Sunday 15th December 2024

Hello and happy Sunday!

Firstly, I am so sorry I was not able to send you the newsletter last Sunday. We had Storm Darragh here and had no power for nearly three days. 

On top of this a 60-70ft tree came down right next to where I park my car. Luckily I had moved the car half an hour before! It was on our land so we had a lot of chainsaw-ing and clearing up to do. 

Thankfully no-one was hurt but it was a crazy weekend which began with all of our chickens being attacked by either a fox or a mink. They sadly didn't survive which was very sad, especially for our daughter who loved those chickens so much. They were definitely a part of the family.

So, after that I feel I have a few extra things to process in my weekly offload session later today.

I wonder how your week has been and whether you feel you have things to process before you start the week again. Or did you have a calm peaceful week where you felt like each thing that happened was processed there and then?

Of course with the holidays approaching, work can become intense with the pressure of trying to tie up loose ends before we go on a break. I hope that you won't be putting too much pressure on yourself to do this and will also be able to leave some things to tackle with a fresh mind in January.

Sometimes important and essential tasks become more urgent than they really need to be. It is emergency situations that really show me my genuine essentials. Like the power cut of last weekend where we had to focus on finding light, heat and water (our water is controlled by an electric pump as we are on a bore-hole so we have no water in a power cut unfortunately). It forced me to readdress what I thought were essential tasks up to that point. It shows that 'essential' can be relative and can shift and change depending on whether or not our basic needs are met. 

This brings to mind Abraham Maslow's 'Hierarchy of needs' where underneath our top level priorities we have basic needs like water, light, food, heat, relationships and a means to getting all of these things. 

We can only move up the triangle when we have our basic needs met. So if we have struggles in the bottom part of the triangle, it is these we need to attend to first. This can be one reason why moving house or having issues with any of those basic services can be so stressful. We may have many top level issues that need to be attended to, but if we are still trying to negotiate our basic needs, then this will cause a background level of stress that will make it hard to concentrate on anything else.

If you would like to read more about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, here is a post I found online that gives a very good overview of it.

Expressive writing / Therapeutic Journaling Sessions

I have been testing a live Sunday evening expressive writing session on YouTube for the past few months. This has been a great experience, but one thing I have started to wonder is whether it would be better to offer a group session where there could be more opportunities to share with others and ask questions. I also think that focusing on specific issues may be helpful as a focus for the group. 

With this in mind I have started working on offering a series of topic-based therapeutic journaling groups, using the same CBT-Enhanced Expressive writing strategies, where there will be opportunities to share experiences and your thoughts on the process, as well as ask questions.

I would love to hear from you about the topics that would feel helpful for you. What would you like support with in your therapeutic journaling practice? Would a general session on how to journal therapeutically help as well?  

I have made a list of the options I am considering at the moment. If you could reply with the topic or topics that you would prefer that would be really helpful. Just hit reply and type in the topic name and a day/time that would work for you. You can just put it in the subject line if that is easier.

Therapeutic Journaling Online Group Topics

(Using a CBT-Enhanced Expressive writing method)

1. Getting started with a weekly therapeutic journaling practice: Why do it, what should I write about and how do I do it?
2. Therapeutic journaling for midlife changes
3. Therapeutic journaling for loss and grief
4. Therapeutic journaling for work stress
5. Therapeutic journaling for awakening to a spiritual path
6. Therapeutic journaling for writers and creatives
7. Therapeutic journaling for coaches and therapists
8. Therapeutic journaling for social anxiety
9. Therapeutic journaling for traumatic experiences
10. Therapeutic journaling for shame and guilt
11. Therapeutic journaling for things that cannot be spoken about

Which of these appeal the most? 

Times/days

I am planning to hold the groups at either 9.30am or 5pm (UK time). Which day/time would you prefer:

1. Monday
2. Tuesday
3. Wednesday
4. Thursday
5. Friday
6. Saturday
7. Sunday

Tonight will be the last live session on YouTube for now while I take time to focus on developing these groups and getting them set up for you in the new year.

Expressive writing research articles

I am also planning to write about what the research literature has been saying about expressive writing and therapeutic journaling. For example what does expressive writing help with? Does it help everyone? What issues doesn't it help with? How can we interpret this for our own use? I feel like this might be helpful because there is a huge body of research that has been carried out in this area and I would like to delve into this a bit more and see what we can pull out from it to help with our own journaling practices.

Expressive writing and strategies for managing emotions course

I am also in the midst of a large update to my course on using expressive writing for emotional regulation, which includes the history and varied practices of expressive writing, and strategies for managing emotions. I'm also incorporating the use of bilateral sound as an aid to processing feelings. There is a lot to include and it should be ready in January.

So I will leave it there for today. I hope that you have a lovely restful Sunday and I will see you next week.

Bye for now,

Donna

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