Writing for your mind.

A journal entry.

A friend of mine has recently started a new collective that focuses on spirituality and healing yourself. She is truly an inspiration to me, even though I have known her for less than a year. Reading some of the words she has shared on her new endeavour, I have felt a real urge to show up for myself, and to produce work that I am really proud of. So, even if she doesn’t see this, I hope she knows how much she inspires me, and those around her.

Writing has become really important for me over the last two years. It has been an outlet for me, as well as a way of expressing myself in the purest, most comfortable way possible, for me. The longer I’ve been writing consistently for, I have pushed myself to write from deeper places, to expose more of myself in the words I write. I think this has almost been a self-imposed therapeutic response to everything that I had been clinging onto for however long, and it’s done me a world of good, in so many aspects of my life.

Plenty Gorge, Victoria, Australia. Taken on Kodak Portra 400 35mm film, by Charlotte Hack.

I had so many preconceived ideas on what writing poetry should be when I decided to start writing consistently. Whilst there are some ‘rules’ to poetry, good poetry is subjective to what you like to read. I was writing my first poems as if everyone were to read them, which I think affected the way I wrote, and actually made the poems pretty crap. I refused to really think about what I was writing, and was hesitant to add any actual meaning to the words I was conjuring up. Once I started writing as if no one was reading, I found the treasure. I felt better. I felt better about what I was writing, I didn’t care how much interaction a poem got if I chose to share it online. I was slowly letting go of craving to be ‘discovered’ by every man and their dog, and was writing for myself, because then the people who wanted to read my work, would find me.

Writing then became a way for me to understand myself better. It has also shaped me into who I find myself being today, and I am grateful for the persistence I have shown to this practice that had started as just an arbitrary moment of word vomit. It has become such an important part of my life as it gives me space to breath, and gives my brain the chance to process what is gushing through it. I am truly happier after finding peace in such a serene practice. Sometimes losing my mind feels positive, now that I know I can and I will write about. Is this what having it all together feels like? Probably not, but I’ll keep telling myself that it is.

Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia. Taken on Kodak Portra 400 35mm film, by Charlotte Hack.

Bearing myself to a page initially absent of emotion or meaning feels reassuring. The more I add to the page, the more whole I become. I find such a solace in adding words to a page, whether they make sense or not. I find friends in pages of words, find myself being able to reflect on my existence, the good and the bad, and am a better person because of it. I want to learn and I want to grow. I want to be the person I knew I always could be. And, thanks to opening my eyes to the world of writing, I am on my way there.

To end this short, very reflective piece, I hope someone is inspired to write and to read. Connect with yourself. Fill up your own cup. Put the love you put into other people back into yourself. Love who you are now, who you once were, and who you will go on to be. Let it happen.