any of these comments sound familiar?I CAN'T WRITE: It is one of the most common objections I hear.Does this mean you can't write like you were taught in publicschool? Well, neither can I. Writing in your journal requiresthat you gently question and ultimately keep only those rulesthat serve your purposes. It doesn't mean that you won'texperience some ambivalence, while selecting your rules. Itmeans that you will learn to write more from your heart, whichis the ultimate goal of keeping a journal.MY WRITING ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH: The basis of this objection isperfectionism. Have you heard yourself say, "My cooking isn'tgood enough." Or my hair doesn't look good enough." There aremany more examples like these. Remember that journaling is anexploration, not only of ideas, but of the act of writing. Asyou write each journal entry, you are practicing how to write,as well as wh...

...at to write. The only expectations that you shouldmeet are that you show up to journal and fill as much of eachpage as you can. I'M NOT CREATIVE ENOUGH: I believe that everyone is creative.Creative skills differ from person to person. Whenever you writea journal entry, you are creating something new. Writing ajournal entry is creative, because you are sharing something newwith yourself, with God or others. For example, I've wanted tocreate images from doodles in my journal for a long time. Theclosest that I came was to fill up a page with lines and draw afaint image over the background. I couldn't make a distinctimage. This morning I finally created a completed one image froma doodle. Is the image creative? Yes. Would it win a prize? No.Was I happy about completing it? Absolutely yes. Now, I'm nolonger limited to just creating doodles in my journal.I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY: This statement is not true. Everyonehas an opinion. Everyone has some topic that they can discusswith other people. What really can stop you from speaking out,is worrying about what others will think of you, worrying aboutsounding foolish, and worrying about others ignoring you.Unfortunately, some people might be unkind to you, socialsituations are sometimes unpredictable. However, in your journalyou can write as many opinions as you want. As you become moreconfident in writing your journal entries, you will begin toexplore many other subjects and ideas.PERMISSION: It's very important that you say yes to yourself, asyou begin to journal. Some people have experienced resistancefrom family, friends or themselves about what, when or if theyshould journal. For example, I needed permission internally andfrom God, so I could restart my journaling practice. Severalyears before, a relative, had read my journal without askingpermission. I stopped journaling for quite awhile. In 1990, mypastor encouraged our church to start writing our prayers to Godin a prayer journal. I asked God for the ability to trust andcourage to start writing again. He helped me start journalingagain. A secondary result was that I started laughing more andworrying less. I wrote more prayers to God and experienced moreanswers to those prayers. I felt relieved that I had a safeplace to write again. You have learned about some of the most common objections.You've also learned that these objections can prevent you fromjournaling regularly. Choose one objection that resonates with you. Keep the objectionin mind, as you journal for the next week or so. See if thisobjection or others appears to interrupt your journaling. Makesure to write a few notes about your experience. If you don'tsense any objections when you start to journal. Then that'swonderful, too. If you do, repeat some of the exercises, againand see what happens. No matter what happens when you journal, keep on journaling,.it's the best remedy for your own personal objections to writingin your journal and a great way to explore them....