• About

Esta Doutrich

Esta Doutrich

Tag Archives: journaling

A bitter experiment

04 Thursday Nov 2010

Posted by Esta in journaling, life dirt, outrageous love, realized dreams, unreasonable hope

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

journaling

It may sound simplistic, but it kept me wrapped tight around truth when I wanted to let go.

It was not my idea, of course. Sheesh, I’m twenty. I can’t speak a word of understanding life and even begin to sound like I know what I’m talking about. Forget it. There are still years and years of dreadful wading through my own immaturity until I can sit, like she did, and know what to say.

 I met with her to ask for help. Wisdom to point out the path of healing out of the fear and anger and brokenness that I knew was there. I remember the way the light from the window make the tears on her cheeks glisten and how, just like Christ’s pain helps me see my worth, so her tears let me know I wasn’t completely bonkers.

I remember my exact words, asking her, desperate, “What do I do with this? How, how do I let pain be felt and tasted yet still move forward into hope?

Practical. I wanted something to use in everyday life. A way of not deadening the longings, without letting them deaden me.

“Do you journal?” she asked.

Laugher with a touch of bitterness.

“If wouldn’t be for my journal…..”

So she gave me the experiment.

Everyday write the longings, she told me. And then after they are written and the sin-crusted woman inside you knows what she wants to do with them. Then—then write out what you decide to do with them instead.

Taking her advice I started. In black ink they scarred the pages—lies, longings, pain, and anger. Out of the darkness inside they raced out and overwhelmed my hand and often my words slanted longer and wider as I wrote with more emotion.Then after the storm was scribbled, came the decision.

“Yes, this is how I feel, but today, today I’m going to take this pain and…..”

Then the decision was also written in black and so it spoke back. Loud. Firm.

For over a year I tried it.

Pain. Longings. Anger. Frustration. Decision to reach for hope.

Now, a year into the experiment, the struggles still remain, but the bitterness has left in the light of the hope. The hope fills up the page now. And the pain is only the black ink that makes the hope seem more whole, more complete.

It was a simple experiment, from a wise woman.


 

I'm Esta

/Canadian nurse living in Oregon/ Occasionally I write about depression, womanhood, faith, and other super abstract ideas, while trying not to take myself too seriously.

Search the whispers

The latest whispers

  • Being Mortal: A Book You Should Read
  • Eden Sarah
  • 41 weeks and leaning in
  • 35 weeks, mountains, and elusive tea
  • 33 weeks and facing the fear
  • 32 weeks and feeling the space.
  • Small is scary
  • Esta’s Summer Book List
  • These are two of my favorite things
  • Convoluted thoughts on women, callings, and personal growth.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

whispers by month

Follow me on Bloglovin

Follow on Bloglovin

Instagram

It has been five months since physical illness left me unable to get off the couch and triggered panic and anxiety that was unexpected and debilitating. It has been a month since I said goodbye to my cousin/friend @matthewgingerich for the last time. Our grief is raw enough that it feels impossible to be engaged in witnessing worldwide anguish as well. It is overwhelming to hold both personal and collective suffering isn’t it, especially in an age of information? I’m confident that we are all held and sustained, no matter what suffering we face, in His enduring love and goodness, and I rest in that.
It’s been a while since book recommendations have shown up here. And both of these are a little outside of genre for what I typically highlight in this way.
“I think it started with my father. He took me for long walks and explained things to me” ...
I’m a nurse not a teacher. Not by nature, skill, or learned vocation do I thrive as instructor, but here we are another year completed.
“Two trundle beds were pushed against the opposite wall. A wood rocking chair waited by the potbelly stove. A narrow table under the window, it’s paint chipped and faded, where I used to do homeschool lessons with my father, or read books in the dim, flickering light of a kerosene lamp, or harvest the inner bark from red willow branches with my small knife. The enamel percolator, blistered with rust where my father kept his coffee. His blue summer cap hung from a hook by the door. As if time had not moved on or changed anything since I left. As if he might walk in through the door. “
I experienced my first episode of depression when I was thirteen. We didn’t know what it was and neither did we have language for phenomena like Intrusive Thoughts, so it was a very scary and foggy time for me.

Goodreads

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Esta Doutrich
    • Join 126 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Esta Doutrich
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...