Begin your journey by reflecting on your past as you delve into your identity Explore who you are as well as the stories you tell yourself Explore significant people and events in your life as you slowly introduce or reintroduce yourself to the visual journal ID: 474921
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Section 1- Personal Mythologies and Histories
Begin your journey by reflecting on your past as you delve into your identity. Explore who you are as well as the stories you tell yourself. Explore significant people and events in your life as you slowly introduce or reintroduce yourself to the visual journal.
No matter what you put into the journal, it becomes a reflection of who you are, who you think you are and who you want to be. What better way to begin your exploration in the journal than to review who you are? As you work, keep thinking about your past and the stories you have built about yourself. Reflect on your personal journey to this point in your life. Think about the things that are important to you, and examine your strengths and areas for growth. Identify your core values and how they relate to your personality. Where did these concerns come from? Who has influenced them? Pain along with joy is a part of all our lives. As you explore your identity and how it relates to your experiences, learn to lean into the pain and celebrate the joys. Confront the disquieting parts and embrace the pleasant memories. It is all about you.
Gather
your
Forces
This is the story of your life, so gather fodder and ephemera to help narrate and illustrate that story. Make a reconnaissance trip to your parents’ or grandparents’ attic or basement. Pull out those old dusty boxes and rummage through those old photos and school papers.
Along with this personal fodder, look for some atypical types of images such as ID photos. You present these work, school, passport, or driver’s license photos as proof that you are who you say you are. Do these images truly reflect who you are, though? Do they represent all that you encompass? They may be unflattering, but they plainly and blatantly depict you as you appear. How can you take ownership of these standardized images?
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Writing Techniques
As you explore the prompts, focus on your natural handwriting, whether you prefer cursive or print, using a variety of pens, pencils or markers. There is something to be said for the physical act
of putting a pen or pencil to paper. The way your letters slant or the way you cross you t’s can say a lot about your personality or character. As you focus on writing your responses, try making lists, jotting down quick notes and freewriting.
Your lists may encompass your personality traits; your favorite food, music or movies; memories or descriptors and adjectives. Jot down quick notes about a person, a situation or a recollection to capture the details. Freewriting, also known as stream-of-consciousness writing, is a creative writing exercise that is often done for a set period of time. Give yourself from five to fifteen minutes using one of your prompts and not to stop until your time is up. You may want to set a timer, and don’t worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar. Generate words as if your brain is directly connected to your hand as you record the thoughts that are emerging in your mind. If you get stuck, simply write the prompt over and over, or write, “I cannot think of anything to write about,” over and over again until the writing moves forward.
The surface on which you write is just as important as how and what you write. Your writing does not need to be on separate paper; it can be done directly in the journal. Try to do a little of both as you work on your writing. Separate writings can always be glued in later.
Your writing is a crucial component of your journal, not a separate act. Many people get so caught up in writing and editing in order to fix mistakes in their journals that they never actually say anything. Cross out the spelling mistakes and leave the grammatical errors as a documentation of your process. It’s part of your journey. It’s much more raw and much more you. Slide3
Writing
Prompt 1- I Am
Who are you? This seems like a very easy and straight-forward question, but when was the last time you really tried to articulate an answer? Take some time to ponder and write about all the aspects of
your”self”. Think about where you come from, who your family is, and what is most important to you. Use adjectives to describe yourself, or describe all the roles you play or have played in your life. Think about the stories that you build about yourself—the mythology you have constructed.
Writing Prompt 2- Pivotal People
Who in your life has influenced you strongly? This may be in a positive or negative way. Think and write about those people who have had significant impact in your life and may have been responsible for the direction of your life path. Think about how old you were, how those people affected you, the obstacles that you faced and the way your life has changed. Recognize those that have had a profound effect on you. Who were they? What did they say to you? What do they represent?
Writing Prompt 3- Roads Taken and Not Taken
What have been the important decisions in your life? We have all grown, evolved and changed. At times, the movement of our lives has changed direction because of the choices we have made, and at other times, it has changed because of the choices that others have made. These are what psychologist Ira
Progoff
called Steppingstones in his Intensive Journal workshop. They are the roads that we have taken and the roads that we have not taken. What have been your stepping stones? What have been the significant moments of change and growth in your life? What have these shifts meant for you and the direction of your life? What have been the opportunities you have pursued—the roads taken?
Writing Prompt 4- Personal Mythologies
What are the stories that you have told yourself over and over again even if they are not true? A myth is a legendary or imaginary narrative that presents our beliefs, and a mythology is a collection of those stories. We have all created myths about ourselves—stories that are imaginary and unverifiable. We have puffed ourselves up with stories of accomplishment and torn ourselves down with stories of lack. We have self-talk, scripts and dialogues running through our heads, reinforcing those myths. Question your own mythology, and see if you can verify the myths. What are your personal myths? What is your personal mythology? What are your stories? Why do you believe them, accept them and perpetuate them?