3. Writing to know myself
April 4, 2025 Writing as an inner self practice
I have been posting my thoughts about where I am going in this set of essays. I felt a need to explain myself I suppose, to bring you along with me. But I’m going to step aside from that for this week, and talk this week about where I am.
I have journaled my entire life – I have journals from high school and all through my adulthood. Sometimes they are diaries reporting what happened, or note about what my observations were about things that happened. I have written about struggles, joys, hopes, challenges. Writing gave my emotions a place to go, which felt good. In reading over these journals, I find past versions of myself that I can recall with fondness, sometimes with surprise.
But even if you have never journaled before, you can start. In the past two years, I have tried stream-of-consciousness journaling, where I don’t think about what I’m going to write first - I just start writing. It’s amazing what comes out on the page sometimes! But it takes practice, And more than a few moments of quiet to tune in to my voice. My ideal morning plan is to make tea right after I wake up, meditate and then journal. I aim to write before I look at my phone, before I read the paper, hopefully before I have any substantive conversations. I’m trying to capture my own thoughts before they are shaped by the thoughts of others.
This is a creativity practice that is new to me, and I will talk more about it in later essays. I do expect this type of journaling will be part of the elder-in-training curriculum. Getting to know your inner self, your true self, your self without the world – coming back to that self in your older years. For now, I want to share a few parts of journal entries from the past two years, to give a sense of the type of journaling that I am undertaking these days.
These are from Fall 2023
I am the best judge of what is good for me. Once I peel off the layers of expectations and demands from my family, society, institutions, I can start to discern what I need. This setting aside of other people’s stories is a constant activity. Sometimes we get lost, caught up in things-we-are-not. But we can always come back to things that we are. It is work, in this world, to find our own voice and cling to it, to resist the slide into averageness that is presented as the way we are supposed to be.
We are each of us magnificent, unique. Like a puzzle piece fitting into the perfect place. We spend so much time making ourselves a certain shape, but perhaps instead we should be looking for the me-sized space to fill.
It comes down to this – we are each of us, responsible for our own happiness. That is the secret. Perhaps I have known this and that is why women who portray themselves as martyrs, as giving up themselves for the good of their husband, their children or their work – are such a trigger for me. But who am I to judge what makes them happy? I will only look to myself.
There is no clear path. No magic bullet. Every person has to do the work on their own. Inner listening more than inner speaking. Tune your fork to that sound which resonates in your heart, your head, your spirit, your inner light. And walk toward it.
Think of life like a video game. You will encounter challenges, and you will encounter negative emotions. They are part of the game. You need not be surprised by them or wish they weren’t there.
To me, these sound like someone else’s voice, not my own. I think this voice is coming from a part of me that I am just getting to know well. Maybe I was closer to that version of myself as a child, and I lost the connection somewhere. I feels familiar and new. Certainly part of my elder journey.
