Monday, February 24, 2020

Journal for Authenticity: (8) The Wall

Image result for the wall

            Fingers poised over the page or screen or phone—nada, nothing, zilch, never again—give up. Sometimes, when writing a journal, there comes The Wall.

            Runners “hit the wall,” also known as bonking—when they feel as though they just can’t take another step.  But then magic happens, if they can stay with it—a surge of adrenaline—endorphins kick in—and the runner finishes the race on a high.

            So, too, with any writing.  So, too, with the modest act of meeting your daily journaling goal.  Over and over, sometimes at the beginning of writing, most often on the last of my three-page allotment for the day, I hit a wall.  The end of the entry is in sight.  And I don’t have any words left—I’ve ranted, I’ve planned, I’ve expressed gratitudes, I’ve told myself a difficult truth.  I’m done. 

            But just at that point, my Wall, I know to stay with it.  Keeping my commitment to my journal always helps me to come back home to myself. Especially in the last few lines of an entry—when I think I have nothing more to say—a new insight, idea, image, plan emerges—the final fruits of the entry—a surprise, a bonus.  Filling up my quota for the day brings gifts that quitting would have denied me.

            In the post on Spiraling In Spiraling In, I call The Wall The Portal.  The well of all our hopes and memories and sensory impressions are the 99% of our minds that is The Unconscious.  But if all we’ve known and all the sensory impressions in our environment were to flood our conscious minds, we would—literally—lose our minds.  We would be inundated—we would be blinded.  I suspect that this is what happens at the point of death—the tunnel of light that is our unconscious minds. The Wall is where the filters are between the conscious and unconscious minds.  When our conscious minds are spent, we are presented with The Wall that protects us from being overwhelmed.

            But patience and presence will loosen a brick here, a brick there—and sun will pour through. 

            An image:  

Image result for elephant and wall

            And a story:  When an elephant is guided through a farmers’ marketplace, she is likely to reach for a cantaloupe, a stalk of bananas, a bunch of carrots in the stalls to slam dunk into her mouth.  Elephant trainers in India or Africa know to put a stick into the elephant’s mouth to keep her focused and walking on through.

            Similarly, our minds will reach here and there for any distraction—any mind candy—and get stalled.  To walk—to write through—to follow the linear path of writing one word after another—we need to keep focused.  There are many strategies that meditators use to keep the balance between the conscious and the unconscious mind.  These some ways I keep my commitment to my journal pages when I hit The Wall:

            SENSES: I return, literally, to my senses.  I record the sounds that I hear right where I am—the rumble of the refrigerator ice maker, the egg cracking into a pan, the instant sizzle as it hits the heat.  The sights—the way the winter trees vein the blue sky, the hourglass shadows cast by a lamp onto (hm) a wall, the spidery reach of the Twelve Apostles plant on top of a dresser.  The bodily sensations—the ache behind my ears from having a good laugh, the warmth of my tongue on my palate, the itch on my mosquito bite.

            REPETITION:  I simply repeat the same word over and over again.  This functions like a chant—calming the chatter of the conscious mind so that there’s space for insight.

            NOTHING:  Since the mind hates to be still, sometimes I just sit there, and wait it out. Inevitably, some of my best ideas pop out, fully formed, when I do nothing.

            Patience, presence, commitment, trust—writing from the NOW—are what lead to major Breakthroughs for me.  Sometimes the last half page fizzles out—no worries.  But many, many poems, blog posts, stories, songs, musicals, books have had their birth in that last half page of my daily journaling.



© Susanna Rich, 2020


            
Works Cited:

Cover Art Brick Wall

Elephant Art: Elephant Art

Because I Can Teach:

Journal for Authenticity Series:












1 comment:

  1. Ahh, The Wall! Don’t you just hate walls and what they represent? The fact that something good, inspirational, important, etc. want to come into your mind and create a masterpiece, but it can’t because a stupid structure is preventing those creative fairies to make their magic and produce something extraordinary.

    Honestly, it’s a love/hate relationship. I love ‘The Wall’ because when I’m stuck, it forces me to take time for myself to gather my thoughts and ideas again and properly plan without word vomiting all over the page and trailing off into the unknown. On the other hand, I hate ‘The Wall’ because I will usually be on a roll and I can’t stop writing away and I feel the inspirations pouring out of me, but then my brain comes to a sudden stop and that momentum is gone.

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