Interview with Alison Moir-Smith
TG:
What precisely is journaling, as opposed to keeping a daily record of events?
AS: I've written this quote down for you, and this is the essence of what I do. It's from Maureen Murdock's Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory. And the difference between journaling and keeping a diary or record of events is being curious about what's happening in your life. It's not recording "I went to the store. I met this person for lunch. Then I had a fight with my boss." It's saying "I had a fight with my boss, but what was going on in that fight? What kind of feelings did it evoke in me? What were the boss's motivations?" Going deeper in your personal life, slowing down the events of your life, so that you can reflect on them and get to know yourself in a deeper way.
People most often use journaling for emotional relief. They're sad, they're
confused, they're angry. They need to figure things out, so you go into a
journal and you have no boundaries, no limits. No one will ever see it, if
you keep it safely hidden away, and that's an important part, is keeping it
safe, so you can feel private, so you can have wild ideas, crazy thoughts.
You can rant, you can rave, and no one will see this part of you. But you
will know these parts of yourself.
But the essence of what we do here is in this quote from Maureen Murdock's
Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory, and she says, and this quote is about
the process of writing something down, having the act of writing as healing
rather than what you write as healing, so -
"When a writer has the courage to host a painful memory, she has the
opportunity to make sense of the suffering and confusion it entails. Suffering
clarifies identity and connects us with our deepest selves. The expression
of suffering, in any form, is often accompanied by shame. But all feelings
need expression, and the insights gained from describing a particular passage
in life gives us the opportunity to grow as human beings. It is the act of
writing rather than the writing itself that provides an opportunity to heal.
The compassion, regard, and deep respect we grow for ourselves and each other
is what creates the shift."
So journaling is the act of writing, the act of getting in touch with your
inner life through writing. It is the physical act of writing and the insight
that comes from it.
TG: What are the components of journaling? For example, are
there specific exercises? Specific methods?
AS: Yeah, I recommend to you Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. This book about the process of writing is great, because she talks-what you'll see when you come on Wednesday-we start every journaling session with what she calls "wild mind" writing, which means-one of the components of journaling is just to keep the pen moving, is to set a kitchen timer for 20 minutes and say, I will keep writing and keep my pen moving for 20 minutes. Now, if you get in the middle of that, what happens is you clear out the cobwebs of your mind-You clear out "Oh, I need to go to the grocery store, I need to pick up dry-cleaning, and I need to call this person." [You zoom in on] "Oh, I had this interesting thought today, and I'm really curious about this, let write speedily, you keep the pen moving even if you get to a point where you think, "This is the dumbest thing I've ever done." You write down, "This is the dumbest thing I've ever done." But then you'll notice, because you're getting in touch with yourself, that an interesting thought will come to mind, a childhood memory will come to mind, a feeling, a fantasy about the future, a dream that you had the night before. What you're doing is, you're getting the flow going, you're getting the juices going. The first component, I think, of journaling is training the wild mind, where you don't judge what you're saying, you don't worry about spelling, you don't worry about punctuation, you don't really read back what you say. You're getting the juices flowing.
TG: That's very hard to do.
AS: What you're trying to do in "wild mind" is let the internal editor take a vacation.
TG: That's very hard for me to do.
AS: Me, too. I'm a writer. I write a sentence and edit, edit, edit, edit to death. So it's really different from writing for publication or being seen by others. This is a really intensely private experience. On my website, I call it "private mirror." You can see yourself in it. This is really getting to know yourself and who you are today.
Oh, I got another idea. So that's one component, is "wild mind."
The second component is you explore an event that's happening that caused
you to pick up your journal, if it was an argument, or even a happy moment-we
can write about happy things-so you fill out, what I call "you fill out"
that experience, you write it down, you reflect on it, you describe it fully,
you describe how you were feeling.
And then, the third step (the first step is "wild mind"; the second
step is filling out the experience that brought you to writing today) the
third step is to look at it psychologically and think, well, why did this
come up today? What does this event have to teach me about who I am today?
Say, it's a snowy day, and you're trudging through, and your feet are wet,
and you're miserable, and you're angry about being wet and cold and uncomfortable,
so you go to your journal-20 minutes of "wild mind" writing-and
then you go back in the "wild mind" writing, and you clear out all
the anger about the wetness and cold and the weather-living in Boston in the
middle of winter-and then, a childhood memory comes to you about having wet
feet. Something very specific comes to mind about a trip you took, or a ski
trip, or you're walking on the beach in the winter and you got caught in the
waves.
Something very specific like that comes to mind. So you spend 10 minutes really
exploring that memory. And then the third step is, to think, why did this
memory come to visit me today? What does this memory have to tell me about
who I am today? The memory didn't come last year. It didn't come last week.
How does this reflect on my life today? This is how you can inform yourself
of these deeper unconscious levels that are going on. This is how you slow
down in your life. Because we're constantly having these daydreams and memories
come to us so quickly, as you're driving, as you're walking, a scent memory,
a smell, oh, I remember that smell of tar or bread. Something flashes and
the memory comes from way back when. It may have a purpose. That little boy
who was walking down the beach in the winter and got his feet wet learned
something about perseverance or learned something about how he can withstand
pain, or cold, or tolerance, or maybe learned that his father was impatient
with him and got angry or something. Maybe that can reflect on what's happening
in your day-to-day life. Maybe that early memory of your father getting angry
at you for getting your feet wet can comment on a fight you're having at work
with your boss. Maybe there's a similar dynamic happening that happened with
your father at the beach that's happening with your boss.
TG: What is the purpose of journaling? Why do this activity?
I think you just told me.
AS:
Yeah, I think the purpose is to slow down your life, to be aware of your life
as it's happening, to be in deeper connection with yourself-because we're
all so busy, we're all racing, and we all have lots of feelings going on,
feelings that often get expressed through getting angry when you're driving
down the street, through road rage, or sadness when you're watching TV commercials.
There are all these deep feelings within us. And journaling is one way to
access the feelings, to understand the feelings. And when you understand them,
you're not in the grip of them as much.
Journaling is one way. You can do this through psychotherapy, you can do it
through meditation, you can do it through many other ways, but journaling
is a way to do it cheaply. You can do it privately. All you need is a paper
and pen, and I wanted to show you this, too. Journaling doesn't have to be
fancy. I've got this beautiful, fancy one, and I've got this beautiful, fancy
one, but, depending on how your life is, depending on what's happening in
your life, sometimes, it's just little, crappy ones. And most of my journals
look like this-got stuff in them. Or sometimes life's too busy, and you just
need a tiny, little one. So it really is more of a reflection of where you
are in your life.
Right now, I'm in a quiet place, and some people are giving me beautiful books.
Mostly, I'm a lot busier. I just want to show you the breadth of how I've
done it. I've been journaling since I was 7 years old. I keep it all in a
box.
TG: Is there a specifically right time and place for journaling?
For example, evenings in your room?
AS:
Depends on if you're a morning person or a night person. Some people-one woman
coming on Wednesday gets up at 6:00 in the morning and spends an hour with
her journal. Boggles my mind. It depends on your mood. I think it's important
to realize that journaling is not a diary. It doesn't have to happen every
day. It's not Morning Pages out of Julia Cameron.
I do it to check in with myself, when I feel I'm not checked in with who I
am, when I feel like I'm struggling and I'm turning things over in my mind
endlessly. I take a half hour to write about it. So I don't think there's
a specific time or discipline. This is not about discipline, in my mind. People
who come to the journaling workshop often say, this is the only time that
I do it. They need the discipline of coming here to do it. They think, Oh,
I should do it. When I'm at home, I should do it-
TG: And you don't hit them with a ruler.
(Laughter)
TG: What are the benefits of journaling, specifically emotional
and psychological benefits?
AS: I think it's emotional relief from feelings that are plaguing you. It's clarity, when you work through a problem. Any kind of problems-it can be problem-solving. How do I get from A to B? Something that you're turning over in your mind. It's mostly emotional clarity and emotional relief. And a deeper connection to yourself, and a slowing down of your life, being in touch with all of the-more of the little thoughts and images and fantasies and memories that go through us all the time. And honoring those little bits of ourselves; those are really essential parts of ourselves, far more pertinent, I believe, than returning a phone call, getting the right kind of groceries, and having your house really cleaned. I think, for me, those little memories are essential aspects of who I am, and if I don't take the time to honor them, acknowledge them, reflect on them, I'm missing out on a big part of something. Those are the gems. Those are our jewels, our own little jewels that we all have, that get really pushed away by the business of everyday life.
TG: What are the requirements of journaling? A pen, notebook,
and a willingness to be introspective?
AS: Yes, there you have it. And a curiosity about yourself, a curiosity about yourself and who you are today, not only a willingness to be introspective, because a lot of people aren't willing. They're scared of it, or they just don't get it, so they get freaked out. So maybe a way to couch that in different terms is how to be curious about who you are.
It's not loaded. It's not loaded, like being open to yourself. Being open
to yourself is kind of touchy-feely, and being introspective scares a lot
of people. But "curious" is a good word, because it opens people
to a different way to think about myself: "Oh, am I interesting?"
Some people don't think they're interesting, or some people don't think they
have an inner life, and some people look inside and don't find much going
on. So how do they sit in that?
Journaling's really about being curious about who you are. And finding a place
and a format to do that, a form of expression.
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