“Spring’s sprung … AND?”

The above statement was not uttered by a stroppy, screen-crazy, hormonal teen.

It was uttered by me.

Outside it felt balmy as summer. The kids were at school and all I had to do was meet one of my favourite people to talk about a potential collaboration. And yet, I was in a total funk.

The funk had started off due to lack of clothing.

This then led on to a whole range of frustrated, restricted, handcuffed feelings.

The logical part of my brain hovered anxiously around the door, carefully pointing out; “You tend to get a bit sketchy post period, Bethan. Please bear in mind that this mood may be YOU and not the wider world at fault”.

I begrudgingly acknowledged what Logic was saying. I decided to heed its advise and instead of throwing out every item of clothing in my wardrobe and binge-ordering an entire new collection, would attempt something less drastic to alter my mood.

This less drastic step involved stomping to the post office through the wafts of irritating springy sprungness, posting a parcel, then stumping back.

This walk mildly relieved the Funk but not enough to make the members of my village safe.

Instead of hanging around in the gloriously sunny, daffodil fringed garden, I decided to drive to the Pearl early – which was where I was meeting my friend.

Twenty minutes later, I arrived feeling grumpier than ever.

I stumped inside and ordered a lemon and ginger tea and sat in front of the great, glass domed window, staring out at the incredible view of the sea and cliffs and thinking how dull and bland it looked.

Felt frustrated with myself for coming this early.

Felt frustrated at the thought of trying to do/plan or reflect on anything.

Felt irritated with pearls.

In the end I pulled out my pad and started to write, stream of consciousness, exactly what I was feeling and what was upsetting me. Half way down the first page of scrawl, I suddenly hit a little pearl. This pearl came in a realisation of what was underneath the emotion that I was feeling.

I continued to write, letting whatever ramblings I wanted fall out onto the page.

By the beginning of the second page, I was beginning to talk myself through and round the underlying pissed-offness and could see a little action that might help shift it.

It was as though a little finger of Spring sunshine had crept through the PMT shutters of my inner world.

By the middle of page two, the ramblings had turned into clarity and suddenly I could see exactly what I needed to do to help myself and care for my body in this situation.

By the time my friend arrived for our meeting, my funk had cleared off completely.

This experience reminded me just how powerful journaling – and indeed any form of creativity – is for personal awareness and self care. By writing, painting and expressing ourselves, we are able to release and make sense of our emotions and thoughts. Rather than reacting to these feelings, we instead show up and persevere in our digging down to find the source of the problem.

In essence, we move out of our heads and into our bodies , surrendering results or “good writing/style” to instead find our truth, our vulnerability and ultimately our peace.

Journaling is so easy.

All you need is a pen, some paper and a little bit of time out to drain the top layer of your thinking and uncover the little pearls of wisdom that lie beneath.

Try it.