Journal Writing Inspirational Quotes

In the English language, it all comes down to this: Twenty-six letters, when combined correctly, can create magic. Twenty -six letters form the foundation of a free, informed society.

I am so fond of tea that I could write a whole dissertation on its virtues. It comforts and enlivens without the risks attendant on spirituous liquors. Gentle herb! Let the florid grape yield to thee. Thy soft influence is a more safe inspirer of social joy.

So tonight I reach for my journal again. This is the first time I’ve done this since I came to Italy. What I write in my journal is that I am weak and full of fear. I explain that Depression and Loneliness have shown up, and I’m scared they will never leave. I say that I don’t want to take the drugs anymore, but I’m frightened I will have to. I am terrified that I will never really pull my life together. In response, somewhere from within me, rises a now-familiar presence, offering me all the certainties I have always wished another person would say to me when I was troubled. This is what I find myself writing on the page: I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long. I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and Braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me. Tonight, this strange interior gesture of friendship—the lending of a hand from me to myself when nobody else is around to offer solace—reminds me of something that happened to me once in New York City. I walked into an office building one afternoon in a hurry, dashed into the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glance of myself in a security mirror’s reflection. In that moment, my brain did an odd thing—it fired off this split-second message: “Hey! You know her! That’s a friend of yours!” And I actually ran forward toward my own reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost but whose face was so familiar. In a flash instant of course, I realized my mistake and laughed in embarrassment at my almost doglike confusion over how a mirror works. But for some reason that incident comes to mind again tonight during my sadness in Rome, and I find myself writing this comforting reminder at the bottom of the page. Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a FRIEND… I fell asleep holding my notebook pressed against my chest, open to this most recent assurance. In the morning when I wake up, I can still smell a faint trace of depression’s lingering smoke, but he himself is nowhere to be seen. Somewhere during the night, he got up and left. And his buddy loneliness beat it, too.

I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He never has anything funny in his stories.

Oh, how scary and wonderful it is that words can change our lives simply by being next to each other.

Often as writers, we are surprised by what we learn about ourselves. It runs counter to what we’ve thought about who we are. But it is closer to the truth.

Write your dreams in journal,note book, card or on a cork. When you pen down your dreams, an a inner strength and divine power is activated for your to work towards the fulfillment of your dreams.

This imaginary gift is a journey for your imagination. I send you... A luxury train ride. On this train are all the inspiring people you've ever wanted to meet or talk to. You glide from car to car, sitting or lying down on velvet lounge chairs, listening and asking questions. There is also a voluminous library on the train, with every book you've ever wanted to read or look at. Kind people bring you delicious tidbits to eat and nourishing liquids to drink. If you take a nap, time stands still until you return so you never miss anything. You receive a large journal filled with photographs, drawings and descriptions of your journey to take with you when you leave. You realize that you can board this train at any time.

These empty pages are your future, soon to become your past. T will read the most personal tale you shall ever find in a book.

The grace of writing is upon me. I love writing. I write daily.

Some books are so alive that they never leave you. They only change you

I journal my joy, and my joy expands exponentially forevermore. So be it.

I can write three hundred and sixty-five grateful thanks. Cultivate the habit to write gratitude daily.

Always carry with you a pen and a notebook or a journal to write the thoughts that flashes in a moments.

When he got home, he said: "The first thing you lose in war is the truth.

Daring soul has five diaries; gratitude, work, inspirational, prayer and language diaries.

We write to give strength to our soul and to inspire spirit of other souls.

You ought to write down your goals. It serves as a guidepost and gives strength for purposeful action.

The power of writing is phenomenal.

Research material can turn up anywhere - in a dusty old letter in an archive, a journal or some old photographs you find in a charity shop.

For years I've advocated keeping a gratitude journal, writing down five things every day that brought pleasure and gratefulness

When I look back on my personal story through my journals, it struck me my words had an unmatched power to heal me. To change me.

A daily written thankful gratitude is a heavenly blessing.

Writing is not necessarily difficult. However, writing something that will outlive you is another matter.

I do not write every day. I write to the questions and issues before me. I write to deadlines. I write out of my passions. And I write to make peace with my own contradictory nature. For me, writing is a spiritual practice. A small bowl of water sits on my desk, a reminder that even if nothing is happening on the page, something is happening in the room--evaporation. And I always light a candle when I begin to write, a reminder that I have now entered another realm, call it the realm of the Spirit. I am mindful that when one writes, one leaves this world and enters another. My books are collages made from journals, research, and personal experience. I love the images rendered in journal entries, the immediacy that is captured on the page, the handwritten notes. I love the depth of ideas and perspective that research brings to a story, be it biological or anthropological studies or the insights brought to the page by the scholarly work of art historians. When I go into a library, I feel like I am a sleuth looking to solve a mystery. I am completely inspired by the pursuit of knowledge through various references. I read newpapers voraciously. I love what newspapers say about contemporary culture. And then you go back to your own perceptions, your own words, and weigh them against all you have brought together. I am interested in the kaleidoscope of ideas, how you bring many strands of thought into a book and weave them together as one piece of coherent fabric, while at the same time trying to create beautiful language in the service of the story. This is the blood work of the writer. Writing is also about a life engaged. And so, for me, community work, working in the schools or with grassroots conservation organizations is another critical component of my life as a writer. I cannot separate the writing life from a spiritual life, from a life as a teacher or activist or my life intertwined with family and the responsibilities we carry within our own homes. Writing is daring to feel what nurtures and breaks our hearts. Bearing witness is its own form of advocacy. It is a dance with pain and beauty.

Want to know one of the most rewarding and holistic ways to heal & make significant life choices that will fully align? Learning to slow down, breath, think, journal, talk, and process before reacting. Knowing you have worked through the issue, be it mentally, emotionally or spiritually, before taking action lets you write the script of your life how you want. Which in turn gives you the best chance of achieving your dreams

What's your weapons? A pen, usually.

il nous change, il modifie la marche de notre vie." / "it changes us, it alters the course of our lives.

You ought to write grateful gratitude every day

The greatest moments of creativity come in absolute solitude, when one’s mind is free from distraction and able to probe the depths of the impossible.

I seek no perfection in writing. I seek justice. Because as much as a pen can heal, it can also kill.

A journal is a self-empowering, self-realizing map we create for ourselves to better our lives.

Gradually I fell back into the old habit of being surrounded by books, papers, journals, and diaries.

Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Willingly accept what's outside of your control. That's all we need to do.

By seeing each day and each situation as a kind of training exercise, the stakes suddenly become a lot lower. The way you interpret your own mistakes and the mistakes of others is suddenly a lot more generous.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it. Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem. It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face. I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now. I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

If I know the classical psychological theories well enough to pass my comps and can reformulate them in ways that can impress peer reviewers from the most prestigious journals, but have not the practical wisdom of love, I am only an intrusive muzak soothing the ego while missing the heart. And if I can read tea leaves, throw the bones and manipulate spirits so as to understand the mysteries of the universe and forecast the future with scientific precision, and if I have achieved a renaissance education in both the exoteric and esoteric sciences that would rival Faust and know the equation to convert the mass of mountains into psychic energy and back again, but have not love, I do not even exist. If I gain freedom from all my attachments and maintain constant alpha waves in my consciousness, showing perfect equanimity in all situations, ignoring every personal need and compulsively martyring myself for the glory of God, but this is not done freely from love, I have accomplished nothing. Love is great-hearted and unselfish; love is not emotionally reactive, it does not seek to draw attention to itself. Love does not accuse or compare. It does not seek to serve itself at the expense of others. Love does not take pleasure in other peeople's sufferings, but rejoices when the truth is revealed and meaningful life restored. Love always bears reality as it is, extending mercy to all people in every situation. Love is faithful in all things, is constantly hopeful and meets whatever comes with immovable forbearance and steadfastness. Love never quits. By contrast, prophecies give way before the infinite possibilities of eternity, and inspiration is as fleeting as a breath. To the writing and reading of many books and learning more and more, there is no end, and yet whatever is known is never sufficient to live the Truth who is revealed to the world only in loving relationship. When I was a beginning therapist, I thought a lot and anxiously tried to fix people in order to lower my own anxiety. As I matured, my mind quieted and I stopped being so concerned with labels and techniques and began to realize that, in the mystery of attentive presence to others, the guest becomes the host in the presence of God. In the hospitality of genuine encounter with the other, we come face to face with the mystery of God who is between us as both the One offered One who offers. When all the theorizing and methodological squabbles have been addressed, there will still only be three things that are essential to pastoral counseling: faith, hope, and love. When we abide in these, we each remain as well, without comprehending how, for the source and raison d'etre of all is Love.

Colin was silent for a long moment. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that he enjoyed his writing; it was just something he did. He did it because he couldn’t imagine not doing it. How could he travel to foreign lands and not keep a record of what he saw, what he experienced, and perhaps most importantly, what he felt? But when he thought back, he realized that he felt a strange rush of satisfaction whenever he wrote a phrase that was exactly right, a sentence that was particularly true. He distinctly remembered the moment he’d written the passage Penelope had read. He’d been sitting on the beach at dusk, the sun still warm on his skin, the sand somehow rough and smooth at the same time under his bare feet. It had been a heavenly moment—full of that warm, lazy feeling one can truly only experience in the dead of summer (or on the perfect beaches of the Mediterranean), and he’d been trying to think of the exact right way to describe the water. He’d sat there for ages—surely a full half an hour—his pen poised above the paper of his journal, waiting for inspiration. And then suddenly he’d realized the temperature was precisely that of slightly old bathwater, and his face had broken into a wide, delighted smile. Yes, he enjoyed writing. Funny how he’d never realized it before.

Is power like the vis viva and the quantite d’avancement? That is, is it conserved by the universe, or is it like shares of a stock, which may have great value one day, and be worthless the next? If power is like stock shares, then it follows that the immense sum thereof lately lost by B[olingbroke] has vanished like shadows in sunlight. For no matter how much wealth is lost in stock crashes, it never seems to turn up, but if power is conserved, then B’s must have gone somewhere. Where is it? Some say ‘twas scooped up by my Lord R, who hid it under a rock, lest my Lord M come from across the sea and snatch it away. My friends among the Whigs say that any power lost by a Tory is infallibly and insensibly distributed among all the people, but no matter how assiduously I search the lower rooms of the clink for B’s lost power, I cannot seem to find any there, which explodes that argument, for there are assuredly very many people in those dark salons. I propose a novel theory of power, which is inspired by . . . the engine for raising water by fire. As a mill makes flour, a loom makes cloth and a forge makes steel, so we are assured this engine shall make power. If the backers of this device speak truly, and I have no reason to deprecate their honesty, it proves that power is not a conserved quantity, for of such quantities, it is never possible to make more. The amount of power in the world, it follows, is ever increasing, and the rate of increase grows ever faster as more of these engines are built. A man who hordes power is therefore like a miser who sits on a heap of coins in a realm where the currency is being continually debased by the production of more coins than the market can bear. So that what was a great fortune, when first he raked it together, insensibly becomes a slag heap, and is found to be devoid of value. When at last he takes it to the marketplace to be spent. Thus my Lord B and his vaunted power hoard what is true of him is likely to be true of his lackeys, particularly his most base and slavish followers such as Mr. Charles White. This varmint has asserted that he owns me. He fancies that to own a man is to have power, yet he has got nothing by claiming to own me, while I who was supposed to be rendered powerless, am now writing for a Grub Street newspaper that is being perused by you, esteemed reader.

Objective motives and subjective compulsions that incite a person to write is the decisive element in defining the writer’s unique voice. Anyone who does not understand oneself or is unwilling to ferret out their own buried, true identity and publicly unmask the hidden stranger that resides within us all will never be a person who can bridge a connection with other people who share similar thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs. Lacking critical discernment, this want-a-be writer will remain a cosseted imposter, playing a coldhearted game of charades. If a person is unwilling to peel back the craggy mask that we conceal ourselves behind and explore the seeds of inner awareness wrapped inside the enigma of doubt engulfing all people, one can still aim to be a writer of nonfiction or technical journals. Creative writing, in sharp contrast, is for the intrepid cliff dwellers, the recluses willing to mine the soft belly of their internal psychosis.

Meditation is your time-out with yourself. It isn’t a house party, and there is no law saying how you must feel. Keep a journal and write down how you feel before and after each meditation session. Maintain a beginner’s mind and, most importantly, connect with other like-minded people who can embrace, nourish, and support you during your practice and daily life.

Writing rescued me again. This time by showing me the error (and humor) of seeing my life as a series of unfortunate events.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Fed by the books my parents read aloud to me, when I was little I would wander around my yard imagining I was a bird, or a runaway princess, or a fairy; and I would make up narratives about what I did. That pastime blossomed into dictating stories to my family and teachers until I learned to write well myself. I have always loved to draw. I have never been sure which hobby I am more passionate about. Now, as I write this, I realize that I would not love drawing if I didn’t make up stories in my mind about the things I draw. Both of these passions come from my need to capture what I see without destroying it, to clarify images and make them mine, and to express to the world the love I have for the things I perceive.

Let the pen carry your thoughts.

I want to be practical now: how are you going to accomplish this? The answer is simple: keep a journal. It amazes me how often people call themselves writers and yet fail to write. Runners run everyday, and they know that not every run is a race. Musicians play music perpetually, but not every time they pick up the guitar is a concert. Writers, meanwhile, like to wait around for inspiration to strike. Don't wait; write! Describe, describe, describe, and find the pleasure in pinning the right words to life's incessant stream of sensations.

LOCAL SELF AS HOST FOR NONLOCAL SELF When you drop back into your daily life after meditation, you’re changed. You’ve communed with nonlocal mind for an hour, experiencing the highest possible cadence of who you are. That High Self version of you rearranges neurons in your head to create a physical structure to anchor it. You now have a brain that accommodates both the local self and the nonlocal self. My experience has been that the longer you spend in Bliss Brain, whether in or out of meditation, the greater the volume of neural tissue available to anchor that transcendent self in physical experience. Once a critical mass of neurons has wired together, a tipping point occurs. You begin to flash spontaneously into Bliss Brain throughout your day. When you’re idle for a while, like being stuck in traffic or standing in line at the grocery store, the most natural activity seems to be to go into Bliss Brain for a few moments. This reminds you, in the middle of everyday life, that the nonlocal component of your Self exists. It also brings all the enhanced creativity, productivity, and problem-solving ability of Bliss Brain to bear on your daily tasks. You become a happy, creative, and effective person. These enhanced capabilities render you much more able to cope with the challenges of life. They don’t confer exceptional luck. When everyone’s house burns down, yours does too. When the economy nosedives, it takes you with it. But because you possess resilience, and a daily experience of your nonlocal self, you take it in stride. Even when external things vanish, you still have the neural network that Bliss Brain created. No one can take that away from you. DEEPENING PRACTICES Here are practices you can do this week to integrate the information in this chapter into your life: Posttraumatic Growth Exercise 1: In your journal, write down the names of the most resilient people you’ve known personally. They can be alive or dead. They’re people who’ve gone through tragedy and come out intact. Make an appointment to spend time with at least two of the living ones in the coming month. Listen to their stories and allow inspiration to fill you. Neural Reconsolidation Exercise: This week, after a particularly deep meditation, savor the experience. Set a timer and lie down for 15 to 30 minutes. Visualize your synapses wiring together as you deliberately fire them by remembering the deliciousness of the meditation. Choices Exercise: Make 10 photocopies of illustration 7.4, the two doors. Next, analyze in what areas of your environment you often make negative choices. Maybe it’s in online meetings with an annoying colleague at work. Maybe it’s the food choices you make when you walk to the fridge. Maybe it’s the movies you watch on your TV. Tape a copy of the two doors illustration to those objects, such as the monitor, fridge, or TV. This will help you remember, when you’re under stress, that you have a choice.

The perfect person does not exist. There is no woman or man you would meet who would make you write poetry. So poets create imaginary persons who could play muses in their life. And inspire them to write. I have met many people in life, but I have always enjoyed being alone.

The perfect person does not exist. There is no woman or man you would meet who would make you write poetry.    So poets create imaginary persons who could play muses in their lives. And inspire them to write. I have met many people in life, but I have always enjoyed being alone.  

To be honest with you the perfect person does not exist. There is no woman or man you would meet who would make you write poetry. So poets create imaginary persons who could play muses in their life. And inspire them to write. I have met many people in life, but I have always enjoyed being alone.

If you do not write the thoughts of the moments, it is lost forever.

have written my first grateful thanks for a fresh new day in a new year.

Clear visions and positive goals, leads to positive actions and purposeful life.

Until you begin to write, then you will see the beauty of writing.

You will have the grace of writing, when you boldly begin to write your first sentences.

Write down your goals and let it be your guidepost.

All it takes is one word, one action, one voice. Believe in yourself, and you can accomplish anything!

If you write, then you are a writer

Journals are, to a writer, deeply personal things. The moment we put our first thoughts on their pages they become a piece of our souls. My own favorite brown leather journal is where I always turn to give my fledgling ideas flesh; I have shaped entire lives and worlds between its covers before pushing them out into the world. That book (whose cover is still hanging on by sheer miracle) became my confidant, my talisman, my security blanket, and eventually my inspiration for Alice and her own journal. When I first started brainstorming her story in its pages, I thought I was going to be telling a story about a little girl whose journal was enchanted with the ability to transform the world around her into her most secret desires. I thought it would be a story about the dangers inherent in actually getting what we want and in learning to temper our desires with the needs of others. In a way, it still is. But eventually, it was writing in my journal that changed me instead of the other way around. Now Alice Will is also about laughing at ourselves and the empty traditions we value without knowing why. It’s about taking stock in our instincts before we let our fickle brains over-rationalize us out of the right choice. It’s about learning the hard way that maturity, at any age, is no match for experience. And finally, it’s about remembering that the right thing to do is still the right thing to do when no one is looking.

Imagination, curiosity, passion, creativity these are the words that move me!

We write because the blank piece of paper and the pen are there. We write because this is our addiction and we are proud of it. Our habit, our drug, our crutch. Whatever you wish to call it. We write because since an early age we felt it deep in our souls and in our bones. The poem must be written, the story must be told and the new myths and Gods are waiting for you to bring them forth from out of the darkness and to bring them into the light of being. You are a creator, so create. You are the writer. So write.

Remember once you have your dream, write it down!

Don't worry about the consequences, just be a writer!

Service journalists. That's how an editor-in-chief described us to a roomful of corporate communicators. We are, he said, purveyors of ideas, of information and inspiration through writing intended to produce a positive response. Call what we do, then, action journalism. Transcending the mere delivery of information, it is writing with the expectation that our readers will act as a result of reading our words. And because of what we expect from them as a result of our efforts, a huge difference separates our kind of writing from the standard journalist's. They report and analyze. We report and advocate. They help sell newspapers and magazines. We help achieve organizational goals by influencing action. We create and enhance employee, shareholder, and customer confidence, build faith in corporate leadership, pride in its products. We heighten employee morale, foster belief in our company's intrinsic worth and trust in its mission. Ours is journalism with a definite slant, specific points of view, ulterior motives, particular objectives, all tilted toward the company, institution, association, or agency employing us.

Whether ideas like this are inspiration or insomnia, I don’t know,” he writes in his journal. “I do things by sixth sense.” Patton

As you decide on your daily or weekly affirmative statement, consider where you need the most change or support in your life. A relationship? Your self-image? Your professional success? You might consider choosing a “theme” for the week related to this issue and create several related affirmations to repeat during each session. Stand in front of a mirror and speak to yourself out loud in a clear, strong, and confident voice, saying affirmative positive statements that encourage and inspire you. Begin by repeating your affirmations for two to three minutes. If you want to reinforce your verbal statements, write them down in a journal as well.

But as the poet Kathleen Ossip reminds us in her Plath-inspired poem “No Use,” “Thanks to her habit of journal keeping and her resolve to memorialize her experience in writing, Sylvia forgot nothing.

Meditation and prayer work together to facilitate an active two-way relationship between ourselves and God. By adding journaling and reflective writing, we find that the Holy Spirit will use our thoughts and reflections to guide and inspire us, enriching and deepening our understanding of any challenges or difficult circumstances.

Life takes so many interesting and unexpected turns. Drawing, painting, and writing about your days can provide you with a sense of peace and a deeper understanding of your thoughts and dreams. I know that drawing can be humbling and sometimes frustrating when you first begin. But if you practice a little bit each day, you will see gratifying improvement. It is important to remember that you can approach your sketch journal from so many creative angles, expressing and releasing your memories and creativity simultaneously.

I focused on staying positive every day, despite the money issues, health challenges, and constant reminders of the fire. It took every bit of focus I possessed. Six months after the fire, in the middle of the financial crisis, after one morning’s meditation, I wrote these words in my journal: I woke up this morning feeling like I’m being cradled in the arms of God. The energy of Spirit fills every part of me with blessing. The universe radiates perfection all around me. I am cradled in this field of blessing. It holds us always in love and joy. It nudges us daily to experience the light and beauty at the core of our being. I realize that I’m 100% spiritually successful. I enjoy a life of attunement to the universe. Daily, I celebrate oneness between my human consciousness and the greater consciousness of which I am a part. That’s the ultimate goal of every life, and I’ve lived it from the beginning. I choose to remind myself of this when I’m mesmerized by the things that haven’t materialized in my material world after so many years of visioning and hard work. As I tune in to the universe’s energy, I feel mine change in response. My thoughts become ordered and inspired. I start the day feeling optimistic, positive, enthusiastic, and creative. I embody prosperity. I attune daily to the energy of prosperity, as I have been doing for so many years. I know that material reality arranges itself around the signal that my consciousness produces. The truth is that I am abundant in every possible way, including money. I choose to maintain the joy of that vibration. I celebrate every manifestation of success in my world, no matter how small. I am grateful for my life just the way it is. I remain positive no matter what. I have the most important thing attainable in any life: Oneness with the universe! I attune to its music every morning in meditation. My mind, cells, and energy field come into resonance with its song. I then move into my day inspired and aligned. What a wonderful life. After writing those words, I decided to bask in the experience. I lay down in bed and visualized the experience turning from a delicious but intangible feeling into a hardwired neural fact in my body.

we learn about the world outside us by reading, but we learn about the world inside us by writing.

reflection from the late Fr. Nouwen inspired me to journal my story. Fr. Nouwen’s reflection implies that writing can be a meaningful spiritual discipline; writing can help attune us to the stirring of our hearts and the depth of our emotions and thus give artistic expression to our experiences and memories. More so, Fr. Nouwen suggests that through writing, we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. So, writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others to read our work.

Sometimes we need to go back to the grief, to that moment, and really dig into what happened, how we suffered, how we broke, before we can start putting the pieces back together and move forward.

It is not a bad thing, this grief. It is a motivator for connecting with other mothers and families, a guide for compassion and understanding; it carries me across thresholds to a newer appreciation for the little joys in life. At times, it brings me to my knees--not in defeat, but in the cleansing tears and soul stricken prayers of a woman who is stronger than she ever has been.

My New Year Wish - Saturday, December 31, 2011 (from his online journal) A decade ago, I wrote: May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. And almost half a decade ago I said, ...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind. And for this year, my wish for each of us is small and very simple. And it's this. I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something. So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

Boileau said that kings, gods, and heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren’t very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor.... But the poor are still in the open. When they make a struggle it is an heroic struggle with starvation, death or imprisonment the penalty if they lose. And since our race admires gallantry, the writer will deal with it where he finds it. He finds it in the struggling poor now.

You should never write what the world wants to read - instead write about everything you want the world to read.

Another approach might be to select a favorite Scripture passage and pour out to your journal your understanding of it, your questions about its meaning, and your thoughts about its relevance to you and your life. Passages from Scripture often have special meaning to individuals, and it sometimes seems that God is communicating directly to you via the inspired sacred words of the

Never doubt the genius in your ideas. As soon as a dope thought comes to you, WRITE IT DOWN! Pick up your pen and bring your stroke of genius to life.

Find What Inspires You Inspiration does not always come to us in a flash. We often have to go in search of it, especially when we feel stuck. Finding inspiration means discovering the things that make you excited—even when they have nothing to do with your art practice. If you go on a trip, you might find inspiration in architecture, landscapes, or traditional patterns found in old cultures. Whatever speaks to you, infuse these visual stimuli from your life into your work. To work through anxieties or find out what ignites your interest, it helps to carry a journal to do daily entries. Maintaining a journal with both written and visual thoughts is a long-standing tradition among artists that helps you ignite creativity and work through blocks. There is no right or wrong way to keep a journal. You can use a book with lined or unlined pages; it can be a written diary with stream-of-consciousness thoughts or a purely visual notebook with pages of drawings. One thing that is helpful, though, is to choose a journal size that is portable, so that you can carry it around with you. Make a habit of writing or drawing in your journal every day. Some days you’ll have only a quick five minutes and other days a whole hour to devote to it. Don’t worry about whether your writing makes sense or your ideas or drawings are any good. Eventually a pattern will emerge that will help unlock your mission as an artist and even identify new avenues for exploration.

Without written goals, we fail to plan and to run with single-minded purpose.

Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it. I go to my typewriter with reluctance; I check the ribbon; I check my black felt pens; I polish my collection of spectacles; finally I start to put words, almost any words, down on paper. Usually, then, the words themselves will start to flow; they push me, rather than vice versa.