Thanks for the opportunity to join you on your blog today, Mari! And thank you for your interest in my book, Journaling by the Moonlight: A Mother's Path to Self-Discovery and its accompanying deck of 54 journaling prompt cards.
I believe that mothers are a significant part of the "ripple effect" - that will transform the world into a more loving, more nurturing place. Imagine for a moment a pebble thrown into a pond. It creates a ripple that goes on and on and on.
Because moms are natural role models, our kids are observing all the time. There's a lot of truth in the saying, "Monkey see, monkey do." In other words, when a mom is modeling the value of following her heart, her kids "get it" - much more than they would if she was just saying it. Kids feel energy. They know when a person is happy and when they're not.
When a mother is living life with complete authenticity, she's subconsciously giving permission for her kids to do the same. She's truly at her best - creating powerful change for her family, her community, and for the world at large. It's all part of "the ripple."
And if our children could live life in a way that honors who they really are, it would make the ripple even bigger because they would touch lives in a positive way, too - just by living authentically. Everything would have a richer and deeper meaning. It would create a ripple of joyful energy that could literally heal the world.
What "journaling by the moonlight" brought to me was an understanding that things do happen for a reason. It helped me discover that my life had a bigger meaning, a bigger purpose - and motherhood was only a part of it. By journal writing through a two-year depression (right after the birth of my first child), I began to discover the synchronicities in my life. I started exploring my life story - up until that point.
I began having rich conversations with my mother and learned about the depression that she had battled, trying to raise four kids with very little support. We discussed the importance of having a personal identity - a connection to something deeper within ourselves that was expressed fully in the outside world.
This led to other dialogues with other mothers - and I was fascinated by the similarities in our stories. While we all loved being moms, we all desired "that something else" - that something that connected all the dots, that brought all the life experiences together to create a path toward a bigger purpose.
My experience with depression - that feeling of being totally disconnected to myself and the world around me - led me to asking the question, "I'm a Mom, but who am I really?" And by "being" with the truth of the reality and by listening to my intuitive wisdom, I found my voice. I found my bigger purpose in life.
Intuition is our "divine channel of wisdom." It always knows best. And when we listen to it, we can't go wrong. It feeds our soul with the right messages for us. It can guide us on the right path and in making the right decisions in the moment. It can feed us with the right messages for our children. And when we can be fully open to it, it always gives us the answers we need. When we doubt it, even in the smallest of ways, we can be thrown off track - sometimes in a very painful way.
When we're in the midst of a decision of any kind, especially one that has the potential to change our lives in a big way, journal writing can help. We can ask ourselves the deep, thought-provoking questions and we can listen for the answers, allowing them to feed through us. We are all divinely guided - and when we are willing to ask the questions and when we are open to receiving the answers, we can travel a more purposeful, more authentic path.
Journal writing is an invitation to jump into the depth of our heart and soul. It's a place where truth can be spoken without fear of judgment and without worry of being censored. It creates a very private, very sacred place where we can have an honest conversation with our subconscious (that deep inner knowing that we all have). It also provides the space where we can dialogue with our higher power, asking open-ended questions and waiting for thoughtful answers.
But it all begins with truth. Before we begin our search for answers, we must first be willing to tell the truth. We must be willing to speak from a place of honesty, which many times comes from a place of pain.
In my book, Journaling by the Moonlight: A Mother's Path to Self-Discovery, I offer a series of journal writing prompts (called Moonlight Musings) that follow a self-exploration process. Each of these prompts are designed to take a mother to a deeper place within her being - and can take anywhere from five minutes to 30 minutes, depending on how connected a mom might be with a particular question.
I've also designed an accompanying deck of 54 journaling prompt cards. Each card offers a prompt that guides moms on an inner journey to discover more about herself and how to honor her gifts in our external world.
A mother really does know best. She knows what's best for her child - and she knows what's best for herself - IF she really listens and follows her intuition.
* For more information about my book and the work that I do, please visit: www.JournalingByTheMoonlight.com and receive my 12 best tips for journal writing.
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