As we near the end of June, I near the end of my current visual journal. This beauty has seen me through some ups and downs these past two months, as I’ve navigated major life changes and shifts.

Being able to keep coming back to the page in order to work out my shit, my internal shit, before I meet all the external shit is a gift. Is a massive gift I take for myself in the name of self-care.

Before visual journaling came along, I did keep a journal but it was maybe a lined notebook sometimes plain paper and pen. Simple and effective and got me through a lot of life’s changes.

But when 2015 came along and my life changed forever, words on the plain page would never be enough again. Could never be enough to express all the turbulence and upheavals within my life. I needed more and I also needed to feel safe.

So paints and images and quotes and collage and photography and text came together, merged and played off of one another to provide the time and space and safety I needed to have an ongoing, developing and becoming conversation with myself.

I feel blessed now to know I get to do this / {BE} this daily. I give myself the opportunity to get off this merry-go-round of life and take deeper breaths, while being in communion with myself, checking in on myself, making sure I’m okay and if not what I need to do in order to get back to being okay. But all in good time and a few visual journal spreads later.

This is one of my self-care practices which I am truly grateful for.

I’ll be sharing some more spreads, images and reflections on this process over the summer as this practice is multifaceted in terms of all the goodness of offers me. I gain insight, clarity and love in the present moment of the practice. But I also gain a lot of joy in the looking back over pages, reliving the feelings within my body of the practice. I also gain pleasure from sharing this practice with others.

Check out further posts to come.