Life Journal Workshop – Your Journal as a Tool for Healing

I want to talk about using our journal as a tool for healing this week. After the events last Friday in Newtown, CT, I know I am still grieving for the families who lost their loved ones right before the holidays. Writing is a great way to process our feelings by pouring them onto the page and releasing them rather than shoving them down to come back and haunt us at another time. Below is part of a post I wrote for my own site that was my pouring out of feelings about the events. I don’t have any fancy writing prompts to share, just my own emotions. The holidays can be incredibly stressful. The addition of an impactful world   event and the threat of the world’s apocalyptic demise only add to our already full and overflowing hearts. Please be gentle with yourself and your loved one’s this week. Enjoy your time together as a family and try to carve out a few minutes of quiet and solace for yourself. If you want to share your impressions of how the deaths in Newtown, CT affected you, please share them on our Facebook page.

Recent Events Made Parenting a Challenge

I went to pick my son up from school last Thursday and was talking with a mom in the parking lot. It turns out the school was under lock down for a brief time that morning: an irate parent was on the phone threatening to kill his two children who were attending the school. The school handled it well and handled their communication with us in a timely and informative matter. Fortunately, nothing serious happened but it made me stop and think about school security at my son's middle school, which seems to be non-existent. Little did I know that this small threat was nothing compared to what would happen on Friday in Newtown, CT. My husband and I had taken the morning off to run some errands, do some holiday shopping and go out to lunch: a rare treat for two busy professionals. At one point, Brad went off to meet his trainer and I roamed around downtown Santa Barbara window shopping. I chatted with my friend Kathy Garland in Texas about her new grandson and enjoyed the Christmas decorations while I waited for my husband to join me for lunch. The glow and delight in   her voice reached through the phone and warmed me. Children are such a gift: to me personally but also to the world at large. Their joy, curiosity and wholeheartedness never fail to remind me to be grateful and to see the world with fresh eyes. As soon as my husband saw me, he told me what had happened and the tears instantly welled up in my eyes. I think I was already raw from the emotional and very real threat the day before. Even today, each time I hear a new story about what happened or about the brave adults who lost their lives protecting the children, I cry. I met my friend Alice for coffee this morning and we shared tears with our coffee for the families affected. You can read the rest of the post here. And if you need some fun creative time over the holidays, here’s a great video tutorial from my friend Violette on how to draw faces. I followed her model in the image above that is the cover of my art journal.