Before introducing you to the method,
let me tell you briefly how I discovered this truly amazing personal growth and
creativity tool. At the time, I was a professional artist and teacher. I had
never had any therapy and the farthest thing from my mind was becoming a
psychologist or writing books about personal growth.
I was in a major crisis after five years of coping with divorce, family
illness, several moves, job changes and raising two young daughters on my own.
My body finally broke down from too much stress and I became very ill.
The nature of my disease was quite mysterious: it confounded all the doctors
and terrified me. My symptoms? Complete exhaustion, anxiety attacks, and several
infections (side-effects of antibiotics and other medications). At one point, my
lab test was mixed up with someone else's and I was given the wrong
prescription. By the time I was told, it was too late. I had already taken the
medicine and was having reactions: more infections, more anxiety attacks.
Unable to work or do much of anything else, I was in bed for weeks. I began
doodling and writing in a sketch pad that sat on my bed stand. Reading The Diary
of Anais Nin inspired me to turn my sketch pad into a personal journal.
| Here
is a drawing I did in one of my first journals. It's called "Coping
with Crisis."

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Another
drawing done at this time was one that I called "Giving Birth to
Myself."

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When I did these drawings I really had do idea what they meant. It was like
having a dream on paper.
I was later to learn that I had tapped into the creative and healing power of
my right brain (which specializes in visual/spatial perception as well as
emotional and intuitive expression). But I didn't know that at the time.
Frankly, I thought I was losing it. They looked like the paintings of mental
patients you might see in the occupational therapy ward of a psychiatric
hospital .
Yet, these odd little sketches intrigued me. It was as if I was writing in a
foreign language that I didn't understand. The important thing was that I felt a
lot better after I did these drawings. Something about doing this was healing
me, although I couldn't tell you how or why. Later, I learned to read the
language of symbols and decode these mysterious messages from the unconscious.
Just as you will learn to do in keeping a Creative Journal.
Doing these drawings felt so therapeutic that I decided to keep a journal of
my feelings and thoughts. My first "official journal" was a little
blank book I had bought twenty years before when I was fifteen and thought I
wanted to be a journalist . (How's that for prophetic wisdom?). I had never
written a word in that book. But I started. And I have not stopped writing
since. The Creative Journal healed me and led to a new career as an art
therapist and author. I am pleased to share with you what I learned about the
art of finding yourself.
The Creative Journal Method is unique because it develops both sides
of the brain: the rational, verbal left hemisphere and the artistic, intuitive
right hemisphere. Drawing is a right brain function, writing words is primarily
a left brain activity. Using the non dominant hand helps to INTEGRATE the brain
hemispheres. Writing with the hand you don't normally write with allows
you to express - in words - feelings and intuitions associated with the
little-used right side of the brain.