After years of suggesting (imploring) that everybody in the Wellness Community writing workshop keep a journal, I finally gave an exercise this morning on the subject: If you keep a journal (diary, notebook), what do you get out of it?  Or if you don’t keep one, why not?  Here are excerpts of some of the 5 minute written responses:

“Not clear what I’d get out of it.”

“I’m lazy, lack discipline, blah blah blah.”

“Not to keep one is not the least of my character flaws.”

“Lack of privacy.”

“I’m afraid someone would read it.”

“My sister kept one but when I found it after she died, I threw it out so she could keep her privacy.”

(The privacy issue was huge.)

Those who did keep one did so because:

”It pours me into my visions – “

“To be alive  – “

“To share myself with myself.”

“It brings to the surface my thoughts.”

“I’m in therapy – “

And this luminous response from Laura:

“If I didn’t keep one I’d be like that seagull trapped in a room alone – I’d pull out a wing and write with my own blood on the walls.”

I also used an Anna Quindlen column , “Write For Your Life” (Newsweek January 22, 2007),  to spark ideas for another writing exercise.  Quindlen writes about “a concept that has been lost in modern life: writing can make pain tolerable, confusion clearer and the self stronger.”  And then goes on to write about the demise of letter writing: “The details of housekeeping and child rearing, the rigors of war and work, advice to friends and family: none was slated for publication.  They were communications that gave shape to life by describing it for others.”

Gave shape to life. Writing can show us the shape of our own life, and enable others to understand it. In the workshop this morning people wrote about work, love, mortality, connections, etc. shaping their lives.

5 Minute exercise: What gives shape to your life?