Journaling with words (verbal journaling) is the most common method people use to record their thoughts and experiences. We have found that most serious journalers go beyond the mere recording of daily events in an attempt to quench a thirst for that often elusive dialogue in the core of their souls. Unfortunately, as many of those who have attended our workshops readily admit, they rarely succeed in getting to that core part of themselves with words. A woman in one of our more recent workshops told the group that for years she had kept a written journal even though she knew it didn't allow her to get into the real depth of her feelings. "I'm a writer by profession," she said. "Words come so easily to me that when I use them to journal, I am able to fool myself into writing what I want to believe about something that's happening in my life. Once I started doing visual journlaing, the self-deception ended."
--Visual Journaling: Going Deeper than Words by Barbara Ganim and Susan Fox
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I kept a written journal for many years when I was a teenager and a young adult. Its comfort as a confidant and its effectiveness as a sounding board seemed to lose its luster as I got older and less enthused about filling out a page, or typing on a keyboard; after awhile, I shared the writer's dilemma above in knowing that words alone do not communicate what we need most to hear.
For nearly two decades now I've been longing for another way in to what my soul has to tell me, and I am more than a little excited to try this visual journaling method. I hope to be burning up the ol' scanner with my results of color, line, and texture.
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