Out of the Blog, Into the Light

Secrets

Having our own secret secrets, ones that you never dare tell anyone else, creates emotional stress.  When they build, they ruin your health.  They can make you angry with people, and even at the whole world in general.

Knowing secrets about other people creates drama and builds excitement.  It is also a trillion dollar industry.  Just look at the tabloids.

Four elements create the formula that builds into a guarded and destructive secret:

            Guilt + Fear + Judgment + Person = Secret

Secrets need to be let go and there are three ways to do just that:

1.  Talk with a therapist.

2.  Talk to the person that the secret is connected too.  Maybe you need to apologize or ask for forgiveness.  Maybe you feel they need to.  You will usually find that they were feeling the same thing.  Use an intermediary, like a coach, or a therapist, or someone trained to stay neutral and guide the discussion if needed.

15 Ways to Keep Your Speaking Inspiring and Creative

By Catherine Franz

When stressed or blocked it is wise to make a change so that we don’t stay in that place.  Yet, many times we forget some of the simple things that we can do for ourselves, quickly and easily to bring our inspiration back and increase our creativity.

1.      If you usually type your speech first, hand write them.  Nothing compares to seeing the ink mesh into the paper and display what you created.

2.      If you spend too much time at the computer, take a break every hour.  Go for a walk or just sit outside in the sun.  Even five minutes in a winter sun does wonders for a mood and creativity.

3.      Flip through magazines or books.  Their colors and ideas will give you sparks and switch your attitude.  Blue and green can reduce your stress levels by 30% or more.

4.      Add strong smells to the room.  Light scented candles around you, visit the fruit isle at the grocery store, or go to a store that is heavily scented.  Find an orange or strawberries and smell it.  Both will change a mood or create inspiration.   Smells awaken your creativity.  Smells trigger memories and are a great method to rekindle stories from the past.

5.      Go see or rent an inspirational movie.  Relaxation time is important.  Watch the movie with a notebook and record inspiring phases or ideas that pop in.

6.      Read a book on the topic that stirs and sparks your creativity.  Poetry can do the same.

7.      Look at bold and bright colors for a few minutes.  These change your mood.

Getting A Better Handle on Time

Previously time faded away when I journaled, so much so, it kept me from picking up my journal, my head was floating with tons of becauses.  Because I was tired.  Because the kids are coming home from school in a few minutes.  Because I needed to start dinner.  After I returned to work, because it would consume my whole lunch hour.

I’m a time waster, not purposely, but just because I would get so involved, I lose track of the time.  In order to learn what 15 minutes was and to reset my internal clock to that length, I purchased a separate kitchen timer -- the kind that has a magnet and clip on the back.  The clip is great for attaching to clothing.  And if you clip the timer close to the chest area, it’s annoying enough that you will not forget to use it.

Timing the journaling sessions, I soon observed my writing improve.  I became more focused and quicker.  The language more concise and lighter.  As time war on, I think it was a little over a month if I remember correctly, I began to not notice the clock was there and began weaning away from it’s use.  Careful here, don’t stop, for a little while longer, it’s too easy to return to the old pattern. 

At the beginning, I could hear the timer clicking, even though it didn’t really, but after a while, I relaxed with its presence and even found myself feeling prideful on the changes appearing on the page and even in my thinking.

The biggest benefit, and the aha of this note, was that by resetting my internal timer, I could sense when 15 minutes was just about up on a phone call, while cooking, reading, and even in a general conversation.  About 13 minutes in to whatever I was doing, I heard my internal voice checking in with, “Okay time to rap this up.”  My productivity increased significantly throughout my life, as I’m sure it will do in yours as well.

Now, a kind-of warning, I have little patience, and I wanted to quit several times while adjusting my internal clock.  Suck in a few deep breaths and keep it up.  It will work.  When?  Can’t say exactly, each of us is different.

It seems every six months or a year; I repeat this clock technique to resync myself with “Mr. Time.”  Oops, gender specific challenge, “Is that Ms. Time now?” 

(c) Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz.  All rights reserved.

Help this blog get mentioned

Catherine Franz, here, the host of this blog.  I'm trying to get my blog nominated by "WD" -- Writer's Digest -- or at least mentioned in their magazine.  The focus of the magazine is for writers.

I need your help.

Since you visited this site, could you please send them an email and let them know that you liked this site?  See email link at the end of this post.

The blog name is Abundance.  The URL is:  http://abundance.blogs.com

I appreciate your help.  Thank you in advance.

Catherine Franz

BID FOR BLOGGERS

We're looking for a few good blogs to highlight in our upcoming WD special publication, Personal Writing. If you keep an online journal, or blog—or if you know of a writer’s blog that's particularly well-written—send us an e-mail. It may appear in an upcoming issue of Personal Writing. Please send an e-mail nomination, along with a brief explanation of why you think this blog is exceptional, with "blog" in the subject line to:

writersdig@fwpubs.com

Time Slipping Away

Jan 25 Journaling Tip:  Time Slipping Away

Time is the biggest reason people tell me why they don’t journal, or don’t do it frequently.  Journaling is like browsing on the Internet.  We start with one or two clicks to find something and an hour later dinner’s late or it’s way past our bedtime, and we’re tired already all the time, and time slips away.

Many people don’t start for this same reason.  Mary Jenkins, from Iowa, told me in a teleclass the other day that is exactly why she doesn’t journal very often.  Once she sits down, hours seem to pass by.  It isn’t that she doesn’t enjoy it.  Just the opposite, she enjoys it so much, she looses track of time.

Gosh, I thought that was a good thing.

All kidding aside.  Finding time to journal will always be a struggle for all of us because we’re so engrossed in our personal growth process – the miracle of writing – that it’s easy to let time slip away.

This is why I purchased a kitchen timer just for journaling.  It’s clipped to the top, outside edge, of my journal.  I set the timer for 10 minutes, 20, or whatever I can spare.  Yes, it’s hard to stop.  But what I found, for myself, and from feedback from others, is that after awhile of doing this we develop a concept of time and journaling.  We know that three-quarters of a page most of the time leads to 5 minutes (this is an example only).  After we feel comfortable with being able to measure the time with journaling, we also feel more comfortable about the exercise itself.  It’s easy to do it more frequently.

© Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz.  All rights reserved.

Exploring One Single Gift

Jan 24 Journaling Tip:  Take Your Gift and Run With It, It's Yours

By Catherine Franz

Right now, think about one gift someone told you that you had.  Did they tell you, you were a good listener, good friend, speech well, write well, cook well, inspire others, or love well.

Write that gift as if it was a title in a new journal entry.

Do you agree, disagree, or both?  Why did they say that?  How does it affect your life?  Do you use it without knowing it?  Write about expanding its usage into other parts of your life.

Sometimes a gift can be seen by others, yet were so oblivious to it.  It's just been around so longer, we've stopped seeing.  Or worse, we don't believe in it, so that we can't see it.

You don't need to focus on many gifts, just one.  You can also do more later.  Write freely, what that gift means to you.  Let those feelings flow.  Be honest with what appears, even if negative.

Before you can begin applying your gifts into all aspects of your life, you first must acknowledge that it's there.  The next is to make sure you think of it as if it "really" is a gift.  Once uncovered, it will explode upon itself.  The experience is enlightening and rewarding.

Then you can also begin again with another gift.

(c) Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz.  All rights reserved.

For more about this author...

Poetry 101 for Journaling

 

Jan 23 Journaling Tip:  Internal Comparison

Robert Hass, a contemporary American poet, teaches a writing exercise in his poetry workshops that helps writers expand their horizons with metaphorical thinking.  He began using this exercise after experiencing the Bantu people of Africa.  African people, like many other cultures, say things directly with the missing Americanisms of sentence structure.  They would say, “The sound of a tusk cracking.” 

This principle is called internal comparison.  It’s using one statement to spark the use of the next. 

Even though this is a technique used frequently in poetry, as journalers, it’s a neat way to learn to externalize our intuition and learn self-poetry.  This is an exercise to play with and not look for much meaning until you’ve practice with it a little while

The objective of this exercise is to think separately line-by-line.  The first way to begin is to focus just on creating one-liners, with different sentence structure, like the Bantu.  The first line comes easier if you use items or views around you. 

After the first line, let is spark another not by logic, but by internal comparison.  In Bantu they say, “The sun set behind the mountains.”  You want each line to be entirely different from the previous lines.  For instance, following, “The sun set behind the mountains.”  The second line might be “A child ducking behind the sofa.”  The second sentence can be taken from an even that just occurred – your son or daughter just ducked behind the sofa to play peek-a-boo. 

Write these in two or three lines then separate for the next paragraph.  Make sure the each line comes from a completely different landscape or experience.

When Bantu is working well, in other words, the line you wrote will tell your body, “Ahhhh.”  As if in a sigh of relief.  On the other hand, it could give you an, “Oh.”  But, what it always gives you is some feeling inside your body, usually in the stomach, chest, or lower body.  Mind frequently gives an “Ah” in my hips.  It is a releasing feeling, as if negative energy has been released.

This is about working with metaphors and this takes intuition.  If you have never done this before, don’t let it frustrate you.  What you don’t want to do is use any cause and effect structure in this exercise.  Cause in effect is one line makes a statement, the next answers with effect.

This exercise opens the imagination of words and writing.  It expands creativity and dances around any rules that might be shadow boxing deep below.

Be open to this, and play.  Be the kid standing on the beach, all this sand is before you.  The small plastic shovel is your pen, the bucket your journal.

Now it’s your turn.  Go ahead, give it a swirl.

© Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz.  All rights reservied.

About the Author:  Catherine Franz has been teaching journaling for the last 22 years. She has been journaling since the age of 14, 40 years ago.  That's a long time to hone one's skills.  You can find out more about Catherine at the main website:  The Abundance Center. She's also written two quick-tip and techniques booklets on journaling.  They also can be found at the Abundance Center.

Stop, See Another View

Jan 22 Journaling Tip:  Stop, See Another View

By Catherine Franz

As a writer, I find it easy to get lost in my own world.  When was the last time you stopped long enough to take a picture, mental, of your surroundings?  It’s so easy to be in our own home and walk around numb.  Numb from the long day at work, heavy shoulders from all that doesn’t seem to be going the way we envisioned it, and passing all that is truly around us without awareness.  Especially since television, nowadays satisfy a numbing feeling.  It’s so easy to plop down in front of it, saying we need it to relax, and continue that numbing process.

Let’s play the what if game…what if, you stopped, sat down by a window with your journal, and instead of writing about being frustrated with the life, to open a new window, a new vision.  What if you looked out the window and wrote what you saw.

If the view is an alley way with trash cans, or 12-stories up in an apartment building, looking down on smaller than life automobiles and people.  Could the view include snow with a barbecue grill covered and standing lonely in a corner of the yard, or even your dog, Rover, playing in that snow?  What is out that window?  What do you see?  Does it remind you of an event when you were a child? 

Now, go beyond what you see out that window.  What does it all mean to you?  Does the view represent something you desire, something you need?

I’ve piled on the questions, and that’s not fair to you, my reader.  My effort here is to shake you out of the numb mode we so easily fall into.  We don’t have to be heavily there; maybe we’re there just a smidgen.

If you don’t have a window, look around the room.  Feel the chair you are sitting in.  Remember the time you bought it.  Was it a bargain find?  A gift?  What story lies behind it all? 

When I look around me at this moment, I see a lamp that my parents bought years ago.  Since they are gone, it brings comfort to me having it around.  It’s a piece of them.  The lamp doesn’t necessarily go in the room; it’s somewhat large in perspective.  Its blue, pink, and orange reminds me of my mother and what could see different and how she showed me to spot and do the same.  To see that even orange, a color most people would say never went with pink, can go together in the right swirl.  As it does in this lamp.  I remember the day my siblings and I were dividing the property, and their snide comments of why I wanted the lamp so badly.  I still could see my Mom bent over, dusting it, just ever so carefully.  Gently as if it was made of a fragile glass.  I see myself in my Mom when I’m doing the same.

Tonight when you are journaling, snap yourself out of numbness, and look around.  What do you see?  Then write your story.  Let it go, wherever it needs to, remember, there aren’t any rules in journaling except sitting down, picking up a pen or crayon, and becoming free on the page.  The page that supports you.

(c) Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz.  All rights reserved.

Author Catherine Franz has written two booklets on journaling tips and techniques that she's taught for years in her workshops.  Available in quick down loadable form or nicely printed versions.  Find out more, click here...

Here's sunshine for the "Procrastinators"

Jan 21 Tip:  Here's sunshine for the "Procrastinators"

I'm guilty of being the biggest procrastinator ever...well, probably not the biggest.  My high school yearbook said, "I would always be good at what I did."  Well, I was good at being a procrastinator.

Then one day, after a workshop, I was in Seattle at a company giving a journaling workshop to executives, I was riding an airport shuttle bus that broke down on the side of the road.  While we were waiting for a replacement, and praying that we don't miss our planes, I made a conscious decision that I was tired of being a procrastinator.

Somewhere during mid-flight, a gentleman and I were talking and I mentioned my decision.  At that time, I had no idea of why I mentioned this out of the blue to this gentleman, but I did.  I later learned, "because he was the one with the answer." Boy, I sure love it when the universal energies work this way.  Don't you?

He asked me, "Why don't you combine what you teach -- journaling -- with what I want to harness?"

Great question...but I do love a challenge.

Well, to cut the story short...I had the answer by the time we landed.  Either keep a "procrastination or excuse" journal, or to add it as an exercise in my regular journal whenever I was procrastinating.

Since I didn't want to start another journal, I choose the latter, and began...

Every time I didn't want to do something, I wrote a list of all the reasons of why I didn't want to do it (whatever it was).

At the beginning it was awful.  The list was long and I did it quite frequently.  I used it for everything from job to household cores (I hated making my bed) to cleaning out the car.

Surprise...

The lists got shorter, and shorter, and then all of a sudden I began making my bed immediately without any hesitation.  I took out the trash without any hesitation.  In fact, I felt uncomfortable when it was full. 

This isn't to say that all my procrastination efforts are gone...but the major of them are.  And I use this exercise whenever I struggle with doing something that seems overwhelming or hard too now.

It's amazing how much I'm able to get done now.  Now, that I've used my best friend -- my journal -- to support me during this challenge.  I'm sure you will find this a great help in helping you as well.  That is, once you stop procrastinating the start (chuckle).

(c) Copyright 2002, Catherine Franz.  All rights reserved.
No permission is granted for permission to print.

Let me tell you about...
This tip is an expanded version of Tip #15 in my booklet:  51 Journaling Topics & Tips.  If you would like to purchase is rather inexpensive packed how-to tips booklet, visit the Abundance Center's store...
http://www.abundancecenter.com/Store/main.htm

When you get there you will find two books available.  You can purchase in electronic form or printed form.  By several sets and receive a discount. They make wonderful "I just thought of you" or quick "thank you gifts" for your friends, family, and colleagues.

MindMapping (TM) Journals

Jan 20 Journaling Tip:  MindMapping (TM) Journals

MindMapping(TM), also called “clustering,” is a wonderful way to learn, brainstorm, and remember things for a long time without much effort.  Hmm, you’re asking, “Catherine, what does this have to do with journaling.” 

Well, let me tell you…

I’m a lover of MindMapping.  It allowed me to jump from a C student to A overnight.  I was also able to pass the CPA exam at first try, without studying, just because I could close my eye and see the sophisticated maps clearly and the books of information that were attached to each wing.

If you don’t know anything about MindMapping, there are plenty of websites loaded with information on the principles and concepts, so I will not get into that aspect here.  Tony Buzan is the Father of MindMapping, a small tutorial on his website is available at: http://www.mind-map.com/EN/mindmaps/definition.html.  There are many other sites as well that have great information.  Type “MindMapping” – all one word – into your favorite search engine, like Google, Yahoo or the new one www.A9.com and you will come up with enough sites to keep you busy learning for some time.  Yet, the basic concepts and principles are simple to capture and begin using.  In fact, you will be able to use MindMapping in just a few minutes after reading.  I encourage you to do so.

Okay, back to the journaling tip…

If you cluster or Mind Map, you can start creating and using MindMapping journals.  I use mine for ideas and brainstorming as soon as my idea comes up on how I can use it.  I’ve found some wonderful notebooks that I love for this purpose.  They are called, “Note Sketch Book.”  The company that produces these is:  Bienfang.  Environmentalists—bonus—the book uses recycled paper.  I’ve purchased the books in Staples, so you might to give your local Staples store a call and ask if they have them.  If not, try their on-line website.

Their 8½ x 11 size pages are half blank (the sketching part) and the bottom half has lines for writing.  It’s easy to MindMap in the sketch part and write information on the lines.

Then let your creativity flow…

I like to use watercolor felt tip pens (I also found in Staples and Office Depot) to draw the center and the branches.  I’m not an artist, so I draw stick people, airplanes in outline form (this one took some practice though), light bulbs and other simple designs, whenever I can to substitute for the words, for instance, an airplane if traveling by such.

If you already are into MindMapping or what to go deeper, there is software called “Mind Manager” that I’ve used for years and highly recommend.  There are a few others on the market as well but I’m not familiar with those.

You can even make your MindMapping/Clustering journal more topic focus.  For example, my mind is always working on new angles for articles, so I have a set specifically for that use.  I think of an idea for an article.  I record various possible titles on the lines.  I brainstorm in the sketch section with a MindMap, and then I write down ideas of what type of reader or publication would be interested on this topic/idea.

You can adapt whatever you like to brainstorm on the same way.  As a Certified MindMapper, I've loved teaching this how-to creative way to brainstorm ideas, and all the participants always raved about it.  I'm sure you will like it when you give it a go-at-it too!

Here's my pitch...
This tip is an expanded version of Tip #27 in my booklet:  51 Journaling Topics & Tips.  If you would like to purchase is rather inexpensive packed how-to tips booklet, visit the Abundance Center's store...
http://www.abundancecenter.com/Store/main.htm

When you get there you will find two books available.  You can purchase in electronic form or printed form.  By several sets and receive a discount. They make wonderful "I just thought of you" or quick "thank you gifts" for your friends, family, and colleagues.