When I first began keeping a journal, my intention was to record all the horrid little details of my life to protect myself from having to repeat them. But the intentionprotectionwas coming from a place of fear. I felt powerless to stop the misery in my life and so I'd focus all my attention on my misery, hoping to find a way to stop it. Of course that didn't work. The more I focused on it, the more miserable I became; my misery, like a scratched record, stuck in one place, kept repeating itself ad nauseum.

And then, one day, a friend gave me a copy of The Artist's Way: A spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. The author, Julia Cameron, suggests writing 'morning pages' to allow us to get out of our own way and tap into our creativity. Since I was tired and bored of my own stories, I decided to give it a try. I had nothing to lose.

Surprisingly, the format of my journal entries didn't change much. I still recorded every little miserable detail of my life. But, now my Intention had changed. After a few days of this, I began feeling lighter, less afraid. After another week, I discovered a very old, buried belief I had:

'If I forget anything, someone will die.'

Uncovering this belief was quite a shock!

I'm not sure where it came from, but I knew/felt it was an explanation I had developed as a very young child to protect myself. I looked at the dozens of journals I had written over the last few decades. Every single one of them was born from a child's need to feel protected.

I began writing each day to this inner child. Telling her I was now an adult and I had discovered easier ways of protection. I thanked her profusely for loving me so strongly that she would use all of her energies to 'remember' everything in an attempt to protect me from others. I told her that was a lot of responsibility for such a little girl and, if she was ready, I was willing to take over now.

I felt her relief in my body. She was more than willing to give up this job and become a little girl again. We continued conversing on the pages of my journals and after a few more days, when she could see that her belief was no longer necessary, we created a solemn ceremony and burned all the old journals.

Once I took over the role of protector, this small inner child surprised me once again. Relieved of her responsibilities, she showed me another aspect of her amazing power: she was the source of my creativity! She was wild and joyous and a wannabe writer with a wicked sense of humor. She couldn't wait for us to begin writing every day, delighted when her words appeared on the page. She'd giggle when I'd look at what we'd written and was surprised at seeing paragraphs and sentences that I had no memory of writing.

After forty years of recording my misery, it took only a week for the healing to begin once I changed my intention. Now, I was partnering with my fear and need for protection in a new way. This new partnership led me back to this young part of myself who held the power of my creativity. Now, 10 years later, she's always present when I'm writing and wants you to know that writing this story was her idea.

Copyright (c) 2005 Carolyn Wilson-Elliott