Feel free to use these exercises in your own personal journal writing. You may choose to cut and paste them into your own Word document for a computer archive or print out one of these pages and keep them in your journal.

o matter what age you are, it is never too early, or too late, to start collecting stories about your life that reflect your own personal wisdom.

Words and Wisdom
by Sue Meyn

Seems to me that when we take the time to write the words that describe our lives, day to day, that from those words, we acquire wisdom. That wisdom may not show itself immediately. The words we use may be disorganized, unremarkable---even ordinary and routine. They could also be passionate, emotional, or self-absorbed. Nonetheless, it is from them, I believe, that our wisdom emerges.

From where I am sitting I can see a stack of used journals---a pile that sort of startles me by its size. How much wisdom, I wonder, would I find there? I dont know that there would be passages I would want to send to you in an articlebut they all contributed to my being who I am now. Little pieces coalesce into greater knowing. Can you relate?

Increasing and improving my awareness has been the hallmark of my life for the last twenty years---or whenever it was that I got into therapy. Little awareness turn into cues, clues and arrows pointing me in the direction I will go next. I guess I am describing the inner guidance that now predominates over the external guidance systems with which I grew up. It is that internal guidance system that everyone has---and I believe, can benefit from knowing more intimately. (through journaling, of course!)

I’m curious. Do YOU have words of wisdom that you could share? I would like to compile a collection of wisdom from all of you who receive the Journal Companion. What kind of truths, insights, discoveries wisdom---have you uncovered by writing in your journals? Send them to me and I will put them together and send them back to you.

Perhaps you can use this topic, too, as a prompt to write about your own path of wisdom gathering. Use Progoff’s technique called Steppingstones to mark down the major events or memories you have of unearthing your wisdom. You may recall that this technique begins with the statement, "I was born", and then includes 10 or 11 more steps. Each steppingstone represents a recognition of wisdom, if not at the time, then perhaps as you look back. It may help you to identify some unacknowledged wisdom, some new appreciation of your life path and more confidence in the trail you are creating in the present.

We’re All Wise
by Sue Meyn

As we all know---those of us who journal with regularity---we ALL carry great wisdom within and around us. The journal provides a place to capture that wisdom---much as gathering butterflies in a net. You know that. Thats part of what keeps us all journaling, isnt it?

Ive been reading a book by Ram Dass recently and found a great quote from it that supports this idea that we all are wiser than we know. Its from his latest book called Still Here which is about our aging process--- complete with tales of his experience since having a stroke a couple of years ago. This quote captures his wisdom and that of the rest of us, too:

The older I got, the more I felt myself growing into the role-less role Id chosen. As the years went on, I refined my job to correspond with what the people who came to hear me thought that they needed, which was, essentially, a mouth to verbalize the wisdom we all share. In fact, I frequently began my lectures by saying,

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ram Dass. In India that means servant of God, and is another name for Hanuman, the monkey-God who lives only to serve Ram. But in recent years, I have come to take the letters RAM as an acronym for Rent-A-Mouth. I figure that this evening you rented my mouth to say back to you what you already know. How do I know you know? Because when I say something that I think is particularly wise or far out, you nod knowingly. If you didnt know, why would you nod? And if you do know, why do you need to hire me? The only conclusion Ive been able to draw so far is that out of some evolutionary necessity we need to keep saying it to ourselves over and over again until we hear it. It works.

Isn’t that wonderful? We are all so wise and yet are so reluctant to acknowledge what we know.

As a writing exercise, how about making some statements about what you know to be true about yourself and your life. (You know more than you think you know.) If you find yourself making qualifying statements, read over what you have written and cross them out! (Thats the first time Ive ever suggested you change the words in your journal!) Natalie Goldberg recommended taking out qualifiers in her book, Writing Down the Bones. Its an effective tool for getting in touch with some personal power.

back to journaling exercises...

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