Cheryl is one of those blessed people who knew early on that a pen and a piece of paper were her friends.
She lives in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago , West Indies.
JIB: Welcome Cheryl, I’m so glad to be able to talk to you about one of my favorite topics as well as one important to you, journals.
Cheryl: Thank you Yvonne. I’m just as happy to share my thoughts, feelings and experience with journals.
JIB: Cheryl, please tell us a bit about yourself.
Cheryl: One of my earliest memories is seeing my parents reading. There were always books around the house and I fancied seeing my picture on the cover of a book some day. I used every opportunity to write. When my mother scolded me about something, she’d get a long letter from me. It used to drive her crazy but I just couldn’t help it. It was how I communicated what I was thinking and feeling. My mother gave me my first diary and well, here I am still writing.
Another memory was the newspaper that my father bought every day – the Trinidad Guardian. I dreamed of writing for the newspaper when I grew up. Despite all the reading my parents did, writing was not a life option. So I studied and worked in the administrative field, which led me down a path of varied job experiences. Along the way, I grew weary and yearned to do something creative. Remembering an interest in interior design, I went that way and later began writing about interior design in 1998. Two years later, I realized that I was doing just what I dreamed about as a child. After I wrote my first essay, Dreams Do Come True, which was published online, I was drawn into writing inspirational and motivational pieces and then on general life issues, especially for women.
JIB: So, your writing career is quite diverse. How do journals fit into that overall picture?
Cheryl: Keeping a journal helped me stay sane while working at a job that neither catered to nor enhanced my passion for writing. Having a journal to capture and hold my dream to be free to write to my heart’s content, literally kept the dream alive, especially during those periods when I felt as if I was drowning in the stress of daily hassles.
JIB: Yes, often journals are a lifeline to keep us focused on the important things happening in and around us. Do you take time to go back through your old journals to see how your life has changed? To see what things have improved? For inspiration?
Cheryl: Yes I do. Some journals hold deeply emotional and painful things. I re-read them to see how far I’ve come and what I’ve learned to turn my life around. Others I visit more regularly they are filled with inspiration for my life and my writing.
JIB: Was there one special person who influenced you to keep a journal?
Cheryl: Oprah first, with her gratitude journal and her ongoing journaling practice. Then later other writers and writer friends. During a critical time, a few years ago, Lynn Goodwin’s email workshop helped me take control of my life by staying true to writing in my journal every day, about the chaos and steps I was taking to alleviate the tension and depression.
JIB: How wonderful. It is great to have resources that help you through difficult times. Do you believe the chaos you speak of was alleviated faster because of taking time to write about it?
Cheryl: Journaling during that time really helped me find and savor the calm space I desperately needed to help me cope.
JIB: When did you know that putting words in a journal would be (had been) of value to you?
Cheryl: The early years of my writing career, the practice and maybe more precisely, the obsession with putting words in a journal revealed how cathartic journaling has been and continues to be for me.
JIB: What benefits do you derive from keeping a journal?
Cheryl: So many benefits: Clarity about issues. Freedom from unnecessary worry. Direction to accomplish goals. Answers and solutions to questions or problems. Gratitude for blessings that I didn’t notice before they were spread out on the page. Joy from the simple act of writing.
JIB: I agree with you Cheryl. A well tended journal is like a walk in a well tended garden — delightful. Some people think of specific questions or directions to write in their journal when trying to accomplish goals. Others let their free flow writing direct them to the answers for the goals. Which of these methods do you use most often? Why?
Cheryl: I go to my writing space (my bed or my favorite chair in my living room) with a cup of mint tea. I put on some quiet music in the background and allow my thoughts and feelings to flow into words on the page. It is a ritual – a gift to myself really.
JIB: What is the most important lesson you’ve learned from your journals?
Cheryl: I learned that keeping a journal is like confiding in a friend. My journal holds my deepest thoughts, fiercest anxieties, darkest fears and grandiose dreams. A true friend knows she doesn’t have to respond to what I share; my journal cradles my writing – no condemnation, criticism or buts. Because of that I feel comfortable, safe and content at the time of writing and afterwards.
JIB: Do you believe you have been able to accomplish more in either your personal or business life because you’ve kept a journal?
Cheryl: Yes, yes, yes. I’m a natural planner and in my journal, I can brainstorm and draft plans to achieve specific personal and business goals.
JIB: Have you used journal writing to help you learn in either self-directed or formal educational settings?
Cheryl: There’s no better way to understand, review and cull ideas in an educational setting. Whenever I enroll for a course of study, I also assign a separate journal to that course. I find that it is easier to reach for the particular journal to assess the lessons, the ideas, the assigned work and benefits of the study.
JIB: Do you have an emotional attachment to your journals?
Cheryl: I do. I am running out of places to store my used journals but I can’t imagine getting rid of any of them. Regardless how old they are, each holds a special part of me and is a treasure trove of ideas for my writing.
JIB: What is the most important thing you’ve learned about keeping a journal?
Cheryl: Some issues, situations and relationships may be difficult to write about but once you start, the words begin to flow – slowly at first and then the more fully you give yourself over to the process, the words flow at a rate and intense you never imagined. Catharsis and freedom at work!
JIB: Do you distinguish between the words diary and journal?
Cheryl: In some way yes and only because of my own experience with both.
- Diary: a running log of daily events.
- Journal: an analytical, emotional and practical record and assessment of one’s life and specific events to help facilitate understanding, solutions, growth and achievement.
Of course, they mean the same to many people and I accept their views and applaud anyone who honors their desire and practice of keeping a diary/journal.
JIB: Do you have a favorite pen for use in your journals?
Cheryl: I begin each new journal with a new pen. No particular brand or ink color. However, it must be fine point and comfortable. If I get a green pen, well, even better because I love the color green.
JIB: What advice would you give someone who isn’t sure keeping a journal is worth it?
Cheryl: Try writing about why you think it is not worth it. Let your negative or sceptical thought rip right there on the page. If you give yourself the freedom and permission to be true to what you are thinking, feeling and yes, living, the journal will welcome what you write and help you to open up and embrace the benefits it offer.
JIB: What a grand idea, Cheryl. I love it. Write about why you don’t think it is worth it. What a great way to expand one’s horizons and view point. That is wonderful! Please tell us about your writing, about your passions.
Cheryl: I used to have a separate blog for each of my main passions: writing, interior design and spiritual reflections. However, they are all interconnected – each feeding off and fueling one another. So I merged them into one – Cheryl Wright Perspectives. Several months ago, after editing a friend’s book manuscript I decided to include the business aspect of writing in my blog. I changed the name to just my name – Cheryl Wright [You can visit Cheryl's Blog here: Cheryl Wright Blog.]
Although my essays, feature articles and miscellaneous columns have been published online and in print since 1998, my favorite project is the weekly column, Wright Words of Wisdom.
In 2006, I began writing a weekly column for Womanwise Magazine, a Sunday special publication by the Trinidad Guardian newspaper – proof that dreams do come true.
JIB: This has been fun Cheryl. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience and your wisdom.
You may read some of Cheryl’s pieces from the column here.
Of course, you can also find Cheryl on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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Do you keep a diary or journal? Would you like to be interviewed for inclusion in our Who Journals series?
We would love to hear from you.
Use the space below to let us know you are interested or email us with the word “interview” in the subject line. You may contact Yvonne at yvonne@journalinabox.com or Tonya by using tonya@journalinabox.com
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Yvonne,
I enjoyed answering the question. Thank you allowing me to share my love for and experience of journaling. I hope others are encourage to start or restart keeping a journal.
I apologize for the typos. My brain is mush after a long day of babysitting my two grandchildren. Definitely something to journal about.
Cheryl,
No apology necessary. For one thing I think we play in the same playground, I too get to babysit my lovely grandkiddos. And boy do I know about the mushy brain.
Your answers were priceless and I’m so glad you stepped up when we asked for volunteers to be interviewed about their journaling habits.
Good evening Cheryl and Yvonne,
What I really appreciate about reading this, Cheryl, is how journaling keeps writing such in inherent part of your days. I get the feeling that if you have a pen and journal close by, everything is okay with the world. And through all those words you bring to the page, your life is clearer and richer for it. I don’t journal my everyday thoughts, but I do use journals to keep my weekly itinerary logged in, and do have a dedicated journal to each of my manuscripts. There’s a part of me that still likes to get those thoughts down with pen and paper, the ideas travelling right through my hands to the page.
And congrats to you for living the dream, what a nice connection with your father.
Hi Joanne,
Thanks so much for dropping in. It looks like you too understand the importance of keeping a regular journal.
You are so right — there is something about the feeling of pen and paper in hand. I love your terminology of the ideas traveling right through your hands to the page.
Yvonne and Cheryl, so delighted to see my dear friend here. To me, Cheryl personifies the quintessential journaler. Her passion is evident and consistent. So many of us struggle with a journaling practice and have plenty of “emotional issues” around putting pen to paper consistently and letting our heart speak. Cheryl breaks through all of that and invites us to do the same.
And I very much agree that journaling is not only cathartic but healing. I once wrote, “What cannot be expressed, cannot be healed.” Writing is the perfect and oh, so gentle venue for allowing that to happen.
Yvonne, thank you for featuring Cheryl. Cheryl, I loved reading more about you and your inner life. You inspire!
Jan,
How nice of you to comment here. You are so right about Cheryl. When she and I first contacted one another I knew I was on to something good. Cheryl is one of those people you meet in the grocery store who you wish was your friend.
And, I love your sentence, “What cannot be expressed, cannot be healed.”
Joanne, You know, even on the days when I don’t do any writing for the column, assignments or my personal projects, or on the days when inspiration escapes me, writing still makes it to my Done List. I write in my journal. Even if to gripe about writing or not writing, feeling tired and uninspired or just downright lazy. Somehow, those journaling sessions almost always end on a positive note, a comforting note, an inspired note – I have written and I will write tomorrow and often, I find an idea or two to spin into an article or two.
Sometimes, when the grandchildren are in the throes of stressing me out, I put the baby in his crib, send Sian to take time-out and I reach for my journal. I scribble sense or nonsense, I vent, I brainstorm. I just writ, amidst the chaos, until I sense peace flowing from the inside out and yes, everything is okay in my world.
I like your, “ideas travelling right through my hands to the page.” I want to add that most times, journaling is thoughts and feelings travelling from my heart right through my hands to the page.
Thanks Joanne, for your congratulations and for sharing your own thoughts and experience with journaling.