Journal – Oct. ’05 – May ’06 – Photo: L. Weikel
Why I Journal
Very recently I’ve had occasion to wonder aloud about specific experiences or recollections associated with particular dates. (Let me say right here that I apologize profusely for that sentence. It’s a stinker. And I’ve tried fifteen ways from Sunday to rewrite it but it refuses to improve, no matter what I do to it.)
Instead of resting on that outrageous conglomeration of words, let me give you three examples:
You may recall that I mentioned in my post about the Eclipse Season we’re right now in the thick of experiencing, that this particular configuration has not occurred since 2001-ish. And I mentioned that this is a time of major, dramatic change for many people.
It’s often instructive to go back in our memories and look for ourselves to see what, if anything, we were experiencing when a major aspect is heading toward us in the present. Well, that can sound great, but I don’t know about you, but quite honestly, I have a hard time remembering much of anything with specificity from last month, much less 18 years ago.
Cue the Fanfare For Keeping a Journal
Because I keep one, I was able to go back and recall my greatest concerns and challenges of that time. It’s a little wild to recall that I published my book; was by my father’s side when he passed away; and took a new job in a brand new field (development) while uncovering my ‘inner activist,’ whom I’m astonished had kept herself hidden even from me for basically the first 40 years of my life. Not to mention, this was all leading up to my trip to Tuva (Siberia) in ’03 which completely changed the course of my life.
I guarantee, I would not have realized and ‘put together’ all of those life events as having taken place in such a short span of time if I could not read it in black and white. (OK, in my case, it’s written in blue, black, and purple, predominantly, but you get my point.)
Second Situation
The second situation that occurred recently was a question someone asked me about a session they had with me 13 years ago. As anyone whose had a session with me in the past, oh, 11 or 12 years knows, I write a comprehensive ‘follow-up’ email to every client, usually the day after our session. These often take me at least two hours to write up precisely because they are so detailed. Interestingly, I often end up going into a ‘zone’ while I write my follow-ups that sometimes yields additional information or helps me remember even more detail than I might have said out loud the day before, in the session.
The Value of Follow-Ups
But when I first began offering sessions 15 years ago, I did not know enough to offer a written follow-up. I had no idea how valuable keeping track of all of the details I would glean in a session could be to a client. It was only through realizing for myself just how much information I was conveying did I conclude that, if it were me, I’d love a comprehensive record to look back upon of the salient aspects of what took place in my session.
Thus, when my client contacted me and asked what I could remember of a situation that took place back in 2006 (actually, we weren’t even sure at first when the session happened, so fuzzy were our memories) my initial thought was to check my emails. There was no follow up written to her. There were, though, a few emails that referenced the session, which actually enabled us to figure out the exactdate of our work together.
Given that this was still early in my ‘career’ as a shamanic practitioner, I realized I might have written about the experience in my journal, for each and every session was a really big deal to me. (Not that they aren’t now, too – believe me. It’s just that I am more disciplined now with the follow-ups.)
Chock full of life’s details – Photo: L. Weikel
Once Again, Cue the Fanfare For Keeping a Journal.
Yes. Pictured with this post is my journal from October 3, 2005 – May 28, 2006. As you can see, it’s chock full of all sorts of stuff, not least being an amazing amount of detail from the session my client was seeking information about. As a result? I was able to write a startlingly comprehensive follow-up report to my client 13 years after the fact. Needless to say, we were both delighted.
Finally, on a perhaps lesser monumental but nevertheless impressive scale, just today I was able to reference back four months and give someone specific details I’d recorded about a message from Spirit that had come from a most unexpected source. Even more astonishing was the fact that the person I was speaking with today had received a dream the very next night, which directly correlated with the information I’d been given by Spirit.
I Will Aways, Always Cue the Fanfare For Keeping a Journal
I cannot emphasize enough the value of keeping track of the details of our lives. It is because I keep such detailed journals that I am able to write my books. But even beyond that, it’s because I track the details of the amazing occurrences that happen in my life that I’m able to see the connections; I’m able to appreciate the magic Spirit brings into my life – and how it happens on an astonishingly frequent basis.
So many ‘synchronicities’ are happening all around us, all the time. But we need to pay attention and keep track if we’re going to ‘get the message’ – and do something with it.
(T-870)