Sometimes we don't have a choice except to keep moving forward. I know because I had a big ol' season of life like that several years ago.
My brain had experienced trauma from many years spent living in houses with black mold, which I didn't know until it was accidentally uncovered and mold spores were dispersed all around the house... at which point, my nagging chronic health conditions dramatically worsened, and I temporarily lost the ability to read, to drive, or to digest anything other than simple carbs. My family had to relocate, rapidly. And in the months and years that followed, my family faced related legal troubles, financial troubles, and all kinds of other difficulties getting our life back on track.
Whew! I am so happy to say, we are on the other side of much of THAT ordeal. But a jewel presented itself to me that I now cherish. It was a practice that had been with me all along, but in this time, it became a life raft. More than that, it was a form of medicine, of therapy, that became a central tool in putting our life back together.
I discovered in that time how brilliant an even scrambled brain can be! I had always been an artist. I had even junk journaled plenty at that point. I had taught kids camps and art classes in the practice and I saw how much people enjoyed it. I did, too. But I didn't really understand just how powerful a tool I had in my selfcare toolbox until I really needed it.
In the weeks and months following our rapid relocation, Junk Journaling became my go-to strategy to rapidly clear and calm my brain, and to begin to slowly reorient to the here and now... I wasn't ignoring the challenges in my life. This wasn't just distraction--although, in all honesty, sometimes it could even offer that. No, the process of Junk Journal became nothing less than my go to practice to completely rebuild our life, working with whatever was present, and inching my way forward by following what I came to call the inner Ah, yes.
I eventually came to understand that my inner Ah, yes, was deeply trustworthy... and if I followed it, it would lead me through the morass of struggle to something new and just right. That little pulse of delight, that visceral quickening of the Ah, yes, it was my Inner Artist leading me home.
My Junk Journal became my place where every bit of me belonged, scrambled or not. Messy or not, embarrassing or not, painful or not. I dumped everything in there: my thoughts and feelings, my medical reports and legal documents, my grocery lists, my hopes and visions of what might someday be possible....all layered in with art supplies in the textures and colors and shapes that just felt RIGHT to see (for me).
I filled page after page, dollar store composition book after composition book. And over the next few years, my Inner Artist used this process to remake the mess of my life into something brand new, something remarkably, authentically me. I realized that was happening on the page was not just a hobby. What I did on the page, I was gradually beginning to do in my days, and in my community: rebuilding toward a more authentic life.
My brain still isn't totally back to the Ivy League straight-A standard I was used to. Maybe it never will be. But you know what? I no longer care about that old way. This brain, this miraculous body, it's the house of an Inner Artist who knows how to move from what is into the most delicious version of what might be. I don't believe this makes me special. I believe we all have that inner creative compass, chomping at the bit to lead us home.
Doesn't this sound like a practice made for this time? If you care to join me, jump on in! Doors are open for Junk Journaling for Resilience: a new online class and healing space to help us--together--see where our Inner Artists want to lead next.
Details and registration are here.
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