Sit Write Live can help you learn how to use journaling with meditative techniques, to capture and clarify, in a contemplative way, what is happening—right now.

I created this website because effective journaling helped me during a period of my life when I was powerless over so much. Just after I turned fifty I was diagnosed with breast cancer and with that came a midlife reckoning. Journaling helped clarify how I felt, even if it was only confusion; what I feared, whether valid or not; and what I was grateful for, no matter the situation. The integral techniques have helped me to get to know myself better, to be more true and tolerant and loving of myself, to laugh more, to live better.

Sit down and write. Then get up and live. How? I’ll show you.

How to Journal

What you write in your journal is a conversation you are having with yourself. Figure out what works for you. Use pen and paper or keyboard and document, either way, just don’t cross out or hit that delete button. What you’ll discover is that it’s often the sections you are tempted to erase that are the most revealing.

Forget what your teachers told you about writing. Journaling need not be grammatically correct, neat, or in full sentences.  The goal is to allow all thoughts, especially the new or very quiet ones, to emerge. Catch them. Pin them down.

Effective journaling works best when you follow the new thought. If it comes across your mind, write it down. Alternately, accept when you seem to be writing the same thing over and over. Repetition is natural. It’s our inner world we’re capturing and we all have our storylines.

Write for a prescribed time.  Set aside ten or twenty minutes daily. Writing is similar to finding a lost item; it is often in that very last place (or sentence) that one finds what one is looking for.