Why We're Here, and Why It's Low Pressure
Hi. I'm Brenda.
Before I say anything else, how are you doing? Really. Not the small-talk answer. If today's been a lot, that's fine, you're in the right place. This whole class is built for people who've had a lot.
So let's talk about why we're here.
Why this class exists
I'm not a therapist. I'm not a writer, not really, not the kind with a book or anything like that. I wait tables at Balefire and I journal because it helps me, and somebody asked me to teach it, and I said heck yes before I really thought it through.
I got into this by accident. I was running on fumes after a double shift, read about "morning pages" on a hiking blog of all places (I read hiking reviews the way some people read scripture, don't ask me to explain that), and I tried it mostly to complain onto paper before work. Turned out complaining onto paper is its own kind of relief. Nobody warned me about that part.
So that's the whole pitch. I'm not selling you a system. I just think this works and I'd rather you find out cheap, in a folding chair, with me, than pay somebody online sixty dollars for a course with a workbook you'll never finish.
Why it's low pressure
Here's my one real opinion, the one I'll probably repeat all six weeks: there's no right way to do this. Anybody who tells you there's a right way is selling you a system. Morning pages, gratitude lists, rambling nonsense at 11pm, copying down a grocery list you found in a drawer, it all counts as journaling if it gets your thoughts out of your skull and onto a page.
I mean that last one literally, by the way. A list is a kind of diary if you're paying attention.
I found a grocery list once in my mother's handwriting, tucked inside one of her old letters after she passed. Bananas. Thread. "Call Ruth." Three little items and I've read that scrap of paper probably fifty times. I copied it straight into my own notebook because it told me more about her Tuesday than most of her letters did. She wasn't trying to say anything profound. She was just trying to remember to buy thread. And now it's one of my favorite things she ever wrote.
That's the bar. That's the whole bar. If a grocery list can end up meaning something, you don't have to write beautifully to get something out of this.
What we won't be doing
We won't be grading anything. Nobody's reading your notebook but you, ever, unless you choose to share out loud, and even then it's optional every single time. I'll ask. You can say no. I won't make a thing of it.
We also won't be chasing a streak. I know the apps and the calendars make you feel like missing a day undoes everything. I think that pressure is what makes people quit for good. Miss a week if you need to. Come back with no ceremony, no apology tour, no "sorry I fell off." You didn't fall off anything. You were just living your life.
Spelling doesn't matter. Handwriting doesn't matter (mine's a disaster, genuinely, adn I've made peace with it). If you write a sentence that trails off into nothing because you got tired, that counts too.
What to actually bring
Get a cheap notebook. I mean this, don't overthink it. Spiral, from the checkout aisle at Macey's, three dollars, whatever's there. My husband bought me a lovely leather one for Christmas once and I couldn't write in it for six weeks because it felt too nice to mess up. A cheap notebook has never once judged me.
Bring a pen you like. That's it. That's the supply list.
What we'll actually do in here
Short bit of talking from me, like this, then I'll give you something to write about and we'll all write for five or seven minutes. Then I'll ask if anyone wants to share. Nobody has to. I'll usually go first with something small from my own notebook, partly to break the ice and partly because I think it helps to hear that mine's just as ordinary as anybody's.
Some weeks the prompt will land for you and some weeks it won't. Both are fine. Write around it, write past it, write "I don't know what to write" three times if that's honestly where you are. That's still writing.
Before next time: just get yourself a notebook, nothing fancy, and maybe flip through an old drawer or a box of your own for a scrap of somebody's handwriting, a list, a note, anything. Bring it if you find one. No pressure if you don't. 😊