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

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