Another shuffle of the mood index cards brings me to the mood of alertness.

An alert person is awake and aware, perhaps having heard an alarm go off, or having received a more metaphorical wake-up call.

Being alert is a great thing. It helps us forge ahead with our projects and feel fulfilled at the end of each day. It’s easier to focus on important tasks, write lists and get into action.

However, unless our attention is gainfully employed and we can find a useful focus for our alert state of mind, we may have a tendency to think too much, over analyse or get ahead of ourselves and develop unrealistic goals.

So being alert is very much about being present, dealing effectively with any alarm bells that may be going off, and focussing on what we can reasonably and safely achieve right now.

Helpful inquiries might be:

“What am I waking up to?”

“What alarm bell is ringing?”

And always find a way to anchor this alert mood by getting curious about it. How does it feel in your body to be alert? What is your attention most immediately drawn to? What tendencies do you have to get ahead of yourself?

An extract from The Journal Writer’s Handbook by Juliet Platt

So, if you’ve arrived at my blog from my newsletter you will know that over a month ago I told you I was going to publish journaling exercises right here to suit different moods. And, after a bit of a delay, I’m finally getting round to it.

Here’s the first one – loneliness. It may seem like a strange place to start, and normally I might start earlier in the alphabet with a mood like “active” or “afraid”.

But no. Just because I like to keep things interesting for myself I decided to write out all the moods onto blank playing cards, then draw one at random each time I would come to write my blog. That way I don’t know which one’s going to show up. And it might leave some room for intuitive serendipity or juicy coincidence, which we journal writers live for.

So lonely it is.

Of course as I’m writing this my inquiring mind is wanting to know whether I am at some level feeling lonely myself, and whether this is a good or a bad thing. Am I isolating myself? Are there people I ought to be connecting with but right now I’m not? How do I feel about loneliness?

Great questions! I’ll save them for my journal later.

It is often said that you can never be lonely with a good book. The same can be true even if that book is your journal.

Gaining perspective on our life and becoming aware of the different levels of consciousness that are available to us can trick our mind into feeling less lonely. It can even start to feel positively crowded!

Striking up a dialogue in our journal with a comforting figure in our life, or even with our body or our creative self, is a way of accessing different voices which are meaningful to us, and which bring us different perspectives, as if from different people.

And sometimes we know that what’s needed in order to help us feel more connected and less lonely in the world is to actually reach out and say hello, ask for help or do a favour for someone.

The maxim ‘give in order to receive’ is a useful rule of thumb, and whenever we notice a lack of something in our life – like company, friendship or love – it’s always worth reflecting on how much we are making ourselves available to others in those terms.

In order to alleviate feelings of loneliness try the inquiry “what more can I give”, and act on what emerges for you.

Extract from The Journal Writer’s Handbook by Juliet Platt

Thanks to the apparent breath-taking arrogance and cowardice of the Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino we have a graphic and tragic lessson in the importance of being fully present in our experience – and how devastating the impact might be when we’re not.

Metaphorically speaking, we are each the captain of the ship of our life. We’ve got our responsibilities and our safety procedures, and we know when and how to implement these to keep ourselves and those around us safe and healthy.

Sometimes we might be tempted to listen to our inner commentator telling us what to do, what not to do, what people might think. Or our ego might take over, deflecting blame, self- justifying, and over-reacting to criticism.

At these times we will have taken our eye off what’s really going on around us, and as signor Schettino demonstrated, our ship could go down.

So best to keep our wits about us, to stay aware of what’s happening in the present moment, and be mindful of our responsibilities and safety procedures should we begin to run aground.

Our journal can be our ship’s log, where we practise getting present and listening to the authentic voice of our conscience rather than the cruel and raucous squawking of our ego.

In memory of those who needlessly lost their lives in terrifying circumstances off the coast of Giglio, January 2012.

I’ve recently been thrilled and inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s excellent book, The Master and his Emissary, a tome of incredible research scope, which posits the central idea that the left hemisphere of our brain has hijacked much of our cultural, political, economic, social and spiritual history in the West for the past two millennia, and that many of the challenges that face the planet right now are due to our imbalanced cerebral view and treatment of the world.

Fundamentally McGilchrist describes how it is the job of the right hemisphere to present new realities and scenarios to our consciousness, through intuition, emotion, metaphor or empathic responses, which then the left hemisphere must re-present to us in the form of language, structure and relative experience. However, the left hemisphere has a tendency to take over, such that we begin to rely on re-presentations of reality rather than being present with what is.

One example of this is perhaps when we fall foul of hasty assumptions, which are formed on the back of past experience rather than on current reality, and which, to coin a phrase. “make an ass of u and me”.

Furthermore, according to McGilchrist, we have left-hemisphere dominance to blame for the all-pervading drive towards physical perfection which plagues our western culture. The left hemisphere’s influence causes us to view our bodies as lifeless appendages which ought to be moulded and sculpted to suit whatever image of perfection is currently in vogue. Disturbingly, he also attributes the increase in incidences of anorexia nervosa and self-harm to this type of wilful “disembodiment”, denying the holistic, healthful view of the mind, body and spirit as being part of the same living system.

So imagine how far we are in our left hemisphere world from imagining ourselves as individuals which nevertheless collectively form part of the same living ecological and planetary system. This is an idea that enviromentalists and conservationists have been propounding for decades, but perhaps we can now understand why they’re having such a hard time getting through: we have become by and large cerebrally prohibitive towards concepts of holism and connectedness, thanks to left hemisphere dominance.

But what I know about journal writing is that it involves features of both halves of the brain in equal measure. Use of language, fine motor skills to wield the pen, use of metaphor, intuition, emotional reflection, spiritual values, not to mention cognizance of how the body feels, and what it’s trying to tell us.

Well before I read McGilchrist’s book I would tell my workshop participants of my conviction that journal writing is cerebrally integrative.  I would speak with verve about the need for us to reacquaint ourselves with our inner resourcefulness, creativity, responsibilities and resilience that have somehow been abandoned somewhere along the way, resulting in a dangerously dependent and selfish society.

Now I know why. And more importantly, I also know one way that we can begin to redress the balance.

 On Friday 18^th  March I attended the Swindon Strategic Partnership Conference for public, private and voluntary sector organisations to get together and forge a united, “Big Society” way forward for our North Wiltshire town.

The meaning of Big Society continues to elude many people. But sitting in that conference hall last Friday I started to get a very clear idea about how already busy people can do their bit for this new ideology. 

I learned masses on the day. I heard wise words from Swindon Borough Council’s Chief Exec, Gavin Jones, who said, “We can do all the restructuring we want, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference unless we learn to work very differently with people.” 

I learned that the market town of Highworth, right on the northern edge of the Borough bordering Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, has a population of 8000, but an incredible 146 different community groups. 

And I also learned some JFK-esque wisdom about leadership – namely that we should each be asking what it is we can individually contribute on a daily basis to improve the lot of our neighbourhoods and communities. 

Nick Stanhope from social enterprise organisation we are what we do gave us much to reflect upon when it comes to personal leadership. As a freelance business woman I was particularly fascinated by his 4 tenets of good leadership:

•  Be wrong
• Know when to challenge and when to go with the flow
• Obsess on the details of human behaviour
• Be credible by being useful

 It is this last imperative which has most inveigled itself into my thought processes over the past few days since the conference. It seems particularly relevant to me when applied to the practice of business networking. 

Networking has become the latest essential business growth tool. People have written books about it; organisations have been set up to make money out of it, and no entrepreneur worth their salt would ever dismiss it as an unnecessary business overhead. 

However, there are dangers in the practice of business networking. First of all, it is often confused with pitching for sales. Many are the network breakfasts I’ve been to when sleepy-eyed business owners attempt to out-do their counterparts in product and service offerings over the scrambled eggs and fried mushrooms. 

Secondly, novice networkers believe it’s all about breathlessly telling everybody else about their own particular business odyssey, when more experienced practitioners will advise that the ears and the mouth be used in more appropriate proportions. 

But mostly networking has become little more that another item on the entrepreneur’s checklist of things to do each week. As long as you’ve consumed a barely palatable fry-up in a chain hotel or pub at 7am one morning of the week, and sprayed your business cards around amongst your fellow breakfasters, that’ll be this week’s networking ticked off. 

A much more sustainable approach to networking, however, is not to view it as a primary business activity, but rather as a by-product of other activities and engagements. 

As a business owner, when people engage with my services as a writer and coach they are actually engaging directly with me. I am my business – and this is true for thousands of business owners from computer software developers to hairdressers. 

So, as Nick Stanhope suggests, it makes sense that in order for us to build business credibility, we make ourselves into useful people in our communities.. And it is much more sustainable and enjoyable for us to make ourselves useful in the activities that are of particular interest to us. 

Imagine someone who loves writing and reading and discussing ideas; or someone who loves sharing their skills and playing golf and putting people in touch with each other. 

Such a person might make themselves useful by: 

• setting up a community writing group;
• volunteering as a committee member for a cultural event;
• meeting the challenge of speaking at the local philosophy society;
• running workshops where people can learn a new hobby;
• offering their services as press secretary for their golf club;
• taking the time to connect together people who can help each other. 

None of this activity will ever feel onerous because it is in line with the things that person loves doing. 

Imagine if they also have a young family and run their own business too. It will be a full life, but a fulfilling one at that. And all the time they are demonstrating their usefulness, growing their network, building credibility for their business and role modelling community involvement for their children. 

All of this points to the importance of knowing ourselves, and of recognising our interests, talents and skills.  When we have clarity about what we’ve got the greatest amount of energy for, it becomes a lot easier to offer our talents to others, not for financial gain, but just to be useful. 

For the past decade the concept of “a job for life” has been slowly dying. Not even the police force can offer such a phenomenon any longer, as Assistant Chief Constable for Wiltshire Pat Geenty lamented in his conference speech last Friday. 

Since the 1980s, when jobs for life were more of a realistic goal, community group membership amongst the UK population stood at 60%. Today it has fallen to 10%. 

So while we’ve been feeling sorry for ourselves about our lack of jobs we’ve also been quietly withdrawing from public life altogether and making ourselves less and less useful. 

Of course, when there’s no money coming in life gets increasingly difficult. But instead of withdrawing from our communities, becoming blind to our inner resources and dismissing what we could endlessly give for free, we need to respond differently. 

One of the questions that is haunting Swindonian council officials at the moment is how to engage more with the voluntary sector, and how to get more people volunteering. 

Perhaps people aren’t volunteering because they perceive there’s nothing in it for them financially, and are overlooking the other benefits volunteering can bring. It’s a great way of being useful, of building up credibility and our personal network, as well as acquiring CV and mood-bolstering skills and experience. 

So it’s time for a mind-set shift. It’s time to look within ourselves in order to know better how we can contribute in this Big Society age. 

Nick Stanhope is nearly right when he says we are what we do. It’s even better when what we do is in line with who we are.

The snowdrops are beginning to push through the cold ground, and are reminding us of the rhythmic cycle of the seasons. It’s a sight that always triggers a sense of optimism for new growth, warmth and life to come. 

Rhythm is everywhere. Not just in music and the usual sounds of our day, but in the ebbs and flows of our daily routine, energy, mood, and the recurrence of our thoughts. 

Businessmen and women, athletes, writers, artists, students – everyone with every type of experience will be aware of different rhythms and routines in their lives. 

When things are going well, when you feel in the flow of life, and things fall into place just as you need them to, it is likely you are aligned with your natural pace and rhythm. You are making your own luck! 

However, whenever life begins to feel like a struggle, when exercise starts feeling like hard work, your business hangs like a millstone round your neck, and the natural variation of your hormone levels becomes more like an illness, it is possible that you have become out of kilter with your own rhythm. 

Perhaps you have begun to dance to the beat of someone else’s drum, are trying to keep up with a new set of Joneses, or are using up all your energy protecting your ego from taking a bruising. 

So how can you get more in tune with your own rhythm and know the benefits of being in greater alignment with your individual pace? 

First of all, pay attention. Notice your heart beat, the depth of your breath, how your body feels. Write down your observations in your journal. What’s going on around you that might be triggering your physical response? What is the pattern of your thoughts? What are the recurring stories running through your head? 

Listen to your favourite piece of music. Notice the melody. Then pay attention to the bass line or drum beat. Often the melody can distract us from the true pace of the music and the actual rhythm is faster or slower than you think. Like our recurring thoughts and stories, the melody may be deceptive and may cover up what’s really going on. 

How often in business do we tell ourselves stories about our customers’ behaviour, the market, or the economic forces we’re powerless to combat? Only focussing on the stories means we miss out on underlying opportunities, the heartbeat of our business. 

Next, allow a new rhythm to emerge and respond to it. If the day feels slow, let it be. Take advantage of slowness, and find an activity best suited to it. Perhaps some time spent reflecting on progress, setting new goals and intentions or creating a tidier office space and getting organised. 

If things feel sluggish, step up the energy. You know the difference between a genuinely slow track on your music player and one that slurs because the batteries need changing. Don’t neglect to put in more energy if that’s what’s needed. 

Finally, get curious. Play with different rhythms. Try this kick-off sentence in your journal: “If I lived my life at the pace of…” A bullet train? A snail? Snowdrops? A snare drum? A mountain? Notice what’s possible from different rhythmic perspectives. 

Rhythm is simultaneously grounding and uplifting. It keeps the body anchored in the present moment while the spirit is able to soar. Tuning into the true rhythm of our life has the power to transform our experience. Start paying attention today.

Sometimes life is too busy to stop and think, or to truly reflect on our progress.

Yet as we approach the close of the month – and also the close of the year – it feels like a naturally reflective time.

One of my most favourite journaling exercises is one I learned from journaling expert Kathleen Adams. It’s called Time Capsuling.

This is when you look back over a week or a month – whatever time period feels comfortable for you – and capture the salient moments and experiences on paper. As I’m such a sucker for stationery I allow myself a completely separate notebook for this, one that I relish picking up on the last day of each month, because that’s the time frame that feels right for my own rhythm.

Since November 2009 I’ve been taking a page a month in a beautiful A5 notebook to reflect back over all that I’ve accomplished, learned and been challenged by in that given period.

Typically when we think about planning we often look out into the future, to a date yet to come, by when we hope to have achieved certain things, to have arrived somewhere new in our circumstances or our learning.

Take a moment to close your eyes and point to your goal. See it in your mind’s eye and point there.

Where are you pointing? Is it ahead of you, beyond you, somewhere unreachable?

In that case how do you hope to get there?

Or is it within you, something you carry with you all the time, which is always available to you? Something that you are doing right now, probably effortlessly, which defines your current path, and which will take you into the future?

By reflecting on what we’ve done already and on where we’ve been this week, this month or this season, gives us a new perspective on where we’re heading. We can use our immediate past to inform our next steps, and can come to recognise the contribution we’re already making, probably without realising, that will shape our future.

As the season grows colder and darker, and nature withdraws into itself to hibernate, we too can learn from our experiences, and in our reflections, find new strength and direction.

Saturday was the first ever journaling workshop I’ve set up and run in Swindon - and it was awesome. After advertising in Swindon Link, in my newsletters, in promo emails to my contacts and even on the radio I was chuffed to bits to attract ten participants, all of whom threw themselves wholeheartedly into the day, and worked really really hard with all of the exercises I offered.

Because journaling has been something I’ve done all my life, and because through my personal development work I’ve explored all sorts of ways of using reflective writing, it’s seems strange initially to realise that what I have to say on the subject is so surprising and enlightening for others. But as soon as I get over that particular thought, and forget about hiding my light under any sort of bushel, it gives me  huge pleasure to share my knowledge and experience, and, more importantly, to see light bulbs go on for people around the room.

It’s important that the workshop environment feels as comfortable as possible for everyone, and that noone feels obliged to read out any of their writing. Journals are entirely personal and private documents. They are not necessarily meant for any kind of audience, so it’s vital that workshop conditions support this. Lower Shaw Farm is such a welcoming and comfortable venue that it felt easy to create a totally safe and respectful environment, where participants were at liberty to write, without censure or judgement.

So, I’m looking forwards to the next one, which is scheduled for 12 February 2011, also at Lower Shaw Farm in Swindon. And in the meantime I’ll be getting my head down on my journaling book. There’s nothing like running something live to make you realise which bits are the most important to convey, and which to chop. Every non-fiction writer could do worse than contrive a means to dry run some of their content for the benefit of an audience, to get a feel for how it will be received.

In my case I am deeply grateful to every one of my workshop participants – look forwards to seeing you on the follow up!

What an astonishing, compelling and moving thing it was to watch the rescue operation in Chile yesterday. Thirty three men restored to their families after 69 days trapped half a mile below the ground. Quite a heroes’ journey.

The interesting thing about the archetypal hero’s journey, so often quoted by wise men and personal development gurus, is that when the traveller returns he or she brings back with them a gift, something they have learned, some message or insight for the benefit of their old community, so that it in turn can change and evolve. This is the transformative nature of the hero’s journey, the fact that our experience does not just benefit ourselves, it also teaches those around us the next steps.

There is no doubt that the miners will indeed find themselves unable to resist the call for them to share their story. Oprah and Dr Phil are going to have a field day; Hollywood is going to be all over it; and one of the number, Victor Rojas, kept a journal about the entire experience which publishers the world over will kill for.

As the miners were stretchered away one-by-one from the rescue shaft, there was little opportunity for the rest of the world to hear their individual messages. These were, quite rightly at that moment, reserved for the ears of their most intimate relatives.

However, a few hours after being rescued, the “Showman” Mario Sepulveda, the second miner to emerge in the Fenix capsule, and whose name spookily means “stop the grave”, declared over the airwaves that he’s been alive for 40 years, but that now he’s really going to start living. Amongst the gifts of rocks that he brought back to the surface with him, this was the real gem.

Chile’s job right now is not to try too hard to get these men reintegrated into their old lives, but to give them the platform and means to impart all their insights and messages.

In the meantime, we can look forward to learning from them all.

I’m really excited about the journaling workshop that I’m going to be leading in November. As the nights draw in there is nothing quite so delicious as sitting next to a cosy fire, pen and favourite note-book in hand, reflecting and scribbling, dreaming and planning.

Journal-writing is an ancient past time which endures, probably because there continues to be noone more fascinating to us than ourselves and our own experience. “One should always have something sensational to read on the train” says an ironically earnest Oscar Wilde.

These days journal writing is typically considered the preserve of over-sexed politicians cashing in on a waning career, or under-sexed, angst-filled adolescents trying to figure out who they are and what this complicated thing called life actually means.

I suppose I was one of the latter, and in my case I never really got out of the journaling habit. I’m still trying to figure out what life is all about. Happily though, my journal has yielded some answers over the years, and it is some of these that I’m keen to share.

“Isn’t it a little self-indulgent?” is a common question, warily asked by people who know deep in their heart of hearts that self-indulgence is absolutely what they would revel in, despite having avoided it, resisted it for years.

Of course journal writing is self-indulgent. It’s all about ourselves, what we think, what we feel, how we perceive and approach decisions and choices, how we react and respond to whatever life throws at us. In this sense it is an indulgence of self. However somewhere beneath the irony, Oscar Wilde knew, and I concur, that our journals are not necessarily vanity.

People new to journaling are often surprised by what they read in their notebook. Not because it’s sensational, though occasionally that might happen, but because the voice on the page seems so clear, insightful and wise that they cannot believe it’s their own.  

When clients ask me about this I congratulate them. This is truly a wonderful thing to happen. Journaling from a place of deep authenticity enables us to connect with the inner wisdom of our sub-consciousness. It enables us to liberate our true, essential voice. And once we’ve done that, we can strike up an intriguing dialogue. We can discover hidden resources within ourselves that we never knew we had. 

But the surprise doesn’t end there. Because as we get to know our inner ‘still small voice’ we find that it isn’t actually as self-focused as we might think. Unlike  the usual internal narrator of our daily dramas, our essential voice is far more aware, far more grounded, and far more no-nonsense. It is a voice that speaks to us, if we allow it, of our impact, of what is fair, and of what action we ought to take to be kinder not only to ourselves but to those around us too. It is the sometimes poetic, always intuitive, voice of the less self-deceived. To encounter it authentically, and to create an inner dialogue with it, results in far less indulgence, and far more awareness of self and others.

So what appears on the surface to be a fairly self-centred exercise, that of reflective journaling, turns out to be a way of helping us relate better, to ourselves, to others and to life itself.

Well worth a self-indulgent afternoon next to a cosy stove. See you at the workshop in November!

There are still spaces available for the journaling workshop from 9.30 am to 4 pm on 6 November 2010 at Lower Shaw Farm in Swindon. Cost £40 including lunch and refreshments. Give me a call on 01793 727994 to book your place.