The power of visual journaling to connect you to your inner wisdom.

I recently had a wonderful conversation with Lisa Sonora, one of my mentors in visual journaling. We talked about how visual journaling supports me in my life, touching upon topics such as: 

• The value of harvesting, which is the practice of going back and reviewing your journals, mining then for actionable insights and ideas, (16:03)
• Drawing your letters and words so that meanings and connections are revealed (7:32), and 
• Upending perfectionism. (17:32) Through the process of making page spreads, I started noticing my drive to make the pages perfect, doing them over and over, pushing myself to meet some ideal. I also started noticing the feeling in my body of wanting to have something be perfect, which I had never noticed before. In an encounter at work, I noticed that same feeling in my body, which got my attention, and prompted me to decide to move through my work processes differently. 

As I share in the video, I found the pages to be a rehearsal space for noticing deep patterns, emotions, and ways of being. The process of journaling and REFLECTING on the journaling allowed me to slow down enough to catch these patterns when they showed up in other realms.

Being able to see my patterns, gave me options for changing the entrenched habits. 

You don’t have to be an artist to benefit from combining images and words.

In fact, all you have to do to start is cut out a few images from a magazine and glue them down or add splotches of color on the page. Then make a list about what’s on your mind, something you noticed that day, or a question that you’re exploring. You will be amazed to see how the combination of image and words sparks something new – something that you hadn’t known was there. 

You can watch the video below or download a pdf transcript of the interview here.