Write Now With Jean Rowe

candles

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!

As we all continue to navigate the swiftly moving landscape of life, I notice a recurring theme surfacing throughout these times. It is the opportunity to celebrate what is. There is much out of our control, and, yet, when we make a list of what we are doing, it can be fulfilling and empowering.

Take some time to make that list especially when things start to feel overwhelming. We can be so hard on ourselves to “do it all,” and a rather harsh internal voice can emerge when we perceive we have failed. When we make a list of what we are doing, it can be relieving, rewarding, and enlightening. Do know that naps absolutely make the list because they are a form of self-care! Consider setting a time on your calendar each week to make a list of what you are doing and see what happens. How does it feel? What do you notice?

Think about writing for 5 minutes on celebrating what is. Even as life surely looks different these days, there are avenues to find our way. Here’s an example: you can still decorate for Halloween even if trick or treaters will be safely keeping their distance. What might you do? Carve pumpkins? Hang orange string lights? Watch a scary movie virtually with friends? The possibilities are there. It’s up to you to grab on to them!

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

“Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows’ Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked.”
-Ray Bradbury
The Halloween Tree

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!

—-

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

30 Minute Tune Up: A Journal Drop In

writing on desk

We have a brand new program forming!  Join us each week for a 30 Minute Tune Up: A Journal Drop In program!

Jean Rowe, LCSW, OSW-C, Certified Journal Therapist returns to Lacuna Loft for a new program.  This journal drop-in is designed to help you tune in and reset during a chaotic time.

In the chaos of our everyday lives, with COVID anxiety and racial tensions at an all-time high across the country, we want to extend the opportunity to spend 30 minutes each week in a drop-in journaling workshop. Come, journal with a group of young adults facing cancer (young adult cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers all welcome), and get tuned up for another week.  You are welcome to drop in once or come as often as you like.  These journaling techniques will be short, concrete, and time-contained.  Sign up below!

Where: Online video chat. We’ll send you more information about joining after you register. Please have a microphone headset and a webcam.

Who: Young adult cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers.

When: Thursdays, July 16 – Oct 1.  9:30-10 am PT / 11:30 am-noon CT / 12:30-1 pm ET.  Please be on time 🙂

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