The Sunday Morning Journalling Club: June 2024
Journalling Session: Emotion; Lessons; New Perspective
I would love to welcome you all to June’s TSMJC session, recorded in place of the live session this month and so available to all subscribers, free and paid.
Although I will very much miss being on the live call with our wonderful community of journallers from across the globe, I am really pleased to be able to offer this particular space for you all to write with me this month!
As always, you will find that I begin with an explanation of the session and a chance for us to check in with ourselves before we write, followed by three all-new prompts.
Each prompt is way more than just one question. We begin with an image, followed by my thinking and there are usually coaching questions, maybe a quotation from another writer or words to inspire you. Then, we write together to beautiful music for about 20 minutes. I will bring the session to a gentle close with another opportunity to check back in with yourself.
It absolutely doesn’t need to be June for you to watch it, so save it for when you are ready to write with me.
A little note: this recording isn’t perfect. You’ll possibly be able to hear that my voice was a little raspy and one of my images briefly wouldn’t load up. I had debated with myself whether to rerecord the session - but then, in the spirit of this newsletter, I decided to try to accept the imperfections here.
I know that you won’t mind either of these things and they don’t have any real impact on the flow of the session. But believe me when I say that this decision to leave the imperfect exactly as it is marks quite a step for me! Previously, I would have made sure that I recorded it again, no matter the time or effort it took me. And to be honest, it’s a little uncomfortable for me to release it including the parts that I wish I could change - but the fact that I have shows me how far I have come. Maybe there’s something more for me to uncover from the second prompt today. You’ll know what I mean when you watch it!
I will so look forward to being back with the live session next month, which will be on July 28th - you can reserve your free space here.
In the meantime, I wish you a wonderful month and a journalling journey that brings exactly what you need.
I would absolutely love to know how you have found this session! Please do leave me a little comment to share which prompt spoke to you the most, what your writing gave you or how you feel having written.
Links to Resources Mentioned:
You can read more about the work of Sharon Blackie here. Hagitiude was the book that I referenced.
Here’s the video clip featuring Benjamin Zepheniah.
This article reveals the story of ‘Earthrise’.
Thank you for this beautiful session Katie. Hope you have wonderful travels.
Thought I'd share a few thoughts that popped up in response to these prompts.
The first prompt I found especially useful to reflect on - I had a situation in the past year where I had felt really anxious but as I sat with the feeling over time I realised that I what I was actually feeling was anger and I just didn't know how to process it so it turned into anxiety instead. Almost the opposite of the CS Lewis quote you shared! I'm hoping that like the four stages of grief it's something that will slowly shift into acceptance and I'm sure your questions will be helpful in that journey. 💕
For the second prompt it reminded me that I often think about the lessons teachers teach that aren't just the curriculum. My example is always how my childhood piano teacher taught me to laugh at my mistakes (which I made a lot of!) and try again rather than worry about them which I think is a great lesson for many things not just piano.
Finally the third prompt reminded me of how we think of the moon as having phases and different shapes, but I feel it's often forgotten that the Earth (and all the planets) will have the same effect played out on their surface so that from space the Earth will seem to get bigger and smaller depending on what position it's viewed from and where the sun is as only the Earth that is lit will show up. I'm not sure why but this is a reflection that stuck with me after I visited the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition in London, something about the fact that the Earth that we see as such a constant going through this same cycle felt like a bit shift in thought, though maybe it shouldn't be!
Thanks for a lovely journalling session and look forward to hopefully joining the next one live again :)