I am at Anodyne Coffee shop on 43rd and Nicollet at 8:17 pm on a Tuesday night.  I have nothing much to say, nothing much to give.

My well hath run dry.  Again.

I don’t know why it bothers me so much, this state of stagnation.  After all, it happens to me on a regular basis, like the seasons, or like my period.  So you’d think by now I’d be used to it.  Instead, it makes me feel listless, like I’m standing in the darkness looking through a window, waiting for the headlights of my long-lost love to roll up the driveway and return to me.

The wind of inspiration that moves my fingers across this keyboard has quieted to an unnerving stillness.  Profound or philosophical thoughts have been absent from my mind, leaving space for pettiness and irritation to take root and grow.  Like today for instance, when I sat next to that guy with a blue tooth stuck in his ear who wouldn’t share the little end table between our two stuffed chairs in the corner of Starbucks.  Every time he drank from his coffee mug, he seemed to place it closer and closer to me.  You know what I did?  I casually drank my cup of tea and placed it closer and closer toward him.  So if you would have seen the two of us sitting there, you would have thought he was the one drinking the tea and I was the one drinking the mug of coffee.

See?  When my well runs dry, I am more susceptible to this kind of tit-for-tat crap with a complete stranger that normally I wouldn’t have the time nor care to notice.

I am weakened from my own drought, my creativity parched.

Writing is sort of a bi-polar existence–sometimes the thoughts and words flow effortlessly, like a joyful, overflowing fountain.  Other times, I feel like I have drained all creative thoughts, all eloquence and insight from my being–leaving this shell of a 37 year-old woman who is allowing herself to become annoyed at some (self-important) guy who she’ll probably (hopefully) never encounter again.

See?  I can’t even help myself.

But here I am.  Showing up to this coffee shop, showing up to the blank page, showing up to myself.  So I’m going to give myself some credit.  Dammit.  When I stop to notice my thoughts and reflect, I believe I’m making the first move to get out of my rut.  And when I actually apply effort and action to turn myself around and refill my well, I know it’s an act of self-love.

“To write honestly and with all of our powers is the least we can do, and the most.” -Eudora Welty

Through the many, many, many times I have felt this way, following a period of inwardly thrashing with self-doubt, I have learned to recall the things that bring me inspiration so that I can begin again to refill my well.  One of those things is to simply sit my ass down and write.  It doesn’t matter what.  It’s just sitting long enough to listen to myself and what it is I need.

Creative droughts can be useful.  They force me to sit down and listen.  To life.  To myself.  They force me to assess how I am spending my time and compare that to how I want to spend my time.

“Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.”-Shakti Gawain

I came to this coffee shop because this is place where I have experienced hours and hours of writing bliss.  I came here to see if I could find it, find myself again.

I’m so glad I did.  Here I sit at this table, crumbs from my sprinkled doughnut beneath my long-since drained coffee mug, now on the other side of this essay.  I can’t believe I actually made it to 600 words.  When I began, I didn’t think I had it in me.  But I did it. I can almost hear the sound of inspiration falling into and filling my well…

5-Minute Writing Exercise: Write a list of all of the things that bring you inspiration, that revive you and fill your being with vitality.  Do you make room in your days and weeks for these things?  If not, how are you spending your time?

We all have within us the power to refill our own wells.   In fact, we are the only ones with that power.  How do you fill your well?

Janna Brayman Krawczyk is a writer and teacher living in Minneapolis.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” –Joseph Campbell

Every Friday morning, I work with teen parents at South High School in Minneapolis, teaching journaling as a wellness practice.  Each week, pen to paper, we contemplate important questions about our lives in our journals.  We use our journals to unload our stress, to unravel tight balls of thoughts and emotions, to understand ourselves, realize our gifts, and dream into our highest possibilities.

This path of teaching is an unexpected blessing for me. Seventeen years ago, on October 19, 1992, I bought myself a journal and walked into Espresso Royale on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin.  I ordered a cup of coffee, sat down, and wrote, “These are the first words I have ever written in a journal.”

I was 20 years old.  Both of my parents were drowning: my mother in an alcoholic torrent, my father in a lead-footed depression.  I was in and out of a rocky relationship and barely able to support myself while making my way through college waiting tables and bartending.  To the outside observer, however, I seemed fine.  On the inside, I was barraged by negative self-talk, crumbling beneath the rubble of a shattered self-esteem.  My grades were plummeting.  I rarely attended my classes.  I was depressed and emotionally desolate.  Alone.

When I began journaling, I did not know that I was constructing a life raft that would carry me along this journey called Life. All I knew was that I too was drowning, and I needed to save myself.  Day after day, I walked into that coffee shop and wrote.  I began to fill journals, one after the other.  Rarely did I go back and read what I had written.  It was the process of writing that kept me returning to the blank page.

Through journaling and the reflection it fosters, I lifted myself out of that current of despair and began a process of elevating my self-esteem by getting closer to myself.  With every page I wrote, I cultivated my inner strength.  As I became clearer about who I was, my relationships began to improve.  The problems with my parents did not cease, but my propensity to delve into their darkness did.  I took charge of my life.  I began to dream big dreams on paper, and then over the years, watch those dreams materialize into reality.  I wrote.  I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.  I never stopped writing.

I could not have known then that 20 years later, I would find a treasure beneath the rubble of the struggle I had experienced.

“The tribute to learning is teaching.”
–Wise saying from the Orient (and on my green tea bag)

Now, twenty years later, in the grace of this classroom at South High, in the grace of this career, I finally understand the purpose of this two decades-long journey: the practice of writing in a journal, for me, was life-saving.  And I believe it’s my responsibility and luck to be able to share this gift with others.

The practice of journaling has become my faith.  It is my faith because it has allowed me to see the interconnectedness of all of us and of our experiences.  It teaches me that we are groomed through our struggles to help others.  That is the point–so human, so basic, and so divine all at the same time.

In a school of thousands of people, these students are the probably the most qualified to work with and help other teen parents in the future.  Through their struggle, they are cultivating an empathy that can only be realized by going into the abyss.  This is just one of the infinite possibilities for them in their young lives.  I see it so clearly.  My job is to help students see the beauty in their struggle.

When you lift the debris, dirt, and rubble of the struggles in your lives, what treasures do you see?

Janna Brayman Krawczyk MAT
www.ourlivesourstories.com
reflect.  envision.  create.

I have a chime hanging from the window to the left of my desk in the Treehouse with the words “Desire What You Have”  painted on the front.  I bought it a few years ago as an epiphany purchase.  It was one of those times when I was sucked in the vortex of the Bibelot shop in northeast, the wallet in my pocket a burning inferno.  I saw this beautiful painted chime dangling from the ceiling and I was so struck by the message, I put out the fire out and put my money on the counter.

I am so glad I did.

I love the simple wisdom of the phrase: Desire What You Have.

If we desire what we have, then no matter what our possessions, we are rich.

I love coming across it again and again because it reminds me to be aware of my thoughts and to be aware of what I have and what I am now.  I need to be reminded.

When I sat down to start this blog, I was looking for inspiration in “The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living.”  I came across this quote by the Dalai Lama:

“…our moment-to-moment happiness is largely determined by our outlook.  In fact, whether we are feeling happy or unhappy at any given moment often has very little to do with our absolute conditions but, rather it is a function of how we perceive our situation, how satisfied we are with what we have.”

I have noticed by listening to my thoughts that I spend a ridiculous amount of time wanting to be more than I am.  I rarely, if ever, sit back and bask in my accomplishments and who I am now.  I unwittingly live in a state of personal dissatisfaction.  “When I publish my first book, then I will Be a Writer,” I tell myself.  “When my website is perfect, when my teaching is perfect, when I have many articles published in Oprah Magazine, when I am no longer nervous before I begin teaching a new class, then I will feel like I have arrived at my own doorstep.”

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.”  ~James Openheim

Meanwhile, the person I am now, right now–my feet up on this couch in the Treehouse, Oliver and Lucy snug and safe in their beds, Dharma curled up next to me, writing this blog–is ignored because I have convinced myself that I am not complete, that I have to strain and strive and be better to deserve this blessed life.

I do not think these things consciously.  These thoughts run unsupervised through my head until I take the time to notice them and really hear what I am saying to myself. And then I realize all of this self-talk is crazy talk.  If I can’t accept myself and what I have now, then I will never accept myself and what I have.  Because it’s a way of thinking.  It’s practicing non-acceptance of myself over and over and over.

This is yet another reason I must write.  I must have a way to reveal this crazy talk, to call it out for what it is so I can be aware of it and slowly, slowly change it.  If I write it, not only have I taken the time to draw it out and contemplate it, I can see it in literal black and white, staring back at me. And when I am able to look my thoughts in the eye and see them for what they are, I can then challenge them.

In the pages of my journal, I sow seeds of change.  Some are slow to grow, others just need a little light and attention to take hold and flourish.

It is necessary to be aware of what we want in this life.  However, it is a delicate balance that must be tempered by an abiding awarness of what we have. Life is now. I have arrived at the doorstep of myself. In fact, I’ve been standing here the whole time.

Exercise for reflection and writing: Dwell in the landscape of what you have now, in this moment, in your life.  Like Openheim’s quote, when we see the very garden in which we stand, we notice we are surrounded by abundance and beauty.  If you have trouble beginning, simply write the words, “I have…”  Keep returning to those words, those thoughts, of what you have right now in your life.  Are you desiring what you have?

Janna Brayman Krawczyk is a writer and a teacher.  She has a B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Masters in Teaching from Hamline University.  She has been writing in a journal for over half of her life and has finally accepted that life is not easy, yet our struggles and obstacles are what inspire insight and wisdom.  For this reason, she must write as a way to understand herself and her life, stay sane, and dream big dreams.  She feels blessed to share this healing and illuminating practice with as many people as possible in her lifetime…