Blank pages: Unblocking your Journaling Blocks

[salixj]

We've all been there. We all faced that page of our journal, and our minds have constricted. What can we write? What should we write?

The main purpose is this blog and the method of journal that I have set up, is to allow you to have something to say even when you are constricted. The format on the first page, if you do it daily, will at least have you writing something, and also allow you to expand, on the second page, into greater detail about one of the basics you wrote about on page one: night report (sleep and dreams)  beauty (something you have experienced that day which has struck you as beautiful), gifts (either challenges or presents), learned (something you now know that you didn't know. If you are working on a goal you can write about that.

Still and all sometimes the above isn't enough, doesn't inspire.

What to do when you have something in you but feel as if you can't get it out? 

Time to play. 

Grab a pen, grab some markers, colored pencils or even crayons, open up a time and turn to the first completely blank page in your journal.

Now, set the time for one minute, and for the next one minute scatter whatever word comes to your mind over the page. Make the words big or small, twist the journal so the words aren't going in the same line or direction, don't think just write. Times up? Draw a circle or cloud or other open shape around each word. Decorate the words if you want. Now set the timer for two minutes, and link up words that seem to connect to you. Not all words will connect to anything. Perhaps none have. 

In either case look through your words, and choose at least five of them. If you have linked any words make sure to use all of them.

Settle back and use the words or word groups in sentences. For instance if you wrote and connected the words "elegant and sapphire" you might write "The woman looked elegant in her sapphire cloak."

Examine the sentences you have written. What do they invoke in you? What are the emotions that they bring? Are all the emotions similar or do they differ? Does any event or person come to mind when you read them? Is a story coming to your mind? If so, write!