Dust Off Your Journal. Talk With Your Soul.

On this summer weekend day, I awoke early, and with a little girl’s butterflies.

A whole day of solitude ahead of me, to write, read, walk in the woods with my dogs, sit on my favorite stump and watch the forest theater. It occurred to me that I hadn’t written in my journal for a while, even though it’s one of the most sacred places I know to go. It’s where I check in with my soul, and have all my life. To that end, I was shocked to see that I’d neglected my journal all through COVID. The last entry was just before my book tour for Willa’s Grove in March of 2020! You’d think I would have needed my journal more than ever in those years. But, like so many of us, I was re-inventing my work life, keeping things afloat in my personal life, processing this massive global plot-twist. I wasn’t thinking about making space for my soul-language. I was on over-drive, just trying to make ends meet. But no journal-writing? What was I thinking? Had I replaced my soul-life with my work-life? Was that even possible?

So it’s no surprise that words cascaded out of me. Twenty-four pages in two hours, hardly able to keep up with my pen. It was like I’d had a waterfall on pause for a few years, and I finally had the courage to push “play” again. My soul wanted to talk. And as I allowed room for its language, I felt myself rooting in the essence of my being. My whole being. Not in the compartmentalized facets of my different roles in life. Compartments I love. But still fractured from the whole. It was like re-meeting my whole self for the first time in far too long.

It got me thinking about soul-neglect. How we drop our lifelines, often when we need them most. It should be the other way around. I knew I needed to take a serious look at my relationship with soul. Can you really part ways with soul? Can you really lose its language? Can you really forget to listen? What happens when you fail to create sacred space for it? And to that end, just what is the soul, anyway?

So I went through my shelves, looking for a book I read when I was a new writer in 1992. Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul. In it he writes: “Soul is not a thing but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart and personal substance.” I took heart in the fact that Moore believes that the soul cannot be separated from body, family, work, love, or power. So maybe my soul finally said Enough is enough. Go to your deepest lifeline: your journal. I’ll meet you there so that you can see me. Remember me. Love me. Trust me. Align with me in everything that you are passionate about. Personal. Work. All of it. Let’s become whole again.

I wanted more, so I reached for Meister Eckhart, because even though he was writing in the 14^th century, the truth that I find in his words is always timeless, love being what it is. I read these words:

“When the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it.”

And I realized that this is what I did in 2012 when I broadened my world and added new roles to my life, outside of my writing and motherhood. Suddenly I was a writing teacher, editor, retreat facilitator, and on-line writing community leader which includes doing live workshops, and interviewing experts…all new terrain. Without knowing it, I was stepping into a future my soul already saw. I can see it now so clearly. And while helping other people write is one of the greatest gifts of my life, sometimes the energy and time it takes to run the business around all of these passions of mine…overwhelms my vision of the whole.

Writing in my journal this morning, for my eyes only and for no other cause but my own, to my soul, woke something in me that I’d let go dangerously dormant.

And as life so often behaves, just when I gave myself the time to care for my soul, I received four back-to-back surprise gifts: notes from recent retreaters, thanking me for their Haven experience, and with generous testimonials. Not expected, but very much appreciated. Because it was as if they were really notes from my soul, reminding me that when we create space for writing in a journal, we remind ourselves who we really are, and contact the essence of our being. I don’t teach journal-writing. I’m so committed to teaching craft, voice, and how to structure writing projects and writing practices. But maybe I ought to bring a journal-writing practice into the way I teach. Either way, I know that I can’t lose this personal soul-practice ever again.

Whatever it is that you do for work, I hope you know that it’s touching people. Somehow. In some way. Big or little. And often, just when you’re least aware of it. But don’t neglect your soul along the way. If you have a dusty journal sitting around, please consider blowing the dust off of it and inviting your pen, and your soul, to meet. We all need something outside our work that is ours only. Sometimes we lose track of the difference between our work and ourselves. But trust that your soul is never separate. You just need to honor her. She might be throwing out an image in front of her so that you, and others, can step into it.

Thank you to those who offered me these soulful words: