Discovering self by journaling

At the beginning of the notebook where I found the details of the sensory walk, I saw that I purposefully sought out to renew my journaling efforts as a way of learning more about myself. It was an effort for record, accountability and self-discovery. I had gotten away from this practice and my creative writing especially during my senior year of college because of my student teaching responsibilities.

Take a car trip with Rain-x and avoid the acid rain (analogy)

Recently I’ve spent a lot of time trying to recognize and understand the impact of my inner critic. Those times when I let the negative self-talk have more leverage than it deserves.

This awareness began about two years ago when I finally realized the way I spoke to myself had all the hallmarks of a verbally abusive relationship. I could do no right. Every effort was twisted around. And I’d berate myself over making one mistake while ignoring the numerous things that went right.

Talking back to the doubts and the inner critic

Source

I recently addressed the topic of self-worth here  and It got me thinking of other doubts I allow to roam freely in my mind. I decided to lasso up as many as I could and confront them directly.

In no particular order, these relate to personal matters as well as with my writing.

Accusation: You’re not good enough.

TRUTH: This pops up under a variety of circumstances. Every time it’s clearly untrue: I’m competent at my job. I have friends and family who love and care about me. And the only real way people have asked me to change is to embrace and love myself more.

Finding my voice in an opinion essay

This post shows how I was able to take a personal writing session and transform it into an opinion piece for a college class. I took real events and feelings and, by writing a first person narrative while fictionalizing some details, I found a sense of voice in my writing. It marked the first time I truly understood what that literary term meant.

I hear voices when I read

Now, I’m not delusional, but when I read I do hear an internal voice sounding out the words. And if you reflect on your own reading experience, there’s a chance you might experience the same thing. Although perhaps you haven’t given it much thought.

Some people are able to disconnect from the words. There’s a phenomenon known as speed reading. My understanding of this is that every word is not read. Instead, there is a way to skim over and focus on main ideas, summarizing thoughts for each paragraph and section of text.

I can’t do that. If I try, I end up feeling like I’m missing crucial information.

For me, to read with comprehension means there’s an internal voice sounding out the words. I don’t know for sure if this was my experience as I started to read. But it’s what I encounter as an adult, so it seems safe to assume it’s always been there.