If journaling isn’t for you, maybe writing down the lyrics to a favorite song or the verses to a beloved poem is more your thing.

The choice is yours and I know some folks do multiple types of journaling. Some folks like to share what they write with their significant others or on social media and others never let their journals be seen. You can also write as many pages as you like. You can write just a few lines - there are several notebooks out there for just that purpose like Midori’s 5 Year Diary or Leuchtturm’s A5 Some Lines A Day notebook. It can also be a very private place for you to release what’s inside you. It can be a beautiful and creative outlet just take a look at the IG accounts of Catharine Mi-Sook, Aina Kristina Reyes or Erick Gama, for some lovely examples. Journaling is basically writing down what’s in your head and in your heart. I even mentioned it last year as something I want to work on this year. Ok, I’m starting with something that I actually don’t do, but keep wanting to.

Here are some of the things that I do when I feel powerless, scared and wound-up inside maybe some of these may help you too. It is during times like these that I really lean on my pens to help me find some semblance of peace, or at least, maybe calm some of the anxiety that keeps growing with every negative event that happens. All I want to do is stay in bed, play a mindless game or four on my phone for hours on end, pull the covers over my head and hide. Sometimes, like right now, it is too much to bear and I feel like I have a heavy weight on my chest.

Recent headlines of other mass shootings, politics (which I REALLY don’t like talking about), COVID infections ramping up again, the war in Ukraine the list goes on and on.

The news of this week’s mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, TX has left me heartbroken, sad and powerless. She can be found on Instagram because there really are many, many hobbies!.) ( Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued.

Penpals super powerless tell me why