My article about journalling for the Rhodia website

The following is an article I wrote for the Rhodia website, called Rhodia Drive. Check out their website, it is full of lovely notebooks and stationery: http://www.rhodiadrive.com/2015/11/03/guest-blogger-rose-from-enjoy-happy-stationery/



Rose reviews happy stationery over at www.enjoyhappystationery.blogspot.nl. You can view more of her work at the link.

I am very excited to be a guest blogger for Rhodia Drive. I have heard so many positive things about Rhodia. As an absolute stationery lover, I love everything that has to do with stationery; notebooks, journals, pens, pencils and art supplies. Browsing through the Rhodia Drive website was highly entertaining and I love every single article and post on it. Writing is an integral part of my life and outside the people in my life the most precious thing. With this guest post I hope to convey some of the enthusiasm to you.

Writing means many things for different people. One of the things that I love about writing is the fact that it can bring me into different kind of states of mind. Nowadays my favorite kind of state to be in with writing is what I call the meditative state. Even as a young child, when I would write poetry, I felt I would be connected to something outside myself. With writing you can reach to something outside of you and maybe, hopefully, expand your mind or boundaries. Whilst writing, I would feel I was in a different realm. If I would write about the unicorns running on the moon, I would actually see that in real. Or I might feel I was that unicorn and gliding off of rainbows in the universe. You can imagine I would rather want to stay in that state. Stationery and writing by hand is the best way for me to be in that state.

When I got older, I used my stationery also for my studies. For me, it was the most natural thing in the world to have different kind of notebooks, journals, cahiers and spiral notebooks for my studies. In addition, I would bring fineliners, markers, colored pens and my notetaking pens. For my fellow students I seemed a kind of eccentric. Until they saw me taking my notes and passing my exams only through my notetaking. Then I exchanged my notes with them for borrowing their books that I could not afford. To this day colleagues ask me if they can borrow my notes because I take them extensively but sort them and categorize them. Using different kind of notebooks and paper, you can focus on the main things.

I cherish my writing moments. As mentioned, it brings me in a different kind of state of mind. If I feel down, it is more difficult to write, everything actually seems more difficult then. I do make attempts to write, and then you can at least be happy that you did, but it is different when you are in an enthusiastic mood. There is also another thing that I cherish in life: self-development and self-improvement. I had a formal university education and it did bring me formal knowledge. Yet, I know there is so much out there that I don’t know and would like to know. To assess that knowledge, I tried to seek that knowledge outside of myself. Then I read a few books about the fact that it is good to attain knowledge by quietly listening, meditating, and focusing. Especially the things about yourself will become clear.

How does one listen quietly to oneself? With years of journal writing experience I could enter that state of mind through writing. How exactly I cannot explain. This dawned on me in the recent couple of years. Once I was aware of this, I tried to become more conscious of it and act upon it. Writing is never just writing for me. There is always this awareness of myself and the connection with myself. I feel I am not only getting to know myself better with each word and each sentence, it brings me tremendous joy.
People always ask me what to write about. Maybe they assume that I write only about the metaphysical things in life and stellar events. The truth is that I sometimes just complain about the petty things in life and also repeat myself a lot of times. There are subjects that are grateful to be used for weeks in a row, let’s stay the colleague that tried to get your promotion and did or the bus that is always late. Of course, sometimes the deep reflections are also there. Usually, after you started writing about the mundane things. So these have a reason too and I won’t undervalue them because they can lead to some insights. In the first months of 2014 I wrote two journals in three months about something that I needed to recover from. I had no idea why it was so difficult. The two journals and the largest part of the third journal were almost identical in repetitive words and lines and inner conversations. Until in the end, then they led to some insight that was quite revealing. I realized I had to leave my comfort zone and give up some routines. It was hard but without that journal writing and repeating words, I probably would not have ended up with that conclusion.

Usually, I finish at least four journals a year and I have different journals; dream journals, a love journal, travel journals, short trip journals, project journals and art journals. Starting a new journal is always exciting to me and alone for that reason I would finish one to start another. If you want to read more about my journals or articles about stationery, you can check out my website at www.enjoyhappystationery.blogspot.nl.