Kathy Murphy, Ph.D.

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Light a candle, pick up your journal, or journal here on our pages.
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Consider the Possibilities for Your Life…

Three Steps to Cure Your Blahs

The cure for boredom is curiosity.

~Dorothy Parker

I have been a daily journaler for decades. Some days the inner world is flowing, insightful, and rejuvenative. Some days the inner world is scary, abusive, and difficult. And some days the inner world is just plain boring. Some days it all just feels like blah, blah, blah…..

I’ve been working with a group of women in an intensive life transformation program where one of our intentions is to develop a daily practice of journaling.  Last week at one of our  Palm Key mini-retreats, Candy told me that when she sat down with her journal in her lap nothing of any interest came to mind, just random, silly, useless thoughts, nothing deep, profound or inspiring. She said she found herself bored. I simply encouraged her to keep at it.

This morning, as I sat on my front porch with my journal in my lap, I found myself actually writingBlah, blah, blah, blah, blah…..” The voices in my own head were relentlessly boring and mundane. They felt like the same old, same old.  I thought of Candy.  I realized she needed more than to be simply encouraged to keep at it.  This is what I did, and how I offered my further guidance to her.

  • Be Curious

I decided to stop and take a look at my empty, useless words. I let myself feel the deadness of my words…of my inner life. And then I simply wondered,  What is that all about? Become very curious. Write what you THINK it might be about.

  • Love The Questions

Just asking the question itself opens us up to possibility.  I ask questions and then I let my mind wander and wonder. All along, I write down this internal process of all the questions in my journal.   Let the questions lead you.

  • Go Deeper

A key point here is to recognize that your thoughts are from your mind.  These are not the only inner voices you have. Drop down.   Drop down into your body, your gut and, most importantly, your heart.  Seek to hear an intuition beneath the words of your mind.  And then paradoxically, try to write about it.

Following my own advice, I began to write. I asked myself, Wonder what this emptiness is all about?  Wonder what’s beneath the boredom?  What’s it trying to tell me?  And I listened.

Now the glimmerings of insights began to creep in.  I heard the whispers of inner knowledge and guidance.  I found that now I was writing without self-consciousness, as if the inner life was writing itself.  Then I sat back and read what I wrote.

I could see that it was time to freshen up my perspectives.   A nip here and a tuck there could change the way I thought — and subsequently felt — about something.  I realized that I was thinking too much.  I began to feel a new energy.  A new excitement.  A new idea.

I realized then that I had written past the boredom and had actually transformed it into exciting energy.  Priceless!

Journaling is such a magical tool.  So, Candy, try again.  Embrace the silly, random thoughts. Follow them like a thread down into your inner life that, trust me, is always rich and exciting even when it seems boring as hell.

Powerful Question:

What questions do you need to

be asking yourself?

Plant the seed.

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Exciting News: Registration has begun for the upcoming Women’s Weekend Retreat, Oct. 14 – 16, Palm Key Retreat Center, SC.  Limited to 30.  $100 Discount for Early Registration.  Visit this blog about last retreat in February.  Come and join us.  We’d love to have you.

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