My First Junk Journal - A Flip Through
Affirmations from my heart
Maybe because of past mental health challenges, I sometimes have trouble expressing myself, experiencing strange brain fog, and also, I am naturally quiet; I prefer to listen anyway. I used to feel a bit like I was half a person, where my opinions, feelings, or presence were worth less than others.
Everyone has their strengths though! Mine was writing. I appreciate and love reading poems, and writing poetry was one of my first coping strategies when I first got ill. It was such a relief and I did feel comforted by poems.
Then, I discovered morning pages - a journaling method espoused by Julia Cameron, artist and author, where you pour out your heart and all your thoughts, stream of consciousness style for at least three pages, kind of like bleeding, vomiting out with all honesty and in earnest, the feelings and thoughts that need to be released. It is a daily disciplined practice, meant to clear out any negativity or self-doubt within so that you are ready to channel out your radiant creative energies to your art form.
Later, I began to engage in drawing, and painting, and started to collate them in a journal. Voila! I started to have an art journal. I fell in love. Art journalling has every component that was magical to me - I get to express myself through my words, but also through textures, colours, illustrations and even cutesy stickers… It does not matter that I am not an artist or feel very good at being creative. I am free to be beautifully mediocre. I am free to be brilliantly, myself.
The types of pages I do on art journalling include a form of gratitude journalling, self-portraits on the current version of myself, motivational reminders and quotes for myself that I need at that time… it really is encouraging when I look back at the art journal pages I have done after some time - they are visual reminders of what is beautiful, precious, lovely and meaningful to me.
A subset perhaps of art journaling is junk journaling! Which is to use recycled papers, old envelopes, really any scraps of paper here and there, whatever art materials you already have, and you stitch them together in your own chosen way to form a journal. Ooooo so very satisfying to see mine come together!!!! I love how one can create something meaningful out of what was once ‘junk’. This is also my first flip through video. Yes, I watch art journal flip through videos on YouTube!!! It is sooooo inspiring to me he he he. Masha Allah.
As my dear dear friend, Yohanna Abdullah said, “Create because we love to. It brings joy first and foremost to ourselves and spreads to others. We are all natural creators” <3