Write Now with Jean Rowe: Generosity

Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

Generosity

We are fully entering the holiday season in an entirely new way. Many of us will not gather with those we love as we normally do. The reframe is this: how can we gather with those we love under the circumstances? Who can we call to our virtual or heart-centered table? How can we invite the energy of those who matter to us into our hearts even if we’re not going to be with them? How can we send this expansive-like spirit into the world so that others can benefit from this generous thinking?

I’m not suggesting that this will make everything okay. Of course, it won’t. It’s a weird time, and, while the holidays bring up all manner of feelings, this year is an extra helping of managing our own.

I recently listened to a journal workshop participant share about how she and friends all cooked the same meal (on their own) and then gathered virtually to dine together and talk about how it went, what they enjoyed, the process. This is a supper club with a twist, and it accomplished a variety of things: creativity, flexibility, finding a new way to be with one another, and a delicious meal.

What comes up for you in thinking about choosing differently to be with the holidays this year? Write about that for 5-7 minutes and see what surfaces. Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.

“For it is in giving that we receive.”
― St. Francis of Assisi

Write Now With Jean Rowe: Journal Writing Is Good For You!

journal on table with flowers

Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

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Journal writing is good for you!  I am not just providing lip service for something in which I truly believe. The benefits of expressive/journal writing have been studied for over 30 years. Journaling as a coping technique for cancer patients is among them.  If you have taken part in any of Lacuna Loft’s programs, you already know the changes for good, aha moments, and important internal shifts that can and do take place.

Research performed by James Pennebaker concluded that “physical health and work performance can improve by simple writing and/or talking exercises.” Simple. Writing. Exercises. 

Kay Adams, the Founder and Director for the Center for Journal Therapy, calls the journal the “79￠ therapist.”  If you knew that the anxiety, the worry, the insomnia, the punishing voice in your head, the [you fill in the blank] would lessen, subside or even stop by spending 5-7 minutes writing in a journal on a regular basis, would you?  As Glinda told Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “you’ve always had the power.”  

You might ask, how can journaling help you?  Have you felt triggered by the smells of the infusion room?  Experienced scanxiety?  Wondered who you are with/after cancer?  The journal is your ally towards working through those experiences.  You can write anything you want.  No one is going to judge you.  It’s a personal, private space.

Here is a prompt to try.  Write for 5 minutes.  Then, read back over what you wrote and give yourself an impression of what you feel or think about what you wrote (i.e. I notice…)

Describe a place in your home where you feel safe.  What makes it comfortable?  How do you relax there?  Is there a certain time of day you spend there?  What is the view outside the window?  Is anyone there with you?  Where are you in the room?

Tell me how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.

-Jean

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

-William Wordsworth

Write Now with Jean Rowe: Matters of the Heart

snow heart held by red gloved hands

Lacuna Loft is proud to present Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

February brings valentines, and this month, I encourage us to think of ways we can and do love ourselves. Love is action. Love is a verb. Love is a choice. Maybe this feels awkward. Try anyway. You’re worth it.

Here is some wisdom of those who love/loved themselves:

James Brown – Super Bad
I jump back. I wanna kiss myself.

Lady Gaga – Born This Way
I’m right on the track, baby.

Tom Petty – Won’t Back Down
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down.

Whitney Houston – Greatest Love of All
Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

Lou Rawls – One Life to Live
Why don’t you give it your best shot.

Madonna – Vogue
All you need is your own imagination.

What would happen if you use your own imagination, gave it your best shot, loved yourself, kept the world from draggin’ you down, got right on the track, and, yes, jumped back and kissed yourself?

Try this: pick one of those ideas or several. Act as if they are already in place. Write a day in your life with them already in place. Write for five minutes. Have a sense of wonder and open-heartedness at what is revealed.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!

We set the bar for how we want others to treat us.
-Lisa Marie

Your Definition of Love Determines How You Experience It