Journal with Mq
My Story
Hello friends and visitors...
I’m so glad you’re here. If you’ve landed on my site, chances are you’re intrigued with my creative journaling practice.
I've always kept a journal all of my life and prided myself on being self aware but a clinical depression diagnosis made it clear I wasn't emotionally aware. This shocked me considering my background in psychology and I guess "you can't see the label when you're in the jar".
Come to find out, I could intellectualize my issues but couldn't feel them. It was only when I learned to notice and sit with my discomfort (instead of understanding it) that I could do the inner work on why it existed.
The shift in my emotional health improved when I added, what I like to call, my creative flow state to my journaling practice. Studies have shown that entering a creative flow in art journaling can be as beneficial to our well being and physical health as meditation and yoga.
Ready to give it a try?
what I’ve been through (and what that means for you...)
I started out training as a therapist (MSc. and worked in a practice speciallizing in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and then became a Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) and consultant (CMC) working with family businesses when I fell in love with coaching. As a certified executive/performance coach (EMCC) I worked in corporate settings and became a life coach for private clients.
In semi-retirement things got interesting; living half the year in Costa Rica I continued to do coaching online and spent the rest of my time golfing, practicing yoga, and indulging in cocktails with friends at sunset. All was good, that is, until I didn't wanna get outta bed.
I was diagnosed with clinical depression; it baffled me that I could be depressed living my best life. Well, it turned out, I suffered from what's called 'perfectly hidden depression'. Nobody would have guessed, least of all me. I had healing to do at the subconscious level. As they say, we only use 5% of our conscious brain and my issues were deep in the 95% part beyond my awareness; controlling a lot more of my life than I thought.
Depression was Mother Nature's way of forcing me to deal with what I should have dealt with decades earlier. So, after spending my entire life trying to overcome issues by understanding them, I took the last 5 years learning techniques to tap into subconscious/unconscious to get to the roots to finally meet the version of myself I didn't even know existed.
Serendipitously, I found art journaling and not only did it help with, what I like to call, my self-excavation to climb out of depression, but it's become a regular mindfulness practice for solving problems, making decisions, and for processing intense emotions...and, well, its a lot of fun, too.
