Can you write yourself right?

Weeks 5 & 6

We all could do with some inward reflection

There was a moment in my midlife when I didn’t know how to continue. Two weeks before my 45th birthday I stared in the mirror and couldn’t recognise who was looking back and how she was going to stand up and live the life she was in: I’d just found out my husband was gay and my marriage was over, leaving me to single parent 3 small girls; my mum was in the final months of her life after 5 years of needing 24 care after a catastrophic stroke four days after my third baby was born; and in the mayhem of ten years of child and parent care, I’d somehow aged ten years without really being proactive in my own care.

Shitshow doesn’t cover it.

It took many sources of comfort and support to get me back on my feet, to get me to a point where I looked in the mirror with a vested interest in who was looking back, and I’m not going to pretend a few sweetly scented baths and a spa weekend fixed it. It took me reaching out to friends and family for help, therapy, rebuilding, learning, shedding, creating and most of all, connecting to myself again as a person, not just someone who reacted to everyone else’s needs. Journaling played a significant role.

I wrote my way back to life. Not because I’m a writer, but because processing your thoughts and emotions on a page is scientifically proven to help you get your shit together.*

*this isn’t the official scientific definition but along those lines.

As we continue our journalling adventure, I want to explore why time to think (and write) about you and how your life is progressing is so life-changing.

You might be familiar with the idea of Morning Pages, the idea of writing freeform first thing as you wake up. This brain dump idea was the brainchild of Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way. She encourages you to start the day with three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. It can be literally whatever crosses your mind, even if it’s “I don’t know what to write”. Backed up from my own experience of doing this a few times in my life, she claims the process will improve your life across the board, getting you more in touch with your emotions, figuring out what you actually want, and really sort through the external voice we have in our brain that comes from family and culture, and our internal voice. She writes, “Working with the morning pages, we begin to sort through the differences between our real feelings, which are often secret, and our official feelings, those on the record for public display.”

For many of us, that three pages a morning is an extreme form of journalling, and I can only do it in spurts given that my morning routine also includes feeding animals, kids and myself, dragging teenagers out of bed, a bit of yoga, putting my face on for the day, dog walk, and probably a load of washing. But I do try and journal something every morning, and I aim for the Morning pages when I’m on holiday and have more time. It always reveals something to me.

You don’t have to write three pages; you don’t even have to write one page. Most days I write a few words, but the power lies in the action of stopping to check in with yourself and be curious about how you are, and what you want from the day.

It can be a word, a mental meandering or a jumble of jotterings... there is no right or wrong.

If you want to join my Midlife Journal year, I'm going to guide you with daily prompts to help you connect to yourself in the page. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Or fluid. Or even make sense. It is the outputting that matters, not the words.

One way to make journaling work better for you is to build it into a consistent habit. I do morning and evening - sometimes it take minutes and other times my evening reflection (once I’m in bed) takes longer as I process something. And then there are the extras. These are the moments when something happens and I just need to work an emotion or experience out. Sometimes this is just a freefall of thoughts and sometimes I write a letter to myself from a wiser, kinder source of me.

In this year long adventure with yourself, this opportunity to spend a few minutes every day (or as many days a week as you can) thinking about yourself will transform your relationship with yourself.

This is a place and a space for you to think about you.  To matter more in your own midlife and to build self-knowledge and empower yourself to live life for you.

I’ve already explained how this year-long adventure with yourself will work in Power is in Your Hand. You can start this journalling guide at any time of the year because it’s not date related: The daily prompts from Weeks 1&2, and Weeks 3&4 are here.

A quick reminder we are in the first section - Self-Discovery for 8 weeks.

(The second section is Passion, Purpose & Priorities and the third is Action and Living with Intention. Then we repeat these directions with new prompts for the second 6 months).

We start with self-discovery because you can make all the plans and checklists in the world, but if you aren’t coming from a place of current self-knowledge - who, how and where you are at this age and stage of life - you could be making the wrong plans, or signing up to someone else’s (culture, society, Instagram, the school gates, the patriarchy, your partner, your parent)’s version of success. 

For just €5 per month, this guide (and lots of other content and discounts on coaching) is for my paid subscribers. For all my lovely subscribers there is my free Midlife Daily Journal Template in my previous post here which you can use as a guide each day - and this is what I use every day.

So let’s get into the prompts for Week 5 and 6 of your journaling journey.