Embracing your beginner self

In a recent blog post, Kelly Rae Roberts took a look at the person and artist she was five years ago, and marveled at how much she had grown. She wrote, "I want to reach out and give her a giant bear hug and thank her for reaching out toward something that was greater than herself and embracing all the possibilities that were waiting for her all along." You can read the entire post here.

There's a lot to be said for doing that exercise periodically. If you have kept your old journals, you have a lot to drawn on. Even if you don't have access to the actual words written by your younger self, you may remember some of what you were thinking.

In addition to my regular "morning pages" journal, which is more often than not a spiral notebook, I keep a small journal beside my bed in which I record a minimum of three words that sum up my day. I do this every night. Near the end of December, I reread my entries and contemplate the issues and events that concerned me during the year. There are always some surprises. This is the third year I've kept a "teeny-tiny" journal. It's so easy and so valuable, I plan to keep it up forever.

One day recently, I dug out the journals I kept when I was in my early twenties. At first, that girl seemed like a stranger, but the more I read, the more I recognized me in my younger self. And I, too, wanted to reach out and hug her.

Try one of these exercises:

~Reread a journal from a year when you were at least five years younger than you are now. Write about the dreams your younger self was reaching for.
~Choose a year when you were 10, 20, or 30 years younger. What were some pivotal events in that year that opened up new possibilities you hadn't realized before? How have you changed? How have you remained the same?
~Write about your beginner self.