428 Journalling

If we have been thorough…we have written down a lot. (AA p70)

The purpose of journaling is to bring the inside out into the light.  I journal when I cannot get past my worries and upsets about my financial, relationship, work, obsessive behaviors and/or character defects.  I forget about journaling.  Usually my sponsor has to remind me to "write about it".  Mostly writing works but sometimes I tend to overthink and labor over it.  Collage, journaling without words, accesses parts of myself that I can’t get to come out in writing.  It’s easy.  It’s calming.  It’s meditative and I so enjoy working with color and pattern.  

If I stay up late playing computer games, my obsession of choice at this time, and I can’t operate the next day, I cut out pictures from 25 cent recycled magazines.  I am ready for the next time I want to make a collage.  So far, I have done this in a group, but am prepared for doing it at home.  I have several pieces of foam board cut about the size of a half piece of typing paper, regular stick glue, scissors and an old credit card to smooth out the surface to get out any air bubbles.  

For me collage is a spiritual experience, done in silence.  Collaging calms me after doing a mini Step 4.  Once, after a particularly nasty bout with anger, I did two consecutive collages.  I found the holiness of God in the first one in the translucent blues of low flame.  In the second, the ugliness of "the other" always watching from the depth of my addiction in sea greens, and fogs of black and grays.  

My Higher Power covers me.  My God is The Above, The Around, and The Within.  I find valuable any means of connecting with my Higher Power.  I enjoy creating a healthy meditative space for myself instead of giving place to that addiction which is always way too close to the surface of my being.  

God, help me to write the truth…always.