I want to let you know how much I value our friendship and what a gift you are in my life. It fills my heart to bring you information and resources that you can use to create magic in your life. Almost all of my offerings are free or have a minimal cost associated with it. I believe you don’t have to spend a fortune to have amazing support tools on your journey of personal transformation.
Well if you haven’t heard yet, 2020 is supposed to be an incredibly powerful year as you kick off not only a new decade but a new astrological era. I love astrology and follow several people online who uniformly say the past decade was a bit tumultuous. However, it was all about building a foundation for what is to come. This year is a threshold for you to leave the old stuff behind so you can create room for the new.
2020 means perfect vision, knowing what you want and taking the action steps necessary to make it happen. You can’t just sit back, it’s now all about personal implementation.
How do you get that clarity and know exactly what you need to do?
The most powerful tool I know of is journaling. You can cut through the mental chatter and clutter to become laser-focused on what really matters to you.
I’ve been journaling for about twenty years. Every time I do it consistently, life feels a whole lot easier because I develop a sacred conversation with my soul. I’m excavating what is really important and discarding the meaningless distractions that pull me off my path. I buy these wonderful journals for under $10 at Michael’s crafts. They are great to travel with and hold up all year.
This week’s guest on Awakening Divine Wildness is Mari McCarthy, the founder of CreateWriteNow.com. You will love what she has to say about the power of journaling and how you can use it for healing your body and creating the life you want.
In 2020, I’m going to have another star-studded lineup of guests on the podcast giving you their best spiritual practices, life hacks and strategies for ultimate success.
I feel blessed to serve you, support you and hold you in sacred space throughout the year.
Wishing You an Abundance of Joy this Holiday Season!
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Read the Full Transcript
Mal Duane Interviews Mari McCarthy
Mal: [00:00:04] Well, I am thrilled about this week’s guest. Mari McCarthy is the Founder and Chief Empowerment Officer of Create Write Now, and that’s a W-R-I-T-E. She shows health-conscious women how to use the ultimate self-empowerment tool, journaling, for the health of it, to heal the issue in their tissues and to embody and express their true self.
She’s the multi-award-winning author of “Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” and “Heal Yourself With Journaling Power”, which I just read and it was fabulous.
She’s also the creator of 20+ life-changing journaling power ebooks such as “Start Changing Your Life”, “Take Control of Your Health”, and “Love Your Body”.
Mari, it’s so great to be with you today!
Mari: Oh, it’s so great to be here. Thank you for inviting me, Mal.
Mal: I love what you write about because I’m a journaler. I’ve included this topic in two of my books. How women can use the simple practice of journaling for clarity, for healing issues, for finding their inner truth – that voice that’s within them. You know, we have so much going on in our heads and that constant nonstop chatter about what’s going on and what we’re doing. And the only way to get to that place of quiet is through sitting down and writing.
So, tell me, what inspired your work? Because you have a very powerful story on how you came about writing.
Mari: [00:02:00] Well, yes, thank you. It is, basically, for me, my story started out—I got to journaling based on a physical therapy need. I had had an MS experience where I lost feeling and function on the right side of my body and I needed a way to teach myself how to write with my left hand. And at that point, I was a high-powered A, a type A business woman that needed a procedure. I felt really, really good about doing it.
So someone introduced me to Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages” and so I got into journaling via the Morning Pages. The Morning Pages just sit down and just write three pages of whatever, it’s your stream of consciousness. Things, all of a sudden, very shortly, started coming up.
Memories from my childhood. Lots of feeling that I thought I had long forgotten about. All kinds of very interesting things so I was like, “Wow, this is more than physical therapy!” and one of the things I’ve realized in doing the Morning Pages was I always was left-handed and that the nuns changed me. So then, I thought, “Oh my god! This is beyond…” you know, I became left-handed very quickly.
But just being able to get into the childhood and the memories and things like that. I mean, as you know, we all know we had childhood, but it was about because we were taught that stuff, our emotions and feelings, just to move forward with… it was stuck in our subconscious and our issues in our tissues but we just never dealt with it.
But [durably?] provided a therapeutic way to get into me – my emotions, my feelings, my spirituality, my soul and I thought, “Wow!” Since I had to sell my business and I was home living life on my… I just purchased my beachfront home and I thought, “Oh, this is great! So I’m going to set up an Internet business and share my findings with the world.” And that’s what I’ve done and Create Write Now has been an evolution of something that was, you know, the Universe works in mysterious ways! It’s like I needed some physical therapy and got way more than I bargained for.
Mal: [00:04:42] I love it! You really had a very powerful physical feeling from this process as wow?
Mari: Oh, definitely, yes. And it’s continuing today and I’m really now dealing with my cellular level and dealing with issues—spiritual issues—all the things that make up the cellular issue because I’m way past what’s ever going on in my being, my personhood, my body, is way past. It’s never going to show up on an MRI or an XYZ or whatever so it’s something that I have to do myself so journaling is helping me way, way deep down into all my aspects of me and it shows me that we have the power to heal ourselves.
Mal: Yes, yes. And that’s what I think is so wonderful about your book that I read that examples—the people that you included in the stories are amazing! Just absolutely amazing; the physical healings, the mental healings. I was deeply touched by the young man that you included whose mother had committed suicide and that inspired his path and now he has created a journal from then, which was just magnificent.
[00:06:18] So tell me a little bit about how you proceeded from starting this practice for yourself and now finding all these people that are using it, getting all the benefits from it and writing these books. It’s really been your purpose; it’s your passion.
Mari: Indeed! And I attribute it all to my journal because my journal has been my guide, my conduit, my message center. So I get, as I call, messages from the universe. One day, journaling for the health of it just showed up.
I think it gets back to being very clear. It’s like, “Okay, I want to start a successful Internet company from my beachfront home”, and I think you have to be very clear on what you want. And it’s like Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Once you make a decision, then the universe conspires to make it happen.” So I think that and having the tool of journaling, I just did a lot of Morning Pages—a lot of journaling—and that somehow declutters the energy, whatever, and helps gets clear and one day, the words “Create Write Now” showed up. I was like, “Wow! That’s the name of my company!”
And again, I just go back to my journal is the answer to a woman. Just going through the phase of whenever I feel just writing, just the whole writing process. Don’t have to have an agenda. Don’t have to have a problem. Whatever it is, like I feel just writing a page or whatever it takes and I just trust the process and that’s how I came to write the books, you know, my ebooks as well as my real books.
[00:08:30] I’m a very practical person. I want to have something to share so I didn’t want to get into the whole thing about… I didn’t want to create an Angela’s Ashes, a typical memoir. I came up with the genre, self-help memoirs, to include my story. This is in my first book, “Journaling Power”. My story as well as exercises and practical things that the people can get onboard and join the revolution.
And then for my second book, I thought since more people were coming to me, I was hosting them as guest blogger, I thought, “Wow, I think it’s time to share other people’s stories so the rest of the world knows”. I think people have the perception that it’s “oh, how I spent my day or a diary”. No, this is how people are using the fantastic tool to help them in all aspects of themselves; be it physical; be it emotional; be it mental; be it spiritual; all of the above.
Mal: [00:09:46] Why do people struggle with it? Because it’s a simple process, the benefits of journaling are recognized. You discussed it deeply. I recommend it. I know several other empowerment coaches, transformational coaches, would highly recommend it, yet people—there’s so much resistance and struggle journaling. “Well, I don’t have the time”, you know, that’s nonsense. So how do you get people started?
Mari: Well, first of all, I let people know. It’s that we’re all in the same boat. We came into this world as children with all our talents, creativities, then we got socialized, parentisized, and all that type of thing, and our true self got pushed way, way down.
So we’ve been so much trained or taught and reinforced socially, “Go out there”, “Get this car”, “Go to college”, all that types. So journaling is a huge behavior change. It’s about putting the focus on our “self” and goodness gracious! We were never ever taught to focus on our self. It’s about, “Take care of your brother and sister”. “Make sure your neighbor’s okay”. All that type of thing so everything’s external.
This is brand new behavior change that gets to our core, our spirit—all of us. So that is what it is and we’re so used to living in fear and being controlled by whatsoever or thinking that our life is like, “Okay, it’s genes and I can’t do anything about it so hold on to the thing”, plus the fact we have all, after childhood, we all went into our heads and we’ve been living in our heads. We’re disconnected from our body, Mal!
Mal: I love this!
Mari: [00:11:54] And what journaling does is help us get back into our body.
Mal: Love it! I love it. You know, for me, it’s getting out of my head and getting back into my heart.
Mari: Yes.
Mal: Getting into, not only my heart, my soul where I reconnect with that higher guidance. Call it universe, call it God, call it soul, the Divine Mother, whatever. But there’s another level of communication that we all have that’s available to all of us if we just get quiet and allow it, and journaling is the most beautiful pathway to that consciousness—to that stream of knowledge—that we otherwise don’t access.
When I look back, Mari, at some of the things that I have written in my journals, I go, “Where did that come from? I don’t remember writing that!” And both of the books that I’ve written were like downloads at times. When I went back and read them, it was like, “Oh my gosh! I don’t really remember writing that!” and I used to write in the morning. That would be my creativity time, early in the day. And then I’d review sometimes in the afternoon, I’d be like, “Wow, I don’t really remember that!”
Amazing what just putting… and for me it’s pen to paper, can’t be electronic, can’t be computer. That’s what I want to be clear about. No electronics involved. The old-fashioned way, pen to paper. What are your thoughts on that? Some people, you know…
Mari: [00:13:42] Oh, that’s why I don’t even talk anything… there’s two important thing. There’s only one right way to journal and it’s your way and it needs to be pen to page every day. That’s all I have to say about the guidelines or “what am I supposed to do about journaling?” But that’s it, you’re absolutely right.
I don’t even need to mention that. You’re right. The only right way to journal is pen to page every day. You have to have that consistency. That routine. That discipline because we have to continually be giving to ourselves our self-love. I mean, journaling is self-love, it’s giving back to ourselves because we’ve had a whole lifetime of self-sabotage and self-criticism. We just have to get into a routine that we’re number one 24/7.
Mal: I love the way you’re saying that this is a practice of self-love for women, because, boy, do we need that!
Mari: True.
Mal: We put ourselves at the bottom of the list. We do for everybody else and we do for ourselves last. But when we are depleted emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically, we can’t contribute to life. We cannot really love and support those around us because we have nothing to give. We have depleted ourselves. So if we really want to be there for others, we need to be there for ourselves first.
Mari: Definitely. My favorite hashtag is #mefirst.
Mal: Yes.
Mari: And now having been a journaler for many years, it now makes sense, because, you know how we hear things about “oh yes, you have to take care of yourself before you take care…” or I was thinking about the airplane, put your…
Mal: Put your mask on first.
Mari: We hear all this thing but now I know that’s true because we have to take care of ourselves and we have to always be continually connected and stay connected to, as you said earlier, to our soul and our core because that’s where it’s happening. When you do that, boy, you can save the world like that.
It’s right. What it is, is a big behavior change and it’s just like changing your whole inner thought process. The way you talk to yourself. The way you treat yourself. I heard a quote, something like, “If someone treated you the way you treat yourself, you would have left them a long time ago”. Isn’t that the truth?
We’re all masters of self-sabotage. That’s why, as you said, it must be pen to page and it must be daily in a routine fashion, just like brushing your teeth, taking a shower, as part of your self-health routine and self-love routine.
Mal: [00:17:09] Do you have any thoughts on how long it takes to really establish that practice? Now, ideally, you want to do it every day. But we know that discipline, people are going to waffle on that. So if someone puts the effort in daily, how long do you think it takes, Mari, for it to really become habitual, easy to get up and do, that they really get into the momentum? Is there a timeframe that you recommend?
Mari: It really depends on the person. But I would very much, based on my own experience, venture that if people are open to new experience, if they are curious, if they have an attitude of “let’s see what this is about” as opposed to “Oh…” even considering new thoughts or “okay let’s give this a shot and see where it goes”. I think that that depends.
I would say, some people, as quickly as a month, but for other people it will be a struggle based on their past—their childhood, their upbringing, their life experience. So it’s not inconceivable that if you do it consistently on a daily basis that you will start seeing some changes or some, “Aha!” or “Ooh, where did that come from?” Within a month, you’ll see that, you know…
But also I won’t underestimate the fact that what’s supposed to be happening when you get into that is the fears, the critics, all the old stuff is going to come up and I think that’s why people are going to go, “Oh, I don’t want to go there!” and that’s why people use the excuse, “Oh, I don’t have time.” Yes, all that’s true but the big issue is a “self” thing and that’s something totally different and people are so afraid based on the fact we have been living in our heads and we have thoughts about who we think we are. And who we think we are and who we truly are, are two totally different people.
Mal: Oh, absolutely! Do you have a preferred time a day for journaling? I do it in the morning because I know if I don’t, it’s probably not going to happen later in the day. Sometimes I write some things down at night, quick little ideas or gratitude—things like that that happened during the day, my thoughts on or something I’m grateful for. But what are your thoughts on that?
Mari: [00:20:03] It goes back to what I said earlier. There’s only one right way to journal and it’s your way and I think that’s part of the process. It’s exploring and accepting. “Yeah, I really feel better if I go to a coffee shop and do this” or what works best for me is the train into work or, as you said, with you, if I don’t do it first thing in the morning, it ain’t going to get done, or whatever.
Some people think, or night people, it’s like “oh, it’s much easier for me to do my journaling before I go to bed. Again, it is totally up to whatever… using my favorite four-letter “F” word, “feel”. Whatever you feel like. And again, that’s something new, “Oh, I feel what I wanted. Oh, that’s selfish.” So we go through all those machinations but it’s like that’s what the bottom line is.
With me, it changes. Now, I’m into doing a page in the morning before I do my morning meditation because, like you, if I don’t do it then, either the journaling and/or the meditation will not get done. And then I’ve just gotten into doing a page of what I call night notes before I go to bed just recapping the day of all the lessons, the learnings, the gratitude, whatever, and I find I’m sleeping routinely through the night, 10-6.
Mal: You’re emptying out all that stuff that you’ve been carrying around all day so it’s very therapeutic.
Mari: Yes.
Mal: You’ve had so many guest bloggers tell powerful, powerful stories. Do you have a favorite one?
Mari: I have to say yes and her name is Deb. She’s a lady that has a journaling for probably about 10 years now. She’s been clean and sober for 10 years and she owes that to her journal. Her journal absolutely, positively changed her life and she said that’s her lifeblood, her lifeline. So that’s why I said it shows it can be done. She’s, like I said, clean and sober, 10 years, and the fact that she… and she’s doing it every day, just helped her understand who she was and it’s like, “Damn! I’m good!”
Mal: I totally understand that because I have 30 years of recovery.
Mari: Oh, congratulations!
Mal: And I started, but not consistently, way back when with journaling and what I’ve uncovered early on in my sobriety was that my own thinking is what caused all my suffering. And my suffering, that pain, that’s why I used alcohol to just stop the pain, to stop the craziness, to just feel better about myself and once I understood that, it was like the wound, I didn’t need the band aid anymore. It was easier to write about what I was thinking about and understanding it than drowning myself in vodka trying to kill it. It was huge! So I totally get that! Anybody in recovery, journaling is a powerful, powerful, powerful healing tool that works!
You have a wonderful free offer on your website for the listeners of the show. Would you be so kind as to tell them where to go and what it is.
Mari: Certainly. Go to CreateWriteNow, as Mal said, it’s W-R-I-T-E, .com and on my homepage, there’ll be a dropdown for a free book entitled, “Overcoming Life’s Stresses and Strains with Journaling Power.” And you can sign up and get that and it will introduce you to this wonderful, fantastic world of journaling for the health of it.
Mal: Oh, I love it! Mari, this is great. I’m so thrilled that we connected. I loved your book. I can’t recommend it enough. It should be required reading for the recovery community. Maybe you should write a book about journaling to support recovery or journaling the path to recovery, something like that, because it is so needed.
Mari: Given me some ideas. Thank you.
Mal: Yes, it’s because it works. You know, you have that blogger and now you’ve got Mal, 30 years, and I know that it’s been one of my best tools and when I teach in recovery facilities, two things I tell the women that have absolutely supported me on this path—meditation and journaling.
Meditation, getting that mind quiet. Getting back into myself, really back into my heart and then writing about it.
Mari: Oh, definitely, and I’ve been a consistent meditator now for almost a year and I’m with you. It’s the one-two punch—journaling and meditation—nothing like it in the world and that’s free!
Mal: Yes. That’s the best part. Yeah, I know. People go out and spend all this money on medications and “oh, well if I get the right dress, I’m going to feel better” or the right shoes, or the right handbag. I see women has been worked on picking out a pair of shoes than nurturing themselves.
This is about self-nurture, self-care. And I love the way that you say that it’s a practice of self-love. That is beautiful. I’m going to tweet that after this. I’m going to go and make a Facebook post: “Journaling is a self-love practice” with your name.
Mari: Thank you. It truly is, it’s like constant, continual, ongoing nirvana.
Mal: Well, thank you again so much for coming on today and I hope that we do this again and I love your books. Again, “Journaling Power: How to Create a Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” and “Heal Yourself With Journaling Power”. Thank you, Mari McCarthy.
Mari: Oh, thank you, Mal. Have a great day!
Mal: You too!
Mari: Bye.
SHOW NOTES
[00:00:04] Mal introduces guest, Mari McCarthy, Founder and Chief Empowerment Officer of Create Write Now, and an award-winning author of “Journaling Power: How to Create a Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live” and “Heal Yourself With Journaling Power.”
[00:02:00] Mari talks about how she got into the business of journaling.
[00:09:46] Mari answers why people struggle with journaling.
[00:11:54] Mari shares about the purpose of journaling—getting back to your body out from living in your head.
[00:17:09] The process of journaling—there’s only one right way to do it.
