Long time reader first time responder (laugh track at full volume)
I must say Cana, I love how you write. There's this management of the present moment and other temporal spaces that captivates me. I guess I'm just saying... you're a great writer lol
As you mentioned the "doodling in journals," I could feel my soul/spirit/body-thing teleport back to grade school. Consumed by monotropism, I managed to retain the info in physics lectures only if my notes were littered in obscure drawings of third gendered beings from the expanse (maybe the planet Sirus, I have no idea). Both the act of drawing and the drawing themselves, create this singularity between the creation of the drawing and its fruition. That unity seems to just "make things make sense." You know? I guess I'm just sort of loving how similar we are.
Although I'm no where near as persistent as you, I've found myself brain dumping into my vast collection of handmade journals passed on to me by my eldest sister(quart size to legal pads). And yes, I'm also inconsistent into which ones I choose to dump into that day. In hindsight, I never saw the act of Journaling as a process of clearing out the cerebral barn. If I could clear out the hay and make room for more horses, well, maybe I could have more horses and they would need more hay but they'd consume more altogether. A functioning cerebral brain versus my current circus maximus situation.
It seems that the weeds in ur Substack share the same germ or root with my own. I'll keep reading at my awkward hours of the day. I can deliver on that.
I love this! I have... six journals on the go right now and none of them are quite as beautiful as yours (after 34 years on this planet I know I'm far too disorganised to be a proper sketchbooker or scrapbooker) but they still make me very happy.
My current favourite is my "write down everything I did that day" notebook, as an antidote to hustle culture and endless to-do lists. I include things like sleep ins and naps, reading books, meals I cooked, walks I went on, and all the little things I do for my businesses, too. It feels like a nice antidote to the to do list and having it all in one book means I can flick back and look at all the things I've done, especially when I'm in one of those moods when I tell myself I'm never going to get anywhere 😉
So impressed with the years of morning pages too! I'm on/off about 5 years now but I have a love/hate relationship with them 😂
ooo yes i've been thinking about incorporating some kind of way to write down my accomplishments each day as opposed to a to-do list! i am in a phase of setting my own schedule and working by myself a lot, and am having trouble "celebrating" things at the end of each day because there's no one there to cheer for me or give me a sticker. you just might have given me the kick to start doing that... *hmm emoji*
Honestly, it sounds so simple but it changed my life. I was exactly the same and it took me from feeling like I was never getting anywhere to feeling a lot more accomplished.
Each week I also write down the progress I made in my work life in a separate work journal (I use the back of the book just for that) and it helps me keep track of it all as weekly wins instead of trying to assess it all on a daily basis and forever coming up wanting or feeling like I hadn't done/achieved enough each day.
Long time reader first time responder (laugh track at full volume)
I must say Cana, I love how you write. There's this management of the present moment and other temporal spaces that captivates me. I guess I'm just saying... you're a great writer lol
As you mentioned the "doodling in journals," I could feel my soul/spirit/body-thing teleport back to grade school. Consumed by monotropism, I managed to retain the info in physics lectures only if my notes were littered in obscure drawings of third gendered beings from the expanse (maybe the planet Sirus, I have no idea). Both the act of drawing and the drawing themselves, create this singularity between the creation of the drawing and its fruition. That unity seems to just "make things make sense." You know? I guess I'm just sort of loving how similar we are.
Although I'm no where near as persistent as you, I've found myself brain dumping into my vast collection of handmade journals passed on to me by my eldest sister(quart size to legal pads). And yes, I'm also inconsistent into which ones I choose to dump into that day. In hindsight, I never saw the act of Journaling as a process of clearing out the cerebral barn. If I could clear out the hay and make room for more horses, well, maybe I could have more horses and they would need more hay but they'd consume more altogether. A functioning cerebral brain versus my current circus maximus situation.
It seems that the weeds in ur Substack share the same germ or root with my own. I'll keep reading at my awkward hours of the day. I can deliver on that.
I love this! I have... six journals on the go right now and none of them are quite as beautiful as yours (after 34 years on this planet I know I'm far too disorganised to be a proper sketchbooker or scrapbooker) but they still make me very happy.
My current favourite is my "write down everything I did that day" notebook, as an antidote to hustle culture and endless to-do lists. I include things like sleep ins and naps, reading books, meals I cooked, walks I went on, and all the little things I do for my businesses, too. It feels like a nice antidote to the to do list and having it all in one book means I can flick back and look at all the things I've done, especially when I'm in one of those moods when I tell myself I'm never going to get anywhere 😉
So impressed with the years of morning pages too! I'm on/off about 5 years now but I have a love/hate relationship with them 😂
ooo yes i've been thinking about incorporating some kind of way to write down my accomplishments each day as opposed to a to-do list! i am in a phase of setting my own schedule and working by myself a lot, and am having trouble "celebrating" things at the end of each day because there's no one there to cheer for me or give me a sticker. you just might have given me the kick to start doing that... *hmm emoji*
Honestly, it sounds so simple but it changed my life. I was exactly the same and it took me from feeling like I was never getting anywhere to feeling a lot more accomplished.
Each week I also write down the progress I made in my work life in a separate work journal (I use the back of the book just for that) and it helps me keep track of it all as weekly wins instead of trying to assess it all on a daily basis and forever coming up wanting or feeling like I hadn't done/achieved enough each day.