Following the Buoyant Matrix™ journaling process can help you remove your true self from a prison of your own design.
[I]f you don’t speak your emotions you serve them, and if you don’t
JR Moehringer, ghostwriter of Prince Harry’s book, Spare
tell your story you lose it—or, what might be worse, you get lost inside it.
Telling is how we cement details, preserve continuity, stay sane.
We say ourselves into being every day, or else.
Feeling Trapped
In the film, Dead Poet’s Society, student Neil Perry shares a painful reality with his teacher, Mr. Keating. He says that his father is making him quit the play in which he has the lead part. Acting is all Neil wants to do—it is his passion. Keating encourages him to tell his father how he feels and that his biggest dream is to pursue acting.
Neil fears telling his father the truth and desperately asks if there is an easier way. Keating tells him there isn’t. In a gut-wrenching moment, Neil looks up at Keating, forces a smile through tears, and says, “I’m trapped.”
We are all Neil Perry when we turn away from who we truly are. When we stop honoring what it is we really want and instead don a cloak of the expectations fashioned by others. When we place ourselves inside the confinement of living a small life so as to not ruffle the feathers of anyone who abandoned their dreams.
Fearing what others may think if we pursue our passion, we walk right behind the prison bars, close the door, turn the lock, and chuck the keys out of reach.
Life in prison can come in other, more subtle and nearly imperceptible ways. We elect to live behind bars when we cleverly create a schedule and daily life that prohibits our ability to hear ourselves think. When we are too busy, distracted, and numbed out to possibly know what it is we really crave for our lives.
When we knowingly or unknowingly refuse to hear the daily calls from our souls to listen, change course.
The Journaling Process is the Brass Key to Your Inner Creativity
I know this pain. This used to be me.
Not only was I excellent at consciously turning away from what I knew to be true, I was also a champion of creating daily habits and rituals that ensured I’d be too tired, frenetic, and fuzzy-headed to ever hear the bids from the depths of my authentic self.
Once imprisoned, how do we find our way out?
We can call ourselves home by engaging the journaling process.
There is something about working with paper, a pen or pencil, and other mark-making tools that places the jail key into our palms. It is an alchemy of the highest order with unusual powers to return us to an energetic state of agency.
I wrote about the power of the journaling process in my book, BUOYANT:
Our stalwart defense against paralyzing inertia? A journal. Seemingly powerless and small next to our fear, a journal can transport us to the shores of safety and calm. By writing, sketching, painting, or collaging in our journals, we can turn the valve and release the river of our creativity.
A journal is where we work things out. Where we air our frustrations, worry, anger, pain. A place where we celebrate, exalt, express our joy. It is a protected zone where we can take risks, try on ideas, and search for connections and solutions. A journal is our atlas to the world of possibility. When we have a lock on a state of possibility, we find opportunities everywhere.
The journaling process is how we bring our brains back online and slip into a different channel for accessing our most clear thinking. It is how we say/create ourselves into being each day.
Stay sane.
The Buoyant Matrix™ Journaling Process
I recently took my journaling process to an entirely new level and codified it so I could teach it to others. I call it The Buoyant Matrix™.
The Buoyant Matrix™ is a whole-brain journaling process I have developed for writers, visionary leaders, thinkers, and entrepreneurs. Think streamlined, liberating (joyful) ideation meets the best your strategic mind has to offer meets your soulful, creative center.
Release fear of judgment, Perfectionism, and the cultural lie of Optimizing for Productivity.
It’s a delicious way to surface what you most want to say, teach, and convey to those you most want to reach, impact, and transform.
Dot connecting. Finally getting your hands around how to articulate your unique voice and vision.
If you are seeking an easier way to surface your Big Ideas, find the through-lines in your work, and rediscover your creative mojo in a state of calm confidence, you’ll love this journaling process.
It is an incredibly fun and powerful way to access your intuition and intellect.
Step out from behind the bars. Set yourself free.
