Healing through Journaling (Part I)

So I have arthritis, I don't dwell on it and I don't like to admit that it impacts my daily life, but the truth is that is does. Back in the fall my normal foot pain from arthritis was different, more painful. It was time to yell uncle and see my orthopedic foot doc, it was inflamed (I chuckled) that's pretty common in my world. He put me in a boot and gave me anti inflammatories to get to settle, it didn't settle and by November I said uncle again. The test showed a cyst in my third metatarsal and a possible fracture, but we wouldn't know how extensive the damage was until surgery. Being the practical person (or crazy person) I am, I checked to see if my orthopedic knee doc could do a scope at the same time. After living with torn meniscus for over two years, I figured why not get it repaired too. Needless to say on December 11, knee and foot surgeries commenced. The knee was straight forward but it turned out that my foot required a bone graft, five screws and small metal plate. Taking time away from regular life as a mother, administrator and my various responsibilities was so difficult. Throughout the healing journey I was able to work in my visual journal, documenting the ups and downs. Over the next few posts, I hope to share with you the healing power of visual art journaling. I often share pages from my journals on instagram via @GrundlerArt but don’t give much explanation, in these posts I’ll open up and share a little of the thinking behind the art. In fact, by sharing these journal pages and a little of the backstory, I'm hoping to grow as a writer (another point of vulnerability for me.) Please click on each picture to read a little description about each journal page.

We all need somewhere to process our feelings and thoughts and my journals are key to my well-being, I hope I can help to inspire you in your art journaling or if you are a teacher I hope to help you infuse journaling in your classrooms as a perfect connection to social emotional growth and learning.

Thank you for your feedback and journaling questions.

Wishing you Hope and Creativity,

Laura