Writing the Chapters of Your Life: Surprising Insights Using This Special Journaling TechniqueWritten by Patti Testerman
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as bylines are included and resource box is left unchanged. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated. Writing Chapters of Your Life: Surprising Insights Using This Special Journaling Technique Copyright 2004 Patti Testerman Journal Genie, The Website That Talks Back http://www.journalgenie.comList-making is a favorite journaling technique and is often used to quickly jot down a numbered record on topics like “my beliefs,” “my pet peeves,” “the things I hate about myself,” or “my strengths.” However, there’s a special type of list technique that moves beyond a simple itemization and into realm of significant self-awareness. This special technijque has several names, including table-of-contents, life chapters, and stepping-stones, latter term used by journaling expert, Ira Progoff. Using this technique writer lists their most important life events, as though they were chapter headings in an autobiography. Progoff and other suggest keeping number of items to around a dozen, to ensure inclusion of only major events. One writer’s listed these items: 1. Brother died when I was three years old. 2. Mom went into hospital when I was five, and I didn’t know why or when she would come home. 3. Grandma died when I was ten, and because of my age they wouldn’t let me go to hospital and see her. 4. Dad died of a sudden heart attack when I was 15. I was with him but couldn’t save his life. 5. I fell in love but we lived in different cities and things just never seemed to work out. 6. My step-father died—how could this happen? 7. My long-distance love affair ended. 8. I fell in love again and thought it was for a lifetime. 9. I got married and was happy, at least for a long time. 10. I got divorced. It wasn’t for a lifetime.
| | Keep a Dream Journal: Why Bother?Written by Patti Testerman
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as bylines are included and resource box is left unchanged. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated. Keep a Dream Journal: Why Bother? Copyright 2004 Patti Testerman Journal Genie, The Website That Talks Back http://www.journalgenie.comKeep a Dream Journal: Why Bother? Want a key to unlock your inner wisdom? Try keeping a dream journal. Experts believe that our nighttime dreams deal with concerns, worries, or events that we experience during our waking hours. A study done in 2003 speculated that about 50-percent of people have work-related nightmares. In brief, dreams are like moves that streams through our minds, directed and produced by our subconscious. Dreams can help solve knotty problems, or simply give voice to ongoing issues. Some dreamers even implant a before-bed suggestion to dream a solution to a specific problem, like “tonight’s dream will help me overcome my problem with Jack.” The connection between dreams and our subconscious has been speculated on for centuries. In fact, Aristotle theorized that there is a definite connection between dreams, emotional needs and waking experiences. However, in order to take full advantage of our nighttime movies, we need to keep dream journals that record as much detail as can be remembered. To fully understand our dreams, experts like Carl Jung and Ira Progoff, believe a series of dreams must be examined, not just a single night’s images. To assist in interpretative process, following steps are suggested: 1. Date and time your dream. You may find that dreams you have just before waking have different themes than those right after going to sleep. When you date your dream, don’t forget to include year.
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