August 21, 2023 • 31 mins
078. Are your emotions a tangled web that you're struggling to unravel?
Imagine if you had a tool, a key that could unlock the mysteries of your mind and heart.
In this episode Marijanel was privileged to have artist and coach, Jackie Ranahan, as a guest, who navigated us through her personal journey of journaling. Starting from her childhood scribbles to her conscious flow journaling during the hard times of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackie illustrated how journaling can be an invaluable tool to self-discovery and healing.
How can you make journaling personal? Does it seem daunting? Jackie didn't just stop at sharing her inspiring journey, she also provided nuggets of wisdom on personalizing your journaling practice.
From embracing your unique language or symbols to creatively addressing privacy fears, we navigated through the practicalities of journaling, and even touched upon the exciting possibility of creating a memoir through your entries.
To top it all, we explored how journaling can be like your personal problem-solving guru and a steady hand, guiding you towards self-accountability. Be it creative tools or establishing an accountability system, Jackie has an arsenal of tips to aid you in your journaling journey. Let's begin this transformative journey towards self-discovery and healing.
✷ Website → https://marijanel.com/
✷ Companion YouTube Video → https://youtu.be/n9avHAT_bes
✷ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/marijanel/
✷ Support the Show → https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Marijanel
✷ Music → https://www.epidemicsound.com/
✷ Jackie Website → https://www.jackieranahan.com/
✷ Jackie Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/jackieranahan.artist
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marijanel (00:00):
Good day.
I am here with artist and coachJackie Ranahan, who has
experienced firsthand someincredible life changing
benefits of journaling, andwe're here today to talk about
that and hopefully inspire youin your daily journaling
practice as well.
Jackie, thank you so much forbeing on the Mary Janelle Show.
(00:20):
Welcome.
Jackie Ranahan (00:22):
Thanks for having me.
I'm so excited, so excited.
Marijanel (00:27):
Yeah, so you and I sparked up this conversation on
Instagram of all things, whereyou shared with me that
journaling has literally changedyour life.
Can you tell me about that?
Jackie Ranahan (00:38):
So you know, you asked me when we first started
chatting about getting togethertoday.
You had to ask me when.
When I started journaling and Ireally at first I thought COVID
, it was a COVID times 2020.
That was when.
But then, when I started toreally think about it, I had
been journaling and have beenjournaling on and off since I
(01:01):
was a kid, starting with thediary, then moving through love
letters to two boys that I neversent them to to you know,
creating journals for my kidswhen I was expecting both of
them.
So it actually has been presentin in my life for most of my
(01:22):
life, and so the reason I gotback to it during COVID was,
like everybody out there, covidhad a monstrous impact.
My husband and I owned a sportbusiness, owned, still own a
sport business that was heavilyimpacted with the lockdowns that
happened in Ontario and Ineeded an outlet.
(01:48):
I needed, not that I couldn'tspeak with him, but we were both
on the same frenzy.
So I needed something thatwasn't in a frenzy and I bought
a book and just started writingand and yeah, so I've been
writing ever since.
Marijanel (02:05):
And so did you have any prompts or starters to help
you get going writing in thejournal, or you just you said
you bought a book and startedwriting.
Was it that easy for you?
Did you have any holdbacks, toget the pen and thoughts flowing
on into the journal?
What was that like?
Jackie Ranahan (02:22):
So I started as a great question.
So I started out with a dailyintention.
So I would write down a wordusually word, sometimes it was
two or three, but usually a wordof a daily intention that I
wanted to remind myself ofthroughout the throughout the
day, and then a couple of bulletpoints as to what that
intention meant.
Oftentimes I'd even write whatthe weather was that day.
(02:45):
I'd say it was raining, or youknow where I was specifically,
and then that turned.
So it started out like that andthen it just got into more
sentences and a bigger intentionand then after a while I ended
up dropping the intention andjust writing.
So just starting out with how Ifelt, and it's now part of my
(03:07):
morning routine.
So I get up in the morningfairly early, make a cup of tea,
sit down.
Oftentimes I'll meditate andthen I'll journal after that.
Marijanel (03:18):
Okay, so what is an example, a random example of an
intention?
Did you, did you just come upwith these yourself, or did you
have some kind of prompt bookwith intentions, and what's an
example of one?
Jackie Ranahan (03:29):
An example might be focus in terms of specific
words.
Focus I steady.
Marijanel (03:38):
Okay, so it's like you picked a word, yes and the
word prompted what you wroteabout.
Jackie Ranahan (03:44):
Yes, yes.
Marijanel (03:46):
Wow, okay.
And then that, having startingwith a prompt or a word, led you
to what I call conscious flowjournaling.
There's all different namesconscious stream or free flow
where essentially you just takepen and paper, just let out all
your thoughts, no particularorder, no particular theme,
whatever's on your heart or mindthat day, is that?
That's essentially where theintention led, the intention
(04:09):
word led you to conscious flowjournaling.
Jackie Ranahan (04:11):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I first was introduced towhat what you're calling
conscious flow journaling when,back I would say in the 90s, I
was at a trade show in PEI and Ibought a book called the artist
wave by Julia Cameron and hershe calls the morning pages, so
her conscious flow is morningpages, and so that was a opened
(04:36):
my eyes to just the fact ofwriting.
I don't necessarily write, domorning pages all the time.
I do them when I'm particularlyfeeling I need to work through
something, and oftentimes Idon't even know what the
something is.
So that's a morning pages orconscious flow journaling is
(04:57):
great for is if you really don'tknow what it is and you just
need to get it out.
So you just write and write andwrite.
Marijanel (05:05):
Yeah, I love that you pointed that out, jackie,
because when I share with myaudience how much journaling has
impacted me, empowered me,become like the birthplace of my
ideas and just really kept meI'm gonna call it on track in my
life like helped me to focus,helped me to sort things, become
a wholehearted person, I can'tgo on, I can go on and on about
(05:28):
the benefits, but what's reallyinteresting is that when I open
up the pages and begin to write,I don't always have prompts or
anything to get me started and Iactually don't know what the
something is.
So that is really key, because,as I've been developing
mentorship programs and leadingpeople through journaling
(05:50):
practice, I feel like I want togive them guides like this is
how you could flip the narrativeof fear, or this is how you
could get yourself startedworking through a relationship
issue.
But the truth is, a lot of timeswe don't know what the
something is.
We actually are a little lost.
(06:11):
We go something's bothering meor something's bothering me
about this.
We might be able to fill in theblank in a general way like
something's bothering me aboutthis friendship or something's
bothering me about this in myyou know entrepreneurial life,
but we don't actually know whatit is, and what I found is that
journaling allows me to juststream the thoughts down and
(06:31):
suddenly there's like an answeron the page, or at least what it
is like.
I uncover the problem byjournaling and then a lot of
times I answer the problemthrough journaling, and it's
very hard to teach that, butit's actually quite possible for
everyone.
It's not out of anyone's reachto be able to journal them, what
(06:54):
I call journal yourself whole.
Jackie Ranahan (06:57):
Absolutely.
It's like.
It's like having a conversationwith yourself really is what
you're doing and you are workingthrough.
So, as you said, sometimes youfind the answer.
Well, the answer that just saysthat the answer was always
inside of you from the start,but you just had so much stuff
to weed through before you gotto what it was.
Marijanel (07:21):
I know, I know and you know you said there that the
answer is there inside you andhaving this conversation with
yourself.
And when I encourage people tojournal, a lot of times they
don't want to because they'reactually scared of themselves,
they're scared of the thoughtsthat they're going to have, or
they don't want to deal with thegrief that they know is buried
(07:42):
in there, or the anger orwhatever.
Because sometimes we can havesome real negative things that
are pent up in our hearts and weknow if we sit down with
ourselves it's going to come outon those pages.
And so people are afraid oflike taking a look at that truth
.
And yet I do like to stillencourage them to do that,
little by little, because we, ifwe want to live a wholehearted
(08:06):
life, authentic and confident,the only way to do that is as a
whole person, without all thethe, what you were describing,
even the noise and the clutter,but then also the stuff we're
afraid to look at.
And so by journaling and Ialways say it doesn't replace
therapy or counseling, but it'sa tool that we can use to start
to sift and sort and have thoseconversations with ourselves.
(08:29):
What's interesting is thatwe're the safest people to be
with like, although we can beour own worst critics and
sometimes we can be pretty hardon ourselves.
If we step aside, like if weput that part of ourself aside
and release the self compassionand the grace and the
understanding and just be withyourself in that way and get to
(08:53):
know yourself, have that safeconversation with yourself.
The journal is a beautiful tooland way to work through a lot
of the stuff that then you cantake that to your counselor or
to someone that you talk to orconfide in.
You can use it as a tool toheal, and so I always say don't
be afraid of yourself.
Jackie Ranahan (09:13):
Absolutely, absolutely.
It's that inner.
You know you hit the nail onthe head with using that saying
is that it's the inner critic,is the thing, the person inside
of you.
That and I found not that I goback, because that's actually
something I want to bring up isI don't necessarily go back and
reread my journal.
(09:35):
It's very interesting.
I often, you know, I have thisthought in the back of my mind
that maybe someday my journalwill become a memoir and that's
when I'll go back and readthrough it.
But it's not like I write andthen the next day I go back and
look to see what I wrote.
Oftentimes it's a move forwardtype of motion, it's not a going
(09:55):
back kind of motion.
So your inner critic does comeout sometimes in your journal.
You have this conversation orthis battle with yourself as
you're going through the pages,and it may not be resolved on
one entry.
It may then carry on to thenext entry.
But again it's that thinking ofmoving forward.
So it's not necessarily, for meanyway, a moving backward.
(10:19):
I don't review what I'vewritten necessarily.
Marijanel (10:23):
Yeah Well, because I've journaled for so many years
and I usually have at least onefull journal per year, if not
two, or if not broken intodifferent topics, I will often
reread a year or two back.
I find if I reread too close towhat I'm going through, I might
get in a muddle again aboutwhatever it is and then I will
(10:48):
just not have the clarity as ifI move forward like you're
suggesting.
So sometimes what I find to beencouraging is to actually read
where I was a year or two agoand I find then I'm reflecting
at wow, I've actually come along way, or oh, I forgot about
that problem and it's not aproblem, and look at how it
(11:09):
worked out.
Or I'll see that, oh, I used tohave.
For example, I do journal a lotabout my creativity and my
artistic pursuits.
That takes up a huge amount ofcontent in my journals.
I really work through mycreative self so that it doesn't
drive my husband crazy or thatI'm not dumping on the kids all
(11:30):
the time, but I will workthrough these things.
So I'll look back a year or twoor three ago in a journal and
say, wow, I really did battlewith imposter syndrome or I was
really comparing back then withother people's art.
And then now I'll look at whereI am today and think I have
made progress, and just knowingthat you've made progress is
(11:52):
sometimes just enough to makethat next leap forward.
So I do find the journals andthe reread of them does
encourage my soul to moveforward, but I have to be
careful not to look at theentries that are too close to
proximity of where I am now.
Jackie Ranahan (12:10):
Yeah, I think it's such a personal thing and,
as you mentioned, getting peopleand giving people prompts to
get started.
It's such a personal thing andit has to evolve as you evolve,
right, Like it has to.
So, starting out with the dailyaffirmation or starting out
with just a couple of bullets ifyou really have a little bit of
(12:33):
fear around journaling,starting out really small, Don't
make this.
You don't have to write a fullpage, you can write like.
When I look back at my originaljournals, I was like a third of
a page a day was how Ioriginally started.
It was just getting thethoughts out and then a third of
a page became half of a pageand half to a whole, et cetera,
(12:55):
et cetera.
So it's got to become andevolve and be personal to who
you are.
And I know there's a lot of fear.
A lot of people have feararound journaling that somebody
might read.
What if somebody comes andreads my books?
My family sees me journalingand it's and they're very
(13:15):
respectful that I think thatnone of them have opened up.
But my journals aren't lockedand they're not tossed away.
They're usually beside the bedor beside my reading chair in
the morning and my approach, andI do appreciate that this is my
perspective.
And there have been people whohave had their trust betrayed in
(13:37):
the past and I completelyunderstand that.
My perspective is that I'm okayif one of my family picked up
my journal and started readingit, because I have that trust in
my family unit, Because I thinkif they were to read it they
just know more about me.
They just know more about me.
Marijanel (14:00):
Someone.
Reading your journal isactually a big hold back for a
lot of people to journal and Ido offer a few tips.
I really like what yousuggested, that often we feel
comfortable with our trustedones around us, and I completely
identify.
I leave my journals laying allover the place.
If they read it, good for themis what I think If you wanna
(14:23):
know that much about your wifeand your mom good for you, Maybe
the first day at mine.
Jackie Ranahan (14:28):
I was so upset the other day.
Marijanel (14:30):
Exactly like.
Maybe I'll explain a few thingsinside this journal and you'll
get the message.
So that's my take.
But I do like you mentioned.
I do understand that there'ssome who are holding back
expressing themselves in ajournal because of the fear or
concern that someone would pickit up and read it.
And I do have some reallypractical suggestions that I
(14:53):
offer in my journal classresource.
That's more like a discovery Icall it a class or a course, but
it's more like a discoveryprogram and where we discover
journaling ourselves whole.
And one of those suggestions isto even give yourself your own
language or code or some symbols.
And I do that Like.
Sometimes I will develop acertain symbol.
(15:15):
If I'm working, let's say,through a relationship and I
don't want to be using theperson's name in my journal,
even for the reason that my kidsmight pick it up and I don't
really want them to know I'mworking through that, I might
come up with a little symbol ora little kind of like a nickname
or something, and I'll almostwrite in code for myself, but I
(15:38):
fully understand it.
So don't write in code that youdon't understand, but something
that you can understand.
And I'll write shorthand andI'll write in a way, and I've
developed this over a year, soit takes.
It would take a while for you towrite your language, but I
believe you could write alanguage to express yourself,
(15:58):
whether it be symbols or codes,and write the story.
Even if it needed to be in apicture form of you know
something a bit more like apicture, word picture, you could
still express what you're goingthrough and uncover truth and
take a look at deeper things inyour life by journaling, without
giving up all the names andscenarios and everything to be
(16:23):
exposed in the journal, and soif you're able to interpret it,
that's what matters.
The other thing is they makesafes.
They make like easy to lock up,pretty nice looking little
suitcase safes or you know, justkeep that by your bed and have
a little key tucked in yourphone case or whatever.
If I find with anything in life, if there's a will, there's a
(16:45):
way.
If you really want to expressyourself in a journal, you're
going to find a way to do it andstill feel safe, and so I would
encourage people to take a lookat those options if that's
what's holding you back.
Jackie Ranahan (16:59):
One of the things just going back to the
morning pages in Julia Cameron'sbook, the she suggests for
morning pages is to throw themaway when you're done, Don't
reread them.
So I think it's her suggestionis three full pages a day and
that you don't reread them.
You throw them in the trash oryou can burn them which is
(17:21):
another?
Marijanel (17:22):
Yeah, Right.
Jackie Ranahan (17:23):
Shredding them, even burning them, is safely, is
a is another way to completealmost the cycle of writing
something down and thenreleasing it.
So that's also a thought too.
If you're you know, just writeit all down and rip them up,
throw them in a public garbagecan, somewhere, and, and you
know, get, get rid of them.
(17:45):
And at least you started thatconscious flow.
Marijanel (17:49):
Yes, I agree, and that would be step one for sure.
I've always had a hard timedoing that personally, because I
do have the sense that I wantto leave a memoir and I've
always hoped, as you mentionedin the beginning, that that
perhaps the journals would leadto the memoir which they
essentially did.
When I had the Curiosity'sApprentice podcast, the first 50
(18:10):
episodes of the Mary Janelleshow were stories of my life
which I actually did end uptaking a big portion of those
stories from my journal.
I rewrote them and reworkedthem for the podcast and audio.
But I got the inspiration fromprevious journals and without
the previous journals I don'tknow if I could have totally
done what I did.
And so I've seen the value ofhaving, like not getting rid of
(18:33):
my writings.
But morning pages are slightlydifferent.
If the way Julia Cameronsuggests the morning pages is
really just to get out evenrandomness that's on your mind
that you wake up with and I cansee how those could be tossed in
the garbage because you're justsort of venting.
I do a little bit of thatventing in my conscious flow,
(18:55):
journaling, but a lot of times Ido have a good point to make,
like I get to a point.
I'm like you know, if there'sanything like speaking of
prompts and and how to getstarted, I love to give journal
prompts and I love to givequestions to ask yourself as you
(19:17):
work through a particularchallenge in your life.
So, for example, if someone'sparticularly developing their
intuition, I have a whole listof questions that they can ask
themselves to begin to developtheir intuition and pay
attention to their, what theirgut is telling them.
That is, you know, a scenarioof having good prompts and
questions.
(19:37):
But if you threw all promptsand questions aside, like you
did, they just weren't availablefor you.
There was never a resource outthere.
I feel like there's like fourquestions that you could ask
yourself every single day to getstarted, and two of them are
actually repeats.
So the thing, and I asked myself, what is it like when I sit
(20:01):
down and I open that journal?
Because I have no hold back.
I've been doing this for 35years.
It's part of my life.
Like you said, you make yourcup of tea, you sit down, a
journal, I make my cup of coffeeand I sit down with my cat,
actually, and I begin to journaland I will just open it and
there's no hold backs.
And so I've been starting tothink through the hold backs
(20:21):
that other people are having andthat they don't know what to
write.
And I asked myself, maryJanelle, what is it you're
asking yourself to start Like tothat second that the ink hits
the page?
What have you done there thatcould help someone else do it?
And I realized it's the firstthing that I start to write is
what's happening, like it's justwhat's happening in my life in
(20:45):
that moment, or in my brain inthat moment, or what I'm feeling
.
And that's the next question iswhat's happening and what am I
feeling?
Like what do I feel aboutwhat's happening?
And somehow those two simplequestions get me going and I
just begin to write what'shappening and what I'm feeling
and what's happening, what I'mfeeling.
And then it leads me to what'shappening and what am I going to
(21:09):
do about it.
So you know that, what am Igoing to do about it?
I think is where we problemsolve or we lead ourselves to a
solution through journaling.
And that's what I love aboutcalling it.
Journaling yourself whole islike you.
You go through the feelings andthey might be negative, they
might be positive.
They are going to be what theyare.
(21:30):
They are what they are and yougo through them and then in the
end, if you teach yourself tojournal long enough, like to
journal yourself through theprocess, not just to close the
book and be like I have allthese horrible feelings or I
went through this horrible thing, but to actually push through
the solution, your next part ofthe questions to yourself is
going to be like what am I goingto do about it?
(21:53):
And that's, I think, crucialtool to journaling is giving
yourself a solution, because wesaid earlier how the answers are
in you.
Jackie Ranahan (22:03):
Yes, it's the one, the why and the how.
Right.
So what am I feeling?
Why am I feeling?
And then how?
How am I going to get myselfout of this?
how am I going to move, movealong.
I love that having a way tojust even starting with how I'm
feeling.
Today I have this really coolapp that prompts me three times
(22:26):
a day to say how I'm feeling,and it's a really neat sort of
check in to say this is, this ishow I'm feeling.
I'm feeling, you know, mellow,I'm feeling relaxed, and you can
sort of start to see, you cansee what's the word.
I'm looking for patterns in insort of maybe week, week, days
(22:48):
of the week, certain things andwho I'm with, and and those
kinds of things.
So you can even use use thoseand going back to if, if writing
is not an easy thing, justbullet, just do bullet points,
just write bullet points andstart with that.
Writing will come.
You don't have to.
There's nobody marking you.
(23:10):
There's no, this is not anEnglish assignment.
There's nobody marking you.
So if writing and writing isdifficult, then just make it
simple for yourself.
Marijanel (23:19):
Yeah, ask yourself what can I do to achieve this?
Because a lot of people andachieve might be the wrong word,
because that sounds like we'regetting marked or getting graded
.
It's not an achievement.
But what can I do to besuccessful at getting my pen
into the journal and writing?
What can I do to do that?
It's as simple as like solvingthat for you, like asking
(23:40):
yourself what's holding me backand what can I do about it.
And because a lot of peopledesire that practice.
They really do want to recordtheir thoughts and feelings and
work through things in this way.
We live in a very such adistracted time of life where we
spend so much time on devices,there's so much media and
(24:04):
information.
I think it's harder to journalthan ever before.
When I started the practice andI was a teenager, I don't even
think emailing was a thing.
There wasn't.
You know there wasn't.
There were computers in thecomputer lab in the schools,
like that's it.
We didn't have them at home andwe had telephones on a cord.
You know that the whole familyhad to share and it was a party
(24:27):
line you know so it wasdifferent.
My journaling really was maybemy only way of really expression
and communication with myself.
It was like a lifeline to me.
But I discovered that young, ata time when there was less
distractions, and I guess now II think that there's still a way
(24:47):
to preserve and hold on to thebeauty of that for this current
generation, that the kids, theyoung people, the teens, the
young adults could still havethis.
Like you, you take your device,you set it aside, put it on
silent and just decide to bewith yourself for that period of
(25:08):
time and make the effort toquiet yourself from all that
clutter and noise and see whathappens.
And even if you have to set atimer for 10 minutes, if it's
like super hard for you and youhave like attention challenges
and you just say, okay, I can dothis for five minutes so quiet
(25:29):
the house.
Or go to a corner, go to yourwalk-in closet and close the
door and sit down with yourjournal and be like I'm here for
five minutes.
So this, this relates, but it'sa little bit different.
I watched the interview withSeinfeld, who I Jerry Seinfeld I
highly respect because of hisdiscipline.
Not only is he hilarious, but hehas a discipline and extreme
(25:51):
laser focus through his careerand he had a rule for himself
that when it was his time towrite because a big part of
being a comedian is just writingand writing down everything
that interests you and thenfinding funny ways to frame it
and he had a rule for himselfthat when it was time to write,
(26:12):
he would set aside the writingtime, like set aside the
environment that he needed towrite, and his rule was that he
didn't have to write but hewasn't allowed to do anything
else.
So he could sit there and stareat the page and that was okay
for the entire writing time, buthe wasn't allowed to do
something else.
(26:32):
And I think about that in termsof our journaling practice,
that if you were to giveyourself five, ten, fifteen
minutes where you know it's timeto do this and you need to
focus, well, it's okay if youdon't write in that journal but
don't do anything else.
Just be with it, just be withyourself, and then that pen
might start to move and thefeelings might start to come out
(26:53):
.
Jackie Ranahan (26:54):
Right, it's that accountability.
So it's creating whatever worksfor you.
That that's sort ofaccountability.
Um, during COVID I, I signed onto a.
It was a really interesting Idon't know what it whether you
call it a program or I thinkthere were often on maybe 20
(27:15):
people that signed up.
You would sign on at a specifictime of day.
People were all over the world.
You'd sign on a specific timeof day um to write and.
But so everybody was on a zoomcall and everybody was on the
screen.
There was a couple of littleprompts and little hi, how are
you?
At the beginning.
But then they set a timer.
(27:36):
The, the person who managed it,set a timer and everybody just
wrote, didn't talk, didn't we?
Just all wrote.
So it was really interestingbecause you had a whole bunch of
people.
You'd look up every once in awhile and everybody had their
heads down and we're writingthings, and you'd look up again.
But it was at accountabilitybecause it was I.
I have set aside an hour to dothis.
(27:58):
All these other people aredoing this at the same time that
I'm doing it and you couldwrite anything.
So you could do, you couldwrite your journal if you wanted
to at that period of time.
Marijanel (28:06):
I love that.
I love that.
I want to provide that in mycommunity.
Jackie Ranahan (28:09):
That's pretty cool.
That would be fun, wouldn't it?
Marijanel (28:11):
Yeah, absolutely so, jackie, in leaving everyone off
today with this inspiration.
First of all, thank you forthis rich, insightful talk about
journaling and for beingavailable to have this
conversation with me.
Could you let everyone know howto find you and what you offer,
and some parting words today?
Jackie Ranahan (28:34):
How to find me.
So my website is Jackie.
I'm sure you'll have this inthe show.
Marijanel (28:39):
The links will be below.
Jackie Ranahan (28:41):
Yeah, perfect, jackie ran a handcom is my
website.
So I am a coach.
I'm a personal coach, one onone.
Typically I do a blocks of sixsessions and we just get people
unstuck by getting to knowyourself, by refocusing on who
(29:01):
you are, what is that, what isthe unique thing that you are
bringing to the world?
And we focus on that by lookingat your strengths, what are the
things that you bring?
So it reframes where you are atin that specific time and then,
through a series of tools thatI've created over six sessions,
we get you unstuck, we get youto that next step.
(29:24):
So it might be starting abusiness, it might be something
that's something in yourpersonal life, it might be
you're trying to advance yourcareer, it could be lots of
different things.
So that's the one hat that Iwear as a personal coach.
The other hat that I wear isI'm also an artist.
I have one of my paintings inhere behind me and again, that's
how you and I somewhatconnected unbeknownst to you,
(29:47):
but how you and I somewhatconnected at first with over
your other podcasts.
And so if you go on my website,there's also a link to my
artist page there, and I'm alsoon Instagram at
JackieRanahanartist.
Or.
Marijanel (30:05):
JackieRanahan and parting words.
To leave all of these?
Either avid journalers who lovejust listening to other
journalers talk, or someonewho's listening today, who's
thinking.
I want to give that a trybecause it sounds really
beneficial.
What would you want to leave uswith today?
Jackie Ranahan (30:21):
Just try it.
Just give yourself space.
Tell yourself that you're goingto do it.
They usually say if you do itfor a month, 30 days, it becomes
a habit.
Give yourself the space to doit and start off slow Again,
remember I had said just a whileback that mine was initially a
(30:42):
quarter of a page.
Just start off slow and let itevolve.
Give yourself that space.
Marijanel (30:50):
So, so good.
Thank you, jackie.
For all of you who are tuninginto YouTube, I'd love it if you
hit the subscribe bell likegive it all the love so that
this show can be found on audioapps.
Leave a review, hit the starsand give this podcast a little
bit of love and share it around.
So appreciate it.
(31:10):
You know where to find me.
All my links are below.
Thank you, Jackie, for being aguest today.
All of Jackie's links are belowas well, and until next time,
keep on in the full potential ofyou.
Good day.
I am here with artist and coachJackie Ranahan, who has
experienced firsthand someincredible life changing
benefits of journaling, andwe're here today to talk about
that and hopefully inspire youin your daily journaling
practice as well.
Jackie, thank you so much forbeing on the Mary Janelle Show.
(00:20):
Welcome.
Jackie Ranahan (00:22):
Thanks for having me.
I'm so excited, so excited.
Marijanel (00:27):
Yeah, so you and I sparked up this conversation on
Instagram of all things, whereyou shared with me that
journaling has literally changedyour life.
Can you tell me about that?
Jackie Ranahan (00:38):
So you know, you asked me when we first started
chatting about getting togethertoday.
You had to ask me when.
When I started journaling and Ireally at first I thought COVID
, it was a COVID times 2020.
That was when.
But then, when I started toreally think about it, I had
been journaling and have beenjournaling on and off since I
(01:01):
was a kid, starting with thediary, then moving through love
letters to two boys that I neversent them to to you know,
creating journals for my kidswhen I was expecting both of
them.
So it actually has been presentin in my life for most of my
(01:22):
life, and so the reason I gotback to it during COVID was,
like everybody out there, covidhad a monstrous impact.
My husband and I owned a sportbusiness, owned, still own a
sport business that was heavilyimpacted with the lockdowns that
happened in Ontario and Ineeded an outlet.
(01:48):
I needed, not that I couldn'tspeak with him, but we were both
on the same frenzy.
So I needed something thatwasn't in a frenzy and I bought
a book and just started writingand and yeah, so I've been
writing ever since.
Marijanel (02:05):
And so did you have any prompts or starters to help
you get going writing in thejournal, or you just you said
you bought a book and startedwriting.
Was it that easy for you?
Did you have any holdbacks, toget the pen and thoughts flowing
on into the journal?
What was that like?
Jackie Ranahan (02:22):
So I started as a great question.
So I started out with a dailyintention.
So I would write down a wordusually word, sometimes it was
two or three, but usually a wordof a daily intention that I
wanted to remind myself ofthroughout the throughout the
day, and then a couple of bulletpoints as to what that
intention meant.
Oftentimes I'd even write whatthe weather was that day.
(02:45):
I'd say it was raining, or youknow where I was specifically,
and then that turned.
So it started out like that andthen it just got into more
sentences and a bigger intentionand then after a while I ended
up dropping the intention andjust writing.
So just starting out with how Ifelt, and it's now part of my
(03:07):
morning routine.
So I get up in the morningfairly early, make a cup of tea,
sit down.
Oftentimes I'll meditate andthen I'll journal after that.
Marijanel (03:18):
Okay, so what is an example, a random example of an
intention?
Did you, did you just come upwith these yourself, or did you
have some kind of prompt bookwith intentions, and what's an
example of one?
Jackie Ranahan (03:29):
An example might be focus in terms of specific
words.
Focus I steady.
Marijanel (03:38):
Okay, so it's like you picked a word, yes and the
word prompted what you wroteabout.
Jackie Ranahan (03:44):
Yes, yes.
Marijanel (03:46):
Wow, okay.
And then that, having startingwith a prompt or a word, led you
to what I call conscious flowjournaling.
There's all different namesconscious stream or free flow
where essentially you just takepen and paper, just let out all
your thoughts, no particularorder, no particular theme,
whatever's on your heart or mindthat day, is that?
That's essentially where theintention led, the intention
(04:09):
word led you to conscious flowjournaling.
Jackie Ranahan (04:11):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I first was introduced towhat what you're calling
conscious flow journaling when,back I would say in the 90s, I
was at a trade show in PEI and Ibought a book called the artist
wave by Julia Cameron and hershe calls the morning pages, so
her conscious flow is morningpages, and so that was a opened
(04:36):
my eyes to just the fact ofwriting.
I don't necessarily write, domorning pages all the time.
I do them when I'm particularlyfeeling I need to work through
something, and oftentimes Idon't even know what the
something is.
So that's a morning pages orconscious flow journaling is
(04:57):
great for is if you really don'tknow what it is and you just
need to get it out.
So you just write and write andwrite.
Marijanel (05:05):
Yeah, I love that you pointed that out, jackie,
because when I share with myaudience how much journaling has
impacted me, empowered me,become like the birthplace of my
ideas and just really kept meI'm gonna call it on track in my
life like helped me to focus,helped me to sort things, become
a wholehearted person, I can'tgo on, I can go on and on about
(05:28):
the benefits, but what's reallyinteresting is that when I open
up the pages and begin to write,I don't always have prompts or
anything to get me started and Iactually don't know what the
something is.
So that is really key, because,as I've been developing
mentorship programs and leadingpeople through journaling
(05:50):
practice, I feel like I want togive them guides like this is
how you could flip the narrativeof fear, or this is how you
could get yourself startedworking through a relationship
issue.
But the truth is, a lot of timeswe don't know what the
something is.
We actually are a little lost.
(06:11):
We go something's bothering meor something's bothering me
about this.
We might be able to fill in theblank in a general way like
something's bothering me aboutthis friendship or something's
bothering me about this in myyou know entrepreneurial life,
but we don't actually know whatit is, and what I found is that
journaling allows me to juststream the thoughts down and
(06:31):
suddenly there's like an answeron the page, or at least what it
is like.
I uncover the problem byjournaling and then a lot of
times I answer the problemthrough journaling, and it's
very hard to teach that, butit's actually quite possible for
everyone.
It's not out of anyone's reachto be able to journal them, what
(06:54):
I call journal yourself whole.
Jackie Ranahan (06:57):
Absolutely.
It's like.
It's like having a conversationwith yourself really is what
you're doing and you are workingthrough.
So, as you said, sometimes youfind the answer.
Well, the answer that just saysthat the answer was always
inside of you from the start,but you just had so much stuff
to weed through before you gotto what it was.
Marijanel (07:21):
I know, I know and you know you said there that the
answer is there inside you andhaving this conversation with
yourself.
And when I encourage people tojournal, a lot of times they
don't want to because they'reactually scared of themselves,
they're scared of the thoughtsthat they're going to have, or
they don't want to deal with thegrief that they know is buried
(07:42):
in there, or the anger orwhatever.
Because sometimes we can havesome real negative things that
are pent up in our hearts and weknow if we sit down with
ourselves it's going to come outon those pages.
And so people are afraid oflike taking a look at that truth
.
And yet I do like to stillencourage them to do that,
little by little, because we, ifwe want to live a wholehearted
(08:06):
life, authentic and confident,the only way to do that is as a
whole person, without all thethe, what you were describing,
even the noise and the clutter,but then also the stuff we're
afraid to look at.
And so by journaling and Ialways say it doesn't replace
therapy or counseling, but it'sa tool that we can use to start
to sift and sort and have thoseconversations with ourselves.
(08:29):
What's interesting is thatwe're the safest people to be
with like, although we can beour own worst critics and
sometimes we can be pretty hardon ourselves.
If we step aside, like if weput that part of ourself aside
and release the self compassionand the grace and the
understanding and just be withyourself in that way and get to
(08:53):
know yourself, have that safeconversation with yourself.
The journal is a beautiful tooland way to work through a lot
of the stuff that then you cantake that to your counselor or
to someone that you talk to orconfide in.
You can use it as a tool toheal, and so I always say don't
be afraid of yourself.
Jackie Ranahan (09:13):
Absolutely, absolutely.
It's that inner.
You know you hit the nail onthe head with using that saying
is that it's the inner critic,is the thing, the person inside
of you.
That and I found not that I goback, because that's actually
something I want to bring up isI don't necessarily go back and
reread my journal.
(09:35):
It's very interesting.
I often, you know, I have thisthought in the back of my mind
that maybe someday my journalwill become a memoir and that's
when I'll go back and readthrough it.
But it's not like I write andthen the next day I go back and
look to see what I wrote.
Oftentimes it's a move forwardtype of motion, it's not a going
(09:55):
back kind of motion.
So your inner critic does comeout sometimes in your journal.
You have this conversation orthis battle with yourself as
you're going through the pages,and it may not be resolved on
one entry.
It may then carry on to thenext entry.
But again it's that thinking ofmoving forward.
So it's not necessarily, for meanyway, a moving backward.
(10:19):
I don't review what I'vewritten necessarily.
Marijanel (10:23):
Yeah Well, because I've journaled for so many years
and I usually have at least onefull journal per year, if not
two, or if not broken intodifferent topics, I will often
reread a year or two back.
I find if I reread too close towhat I'm going through, I might
get in a muddle again aboutwhatever it is and then I will
(10:48):
just not have the clarity as ifI move forward like you're
suggesting.
So sometimes what I find to beencouraging is to actually read
where I was a year or two agoand I find then I'm reflecting
at wow, I've actually come along way, or oh, I forgot about
that problem and it's not aproblem, and look at how it
(11:09):
worked out.
Or I'll see that, oh, I used tohave.
For example, I do journal a lotabout my creativity and my
artistic pursuits.
That takes up a huge amount ofcontent in my journals.
I really work through mycreative self so that it doesn't
drive my husband crazy or thatI'm not dumping on the kids all
(11:30):
the time, but I will workthrough these things.
So I'll look back a year or twoor three ago in a journal and
say, wow, I really did battlewith imposter syndrome or I was
really comparing back then withother people's art.
And then now I'll look at whereI am today and think I have
made progress, and just knowingthat you've made progress is
(11:52):
sometimes just enough to makethat next leap forward.
So I do find the journals andthe reread of them does
encourage my soul to moveforward, but I have to be
careful not to look at theentries that are too close to
proximity of where I am now.
Jackie Ranahan (12:10):
Yeah, I think it's such a personal thing and,
as you mentioned, getting peopleand giving people prompts to
get started.
It's such a personal thing andit has to evolve as you evolve,
right, Like it has to.
So, starting out with the dailyaffirmation or starting out
with just a couple of bullets ifyou really have a little bit of
(12:33):
fear around journaling,starting out really small, Don't
make this.
You don't have to write a fullpage, you can write like.
When I look back at my originaljournals, I was like a third of
a page a day was how Ioriginally started.
It was just getting thethoughts out and then a third of
a page became half of a pageand half to a whole, et cetera,
(12:55):
et cetera.
So it's got to become andevolve and be personal to who
you are.
And I know there's a lot of fear.
A lot of people have feararound journaling that somebody
might read.
What if somebody comes andreads my books?
My family sees me journalingand it's and they're very
(13:15):
respectful that I think thatnone of them have opened up.
But my journals aren't lockedand they're not tossed away.
They're usually beside the bedor beside my reading chair in
the morning and my approach, andI do appreciate that this is my
perspective.
And there have been people whohave had their trust betrayed in
(13:37):
the past and I completelyunderstand that.
My perspective is that I'm okayif one of my family picked up
my journal and started readingit, because I have that trust in
my family unit, Because I thinkif they were to read it they
just know more about me.
They just know more about me.
Marijanel (14:00):
Someone.
Reading your journal isactually a big hold back for a
lot of people to journal and Ido offer a few tips.
I really like what yousuggested, that often we feel
comfortable with our trustedones around us, and I completely
identify.
I leave my journals laying allover the place.
If they read it, good for themis what I think If you wanna
(14:23):
know that much about your wifeand your mom good for you, Maybe
the first day at mine.
Jackie Ranahan (14:28):
I was so upset the other day.
Marijanel (14:30):
Exactly like.
Maybe I'll explain a few thingsinside this journal and you'll
get the message.
So that's my take.
But I do like you mentioned.
I do understand that there'ssome who are holding back
expressing themselves in ajournal because of the fear or
concern that someone would pickit up and read it.
And I do have some reallypractical suggestions that I
(14:53):
offer in my journal classresource.
That's more like a discovery Icall it a class or a course, but
it's more like a discoveryprogram and where we discover
journaling ourselves whole.
And one of those suggestions isto even give yourself your own
language or code or some symbols.
And I do that Like.
Sometimes I will develop acertain symbol.
(15:15):
If I'm working, let's say,through a relationship and I
don't want to be using theperson's name in my journal,
even for the reason that my kidsmight pick it up and I don't
really want them to know I'mworking through that, I might
come up with a little symbol ora little kind of like a nickname
or something, and I'll almostwrite in code for myself, but I
(15:38):
fully understand it.
So don't write in code that youdon't understand, but something
that you can understand.
And I'll write shorthand andI'll write in a way, and I've
developed this over a year, soit takes.
It would take a while for you towrite your language, but I
believe you could write alanguage to express yourself,
(15:58):
whether it be symbols or codes,and write the story.
Even if it needed to be in apicture form of you know
something a bit more like apicture, word picture, you could
still express what you're goingthrough and uncover truth and
take a look at deeper things inyour life by journaling, without
giving up all the names andscenarios and everything to be
(16:23):
exposed in the journal, and soif you're able to interpret it,
that's what matters.
The other thing is they makesafes.
They make like easy to lock up,pretty nice looking little
suitcase safes or you know, justkeep that by your bed and have
a little key tucked in yourphone case or whatever.
If I find with anything in life, if there's a will, there's a
(16:45):
way.
If you really want to expressyourself in a journal, you're
going to find a way to do it andstill feel safe, and so I would
encourage people to take a lookat those options if that's
what's holding you back.
Jackie Ranahan (16:59):
One of the things just going back to the
morning pages in Julia Cameron'sbook, the she suggests for
morning pages is to throw themaway when you're done, Don't
reread them.
So I think it's her suggestionis three full pages a day and
that you don't reread them.
You throw them in the trash oryou can burn them which is
(17:21):
another?
Marijanel (17:22):
Yeah, Right.
Jackie Ranahan (17:23):
Shredding them, even burning them, is safely, is
a is another way to completealmost the cycle of writing
something down and thenreleasing it.
So that's also a thought too.
If you're you know, just writeit all down and rip them up,
throw them in a public garbagecan, somewhere, and, and you
know, get, get rid of them.
(17:45):
And at least you started thatconscious flow.
Marijanel (17:49):
Yes, I agree, and that would be step one for sure.
I've always had a hard timedoing that personally, because I
do have the sense that I wantto leave a memoir and I've
always hoped, as you mentionedin the beginning, that that
perhaps the journals would leadto the memoir which they
essentially did.
When I had the Curiosity'sApprentice podcast, the first 50
(18:10):
episodes of the Mary Janelleshow were stories of my life
which I actually did end uptaking a big portion of those
stories from my journal.
I rewrote them and reworkedthem for the podcast and audio.
But I got the inspiration fromprevious journals and without
the previous journals I don'tknow if I could have totally
done what I did.
And so I've seen the value ofhaving, like not getting rid of
(18:33):
my writings.
But morning pages are slightlydifferent.
If the way Julia Cameronsuggests the morning pages is
really just to get out evenrandomness that's on your mind
that you wake up with and I cansee how those could be tossed in
the garbage because you're justsort of venting.
I do a little bit of thatventing in my conscious flow,
(18:55):
journaling, but a lot of times Ido have a good point to make,
like I get to a point.
I'm like you know, if there'sanything like speaking of
prompts and and how to getstarted, I love to give journal
prompts and I love to givequestions to ask yourself as you
(19:17):
work through a particularchallenge in your life.
So, for example, if someone'sparticularly developing their
intuition, I have a whole listof questions that they can ask
themselves to begin to developtheir intuition and pay
attention to their, what theirgut is telling them.
That is, you know, a scenarioof having good prompts and
questions.
(19:37):
But if you threw all promptsand questions aside, like you
did, they just weren't availablefor you.
There was never a resource outthere.
I feel like there's like fourquestions that you could ask
yourself every single day to getstarted, and two of them are
actually repeats.
So the thing, and I asked myself, what is it like when I sit
(20:01):
down and I open that journal?
Because I have no hold back.
I've been doing this for 35years.
It's part of my life.
Like you said, you make yourcup of tea, you sit down, a
journal, I make my cup of coffeeand I sit down with my cat,
actually, and I begin to journaland I will just open it and
there's no hold backs.
And so I've been starting tothink through the hold backs
(20:21):
that other people are having andthat they don't know what to
write.
And I asked myself, maryJanelle, what is it you're
asking yourself to start Like tothat second that the ink hits
the page?
What have you done there thatcould help someone else do it?
And I realized it's the firstthing that I start to write is
what's happening, like it's justwhat's happening in my life in
(20:45):
that moment, or in my brain inthat moment, or what I'm feeling
.
And that's the next question iswhat's happening and what am I
feeling?
Like what do I feel aboutwhat's happening?
And somehow those two simplequestions get me going and I
just begin to write what'shappening and what I'm feeling
and what's happening, what I'mfeeling.
And then it leads me to what'shappening and what am I going to
(21:09):
do about it.
So you know that, what am Igoing to do about it?
I think is where we problemsolve or we lead ourselves to a
solution through journaling.
And that's what I love aboutcalling it.
Journaling yourself whole islike you.
You go through the feelings andthey might be negative, they
might be positive.
They are going to be what theyare.
(21:30):
They are what they are and yougo through them and then in the
end, if you teach yourself tojournal long enough, like to
journal yourself through theprocess, not just to close the
book and be like I have allthese horrible feelings or I
went through this horrible thing, but to actually push through
the solution, your next part ofthe questions to yourself is
going to be like what am I goingto do about it?
(21:53):
And that's, I think, crucialtool to journaling is giving
yourself a solution, because wesaid earlier how the answers are
in you.
Jackie Ranahan (22:03):
Yes, it's the one, the why and the how.
Right.
So what am I feeling?
Why am I feeling?
And then how?
How am I going to get myselfout of this?
how am I going to move, movealong.
I love that having a way tojust even starting with how I'm
feeling.
Today I have this really coolapp that prompts me three times
(22:26):
a day to say how I'm feeling,and it's a really neat sort of
check in to say this is, this ishow I'm feeling.
I'm feeling, you know, mellow,I'm feeling relaxed, and you can
sort of start to see, you cansee what's the word.
I'm looking for patterns in insort of maybe week, week, days
(22:48):
of the week, certain things andwho I'm with, and and those
kinds of things.
So you can even use use thoseand going back to if, if writing
is not an easy thing, justbullet, just do bullet points,
just write bullet points andstart with that.
Writing will come.
You don't have to.
There's nobody marking you.
(23:10):
There's no, this is not anEnglish assignment.
There's nobody marking you.
So if writing and writing isdifficult, then just make it
simple for yourself.
Marijanel (23:19):
Yeah, ask yourself what can I do to achieve this?
Because a lot of people andachieve might be the wrong word,
because that sounds like we'regetting marked or getting graded
.
It's not an achievement.
But what can I do to besuccessful at getting my pen
into the journal and writing?
What can I do to do that?
It's as simple as like solvingthat for you, like asking
(23:40):
yourself what's holding me backand what can I do about it.
And because a lot of peopledesire that practice.
They really do want to recordtheir thoughts and feelings and
work through things in this way.
We live in a very such adistracted time of life where we
spend so much time on devices,there's so much media and
(24:04):
information.
I think it's harder to journalthan ever before.
When I started the practice andI was a teenager, I don't even
think emailing was a thing.
There wasn't.
You know there wasn't.
There were computers in thecomputer lab in the schools,
like that's it.
We didn't have them at home andwe had telephones on a cord.
You know that the whole familyhad to share and it was a party
(24:27):
line you know so it wasdifferent.
My journaling really was maybemy only way of really expression
and communication with myself.
It was like a lifeline to me.
But I discovered that young, ata time when there was less
distractions, and I guess now II think that there's still a way
(24:47):
to preserve and hold on to thebeauty of that for this current
generation, that the kids, theyoung people, the teens, the
young adults could still havethis.
Like you, you take your device,you set it aside, put it on
silent and just decide to bewith yourself for that period of
(25:08):
time and make the effort toquiet yourself from all that
clutter and noise and see whathappens.
And even if you have to set atimer for 10 minutes, if it's
like super hard for you and youhave like attention challenges
and you just say, okay, I can dothis for five minutes so quiet
(25:29):
the house.
Or go to a corner, go to yourwalk-in closet and close the
door and sit down with yourjournal and be like I'm here for
five minutes.
So this, this relates, but it'sa little bit different.
I watched the interview withSeinfeld, who I Jerry Seinfeld I
highly respect because of hisdiscipline.
Not only is he hilarious, but hehas a discipline and extreme
(25:51):
laser focus through his careerand he had a rule for himself
that when it was his time towrite because a big part of
being a comedian is just writingand writing down everything
that interests you and thenfinding funny ways to frame it
and he had a rule for himselfthat when it was time to write,
(26:12):
he would set aside the writingtime, like set aside the
environment that he needed towrite, and his rule was that he
didn't have to write but hewasn't allowed to do anything
else.
So he could sit there and stareat the page and that was okay
for the entire writing time, buthe wasn't allowed to do
something else.
(26:32):
And I think about that in termsof our journaling practice,
that if you were to giveyourself five, ten, fifteen
minutes where you know it's timeto do this and you need to
focus, well, it's okay if youdon't write in that journal but
don't do anything else.
Just be with it, just be withyourself, and then that pen
might start to move and thefeelings might start to come out
(26:53):
.
Jackie Ranahan (26:54):
Right, it's that accountability.
So it's creating whatever worksfor you.
That that's sort ofaccountability.
Um, during COVID I, I signed onto a.
It was a really interesting Idon't know what it whether you
call it a program or I thinkthere were often on maybe 20
(27:15):
people that signed up.
You would sign on at a specifictime of day.
People were all over the world.
You'd sign on a specific timeof day um to write and.
But so everybody was on a zoomcall and everybody was on the
screen.
There was a couple of littleprompts and little hi, how are
you?
At the beginning.
But then they set a timer.
(27:36):
The, the person who managed it,set a timer and everybody just
wrote, didn't talk, didn't we?
Just all wrote.
So it was really interestingbecause you had a whole bunch of
people.
You'd look up every once in awhile and everybody had their
heads down and we're writingthings, and you'd look up again.
But it was at accountabilitybecause it was I.
I have set aside an hour to dothis.
(27:58):
All these other people aredoing this at the same time that
I'm doing it and you couldwrite anything.
So you could do, you couldwrite your journal if you wanted
to at that period of time.
Marijanel (28:06):
I love that.
I love that.
I want to provide that in mycommunity.
Jackie Ranahan (28:09):
That's pretty cool.
That would be fun, wouldn't it?
Marijanel (28:11):
Yeah, absolutely so, jackie, in leaving everyone off
today with this inspiration.
First of all, thank you forthis rich, insightful talk about
journaling and for beingavailable to have this
conversation with me.
Could you let everyone know howto find you and what you offer,
and some parting words today?
Jackie Ranahan (28:34):
How to find me.
So my website is Jackie.
I'm sure you'll have this inthe show.
Marijanel (28:39):
The links will be below.
Jackie Ranahan (28:41):
Yeah, perfect, jackie ran a handcom is my
website.
So I am a coach.
I'm a personal coach, one onone.
Typically I do a blocks of sixsessions and we just get people
unstuck by getting to knowyourself, by refocusing on who
(29:01):
you are, what is that, what isthe unique thing that you are
bringing to the world?
And we focus on that by lookingat your strengths, what are the
things that you bring?
So it reframes where you are atin that specific time and then,
through a series of tools thatI've created over six sessions,
we get you unstuck, we get youto that next step.
(29:24):
So it might be starting abusiness, it might be something
that's something in yourpersonal life, it might be
you're trying to advance yourcareer, it could be lots of
different things.
So that's the one hat that Iwear as a personal coach.
The other hat that I wear isI'm also an artist.
I have one of my paintings inhere behind me and again, that's
how you and I somewhatconnected unbeknownst to you,
(29:47):
but how you and I somewhatconnected at first with over
your other podcasts.
And so if you go on my website,there's also a link to my
artist page there, and I'm alsoon Instagram at
JackieRanahanartist.
Or.
Marijanel (30:05):
JackieRanahan and parting words.
To leave all of these?
Either avid journalers who lovejust listening to other
journalers talk, or someonewho's listening today, who's
thinking.
I want to give that a trybecause it sounds really
beneficial.
What would you want to leave uswith today?
Jackie Ranahan (30:21):
Just try it.
Just give yourself space.
Tell yourself that you're goingto do it.
They usually say if you do itfor a month, 30 days, it becomes
a habit.
Give yourself the space to doit and start off slow Again,
remember I had said just a whileback that mine was initially a
(30:42):
quarter of a page.
Just start off slow and let itevolve.
Give yourself that space.
Marijanel (30:50):
So, so good.
Thank you, jackie.
For all of you who are tuninginto YouTube, I'd love it if you
hit the subscribe bell likegive it all the love so that
this show can be found on audioapps.
Leave a review, hit the starsand give this podcast a little
bit of love and share it around.
So appreciate it.
(31:10):
You know where to find me.
All my links are below.
Thank you, Jackie, for being aguest today.
All of Jackie's links are belowas well, and until next time,
keep on in the full potential ofyou.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!