I pitch my tent in both camps, deep and funny, in Hot Flashbacks. But here’s the part that may be just a smidge radical. I also make a pitch in my book for you to pitch your tent, too, for a genuine memoir campout.

Huh?

Hot Flashbacks is a memoir sandwich. There’s the usual meaty memoir in the middle, but it has a couple of extra components you can think of as bread, because they are food for thought. In the Foreword, Coming Attractions, I suggest why it is important for as many baby boomers as possible to write or otherwise record their memoirs. In the Resources, I give readers a jumpstart with information on how they can do that.

To explain:

The real boom in the baby boom is a big blast of insight that periodically explodes over the heads of individuals from one the transitional generations of all time. Imagine what we could do if we combined those ahas!

It isn’t new for “elders” to record their life stories for posterity. What differs now is the sheer volume and timing for the trend to take off. Boomers represent 28 percent of the US population. The Me Generation has always loved to talk about itself. Why not ride the wave of the current memoir craze, which has been cresting for years with no end in sight.

So many people reaching the wisdom years at once is more than a brain trust. It’s nearly an embarrassment of riches. Boomers have the ability to share what they’ve learned about making life meaningful—not just with other people supposedly entering the golden years—but with people of all ages. Hot Flashbacks isn’t just a memoir. I hope it’s the start of a movement.

An “evolution.”

In the ‘60s, many boomers were into revolution—the counterculture— breaking down old structures to give birth to something perceived as better. Positive change would never happen without the occasional shake-up and reexamination of where we’re stuck as a society. How we create change is as important as change itself.

Evolution is a quieter, organic, step-by-step form of doing the same thing. My boomer memoir “evolution” takes the courage to share yourself, warts and all. To show what you have learned through your personal evolutionary process for the benefit of all.

Our world definitely needs your knowledge and experience for cultural enrichment. I want to reclaim the practice of indigenous people over the world, whose elders share their wisdom with their tribe. I call this indi-genius.

Maybe we don’t want to be called elder or anything that smacks of the old Old. But how could we object to sharing our smarts—our insights? To make a better world?

That’s why I have changed it to an acronym and now call us the ME (More Experienced) Generation.

Read a memoir, eventually mine when it’s in print. And while you’re at it, start making notes for yours.

Join the Evolution!

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Photo: Joyce Before 60+ Years of Personal Evolution. Taken at Living Treasures Animal Park in Donegal, PA—July 2008.