10 Ways to Listen to your Inner Voice:Writing Along with Women and Leadership

Lori DiPrete BrownDirector, 4W Women and Wellbeing Initiative

31 Days of of Women Learning

Journaling can…

• Help you to understand your experiences, yourself, and your relationships with others.

• Help you to clarify your values, ethics, and commitments.

• Unleash the insight and wisdom of your inner voice. Here are some strategies and prompts for your leadership reflection journal...

Getting started…

• Choose a notebook and pen.

• Set aside a time and place.

• Start small by writing a few sentences a day.

• What if you can’t think of what to write? Write anyway!

• Choose any one of the upcoming 10 strategies to help you get started.

• These practices will help you to add variety to your reflections and keep going until daily writing is a habit.

1. Notice and remember things with detailed observation and descriptions.

• What happened?

• What did I see, hear, feel and experience?

• What did I observe that others might not notice?

• What lessons or meanings emerged from this experience?

Interview with Art of Noticing Author Rob Walkerhttps://productsofdesign.sva.edu/blog/the-art-of-noticing

2. Deepen your understanding of new ideas through comparison and contextual analysis.

• Consider a new concept or practice that you have learned:

• How does it compare to how things are done in other places?

• How would you need to adapt this to work in your own life or work setting?

3. Express gratitude, frustrations, regrets.

• List and describe and three things that you are grateful for.

• Take time to savor those things.

• List and describe something that is a source of frustration or regret.

• How might you apologize, make reparations, forgive yourself, accept yourself, or let go?

4. Explore your creativity with drawing, brainstorming, or mind maps.

• What do you dream of doing?

• How could it be done?

• Keep writing or mapping to let many ideas flow.

5. Take the perspective of others with compassion and kindness.

• Consider an event from your day. It can be “important” or ordinary.

• What was it like from the point of view of someone else who was involved (a friend, someone different from you, someone you don’t agree with)?

• What would make this person feel respected and included? What would enable them to share their strengths with the community?

6. Practice speaking to an audience.

• Choose your setting. It can be a public speech, a community event, an office meeting, or to a friend.

• What is the most important thing you want to communicate?

• How can you express this in a way that is understandable and persuasive?

7. Develop clarity of purpose by writing about your actions and how they align with what you want to be and do.

• Make a list of what you would like to accomplish today.

• What about this week?

• What about in 5 years?

• How are they related to each other?

• How can they be linked together?

8. Take a virtual art tour and write about your experience and interpretation of the art. From Museums….

75 Virtual Art Tours

https://upgradedpoints.com/best-virtual-museum-tours/

….to Murals

100 Great Murals

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/street-update-100-best-murals

9. Read, reflect, and write poetry. Consider using your voice to read aloud or find a recording of the author reading it.

READING A POEM:

20 STRATEGIES MARK YAKICH

H T T P S : / / W W W . T H E A T L A N T I C . CO M / E N T E R T A I N M E N T / A R C H I V E /

2 0 1 4 / 1 1 / H O W - T O - R E A D -P O E T R Y - A - S T E P - B Y - S T E P -

G U I D E / 3 8 0 6 5 7 /

ON BEING –POETRY FOR TUMULTUOUS TIMES

H T T P S : / / O N B E I N G . O R G / P O E T R Y - A N D - W R I T I N G /

HOW TO READ A POEM

EDWARD HIRSCH

H T T P S : / / W W W . P O E T R Y F OU N D A T I O N . O R G / A R T I C L E S/ 6 9 9 5 5 / H O W - T O - R E A D - A -

P O E M Select a poem from here... or reread an old favorite…

10. Listen to yourself by writing!

• Often just writing freely can allow you to release your inner voice.

• If there is “negative self talk” just “write” past it as best as you can.

• The physical act of writing or typing can open your mind - beyond surface thoughts - to insights and ideas that you are not yet aware of.

Let’s write….