visual journaling

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The HeART of Spirituality – Journey from Dark to Light

The theme for July is “Journey”.  Held a special 4 hour – yes, count ’em FOUR hours of creative energy – workshop yesterday.  The participants focused on a painful experience, what strengths they developed as a result of the pain and how God’s love or “the universe’s grace” touched them.  

People could share as much or as little as they chose.  It was a wonderful group of women.  (All you men, where are you?!!!!)

Take a look at a sample of wonderful paintings and mini-journals the participants created yesterday!

To see all the paintings and journal pages click HERE!

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Process painting, Journey from Dark to Light

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“Everything in life ministers to our development. Our lesson is to study and learn… Tests are either stumbling blocks or stepping stones, just as we make them.” Abdu’l-Baha, The Baha’i World Faith

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Mini journal – 2- page spread

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Sneak a Peek into my Journal

Visual journaling is more fun for me than written –  I rarely reread my written entries but can look at the visual pages and know instantly what was happening, what I wanted to express (and things I wasn’t consciously aware of expressing!).

I also rarely reread what I write on the blog but the last post on gratitude stuck in my mind.  So here’s my gratitude page AND the process I used . . . in REVERSE ORDER!

Step 3

Added squiggly lines and pastels

This is the finished page – I lost interest in the left side!
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Sept 3: Added squiggly lines and pastels

Step 2

Smeared gesso (white paint works too) over the magazine images to blur them

Finished page - I lost interest in the left side! Paint, collage, pastel

Step 2:  Smeared gesso (white) over top of pictures

Step 1

  • I don’t like working on a white page so I spread paint on the blank page. Cut out about 20 pictures
  • Focused on my “gratitude” and picked pictures that caught my attention.
  • Pasted them down.  Didn’t matter they got wrinkled – just adds texture!
pasted magazine pictures

Step 1: pasted magazine pictures onto page that I smeared with paint.

Can you figure out what the focus of my gratitude was?

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Tutorial, Processing Your Creative Journal Pages

Spontaneous Journaling
1. Find a photo of yourself at your CURRENT age.  (you can photo-copy the face)
2.From a magazine cut out the body of someone you would like to look like
3.  Paste your head/face on the body, pasting both in your journal.
NOW . . .
  • Focus your attention on your portrait picture.
  • Imagine that the portrait is communicating intuitively with you and she’s telling you something about herself
  • Imagine your portrait is dictating and you are writing down what it dictates:
  • Complete each statement below as quickly as possible
  • Do not think or judge, just write.
  • Do NOT edit, even if it makes no sense to you.
(This is what I spontaneously wrote  (in italics) when I looked at my picture)

I want you to know that I look terrible as a blond!
  • I think others will stare at me and not approve
  • I feel like having fun
  • I look like I don’t care what others think
  • I am happy that I don’t care what others think
  • I am sad I don’t have the guts to dress this way more often
  • I am fearful I am too old to ever dress this way
  • I am mad I was so conservative in my youth
  • I want                       to buy a wig and go incognito and listen to what people say about me
  • I look a bit foolish
  • I like to be myself
  • My secret is I shop in stores for teenagers wishing I was young enough to wear the crazy clothes

Processing
How do the statements reflect your current attitudes, situations, desires, life, hopes, fears etc.?
I’m a psychotherapist and I am not suppose to look or act crazy — at least not in public.  As my closest friends know I can be a bit, how should I say, whimisical. . . ., creative . . .  I love things that are a little out of the mainstream.  And I ADORE color.  The more colorful the better.   There is a big part of me that would just like to cut loose and wear anything I wanted.  My picture is telling me that not wanting to look foolish and people not approving is still a big enough part that it actually wins out most of the time
I think I need to talk to her more about my wardrobe.