Reflection- Autobiography Project

Thanks to my professor Cynthia Pittmann, I started to develop my own Autobiography Project.  The purpose of the Autobiography Project was to learn more about myself and my ancestors. I can say that the Autobiography Project worked for me. Through deep research from past memories, I found explanations to my present behaviors. Also, I remembered situations from my childhood that can help me now and in the future. With that being said, the activity that helped me the most in achieving the purpose of the Autobiography Project was the Timeline.

With the Timeline, I discovered emotional problems that I didn’t even knew I had. For example, how much my parents’ divorce had affected me. In my Timeline, I decided to visit (through my memory) every house that I had lived in. It was amazing to me how much important things I had forgotten. Luckily, with deep concentration I started to remember events as far as when I was four years old. Also, remembering my past relationships with my friends, family and neighbors, made me feel like a whole different person. It was like seeing myself, but not recognizing me. That, made me realize how much I had change, both positively and negatively. The Timeline also made me extremely grateful for all the good and bad things that had happened to me. Thanks to the Timeline, I now know why I act as I do in certain situations.

Nevertheless, other activities helped me as well. Through the Venn Diagram, I noticed how much I fought with my mom. Consequently, I’ve been trying to fix our relationship, so every day we grow stronger and not apart.

Additionally, with the Cluster Work, I realized that my name had many qualities that could either, distinguish me positively from other people, or make people remember my name for negative political reasons.

To conclude, I would love to keep the Autobiography Project, and read it again in ten or twenty years to see how much my life and the lives of the people around me have changed. Maybe many people that I have mention in this project will be out of my life or even dead. Therefore, I hope that I can grow from this project, have better relationships with others, and create stories that my successors will remember as well.

Ps: This project made me think of the song "If Today Was Your Last Day" by Nickelback, they share some similarities. For example, both make you cherish every memory you have, and motivate you to make the best of your time in Earth. Enjoy the song!

Life Compass Reflection: Know Yourself

My professor, Cynthia Pittmann, yet again amazed us with new writing techniques. I often compare this Literature class with a Yoga class, but with a little plot twist. Instead of exercising the body, we are exercising our minds. The Life Compass Activity is an example of such exercises. This activity consisted in grading four different aspects of our lives from one to three, one being the lowest and three being the highest. While doing it, some interesting things became clearer to me. I started to notice tendencies in my days, and how the different sections of my compass such as, body, mind, emotions and spirit, had influence on each other.

In my case, I noticed that when the quantity of my college work grew, my scores dropped. Especially, in the areas of mind and emotion. Usually, my spirit stayed with a score of three because I used my spirituality to strengthen my mood. Therefore, I always tried to have a strong spiritual life, in order to, balance my overall health. In other topics of the compass, for example, body, my scores were low (one or a two) only when I hadn’t slept as I am used to or when I exercised. I didn’t see a connection between my bad mood and my sore body. However, I did noticed a relation between the scores for my mind and my emotions. Usually, when I got extremely emotional, my mind lost focus. For example, I couldn’t study properly or concentrate for almost anything.
Let me show you a graph of my overall scores! 

Towards the end of the Life Compass Activity, I started to draw each compass differently. Some days, my drawings had no relation to what I was feeling, but other times I tried to connect the drawing with my scores and feelings.

In conclusion, I noticed through this project that when I’m not feeling good, the people that I like the most, are usually a good option to brighten my mood. Also, I’m glad that my body doesn’t get affected when my emotions are spiraling out of control and my mind is in planet Jupiter. On the other hand, I definitely have to improve how I channel my emotions because I can’t keep letting my feeling get in the way of me having a good and focused day. Furthermore, I’m also glad that I can always rely of my positive perspective of life (spirituality) to strengthen my other sections of the compass. In my opinion, the Life Compass helped me organize and analyze my feelings while developing my writing skills. 

(I did some research to look for other ways to get to know myself better. Surprisingly, there was one link that talked about a similar technique as the First Thoughts Activity that my classmates and I have already reflected in our blogs. Apart from writing your thoughts for a period of time, my favorite new thing to do was the idea number five. Take a look at the link and comment your favorite technique. Hope it helps you!)

Journal Reflection: As Simple As That

For two whole months, I had to write in a journal the first things that came to my mind. This idea was suggested by the author Natalie Goldberg and our professor Cynthia Pittmann, incorporated it to our class activities. The rules were simple:

1. Keep your hand moving

2. Don't cross out

3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar    

4.Lose control

5. Don't think

6. Don’t get logical

7. Go for the jugular.

    In my case, I was successful with achieving almost every rule. They only thing that I had a lot of trouble with, but then got used to doing was, not crossing out words. I’m usually a perfectionist, and minor things bother me.

Before the project, I considered myself a lazy writer. I didn’t like to write for fun and if I had to do it for a class, I would usually spend a lot of time in the process. Eventually, my writing process became faster and the fluidity of my work, improved. 

In a way, I think it was due to the fact that I felt no pressure to write perfectly or coherently, so I wrote faster than ever. The only thing that I don’t like now is that I have to start writing perfectly again, just when I got used to writing as I pleased. 

In terms of me as a writer, I would like to stay as a writer, whose only reader is myself. In my twitter, I do write, but it is a different type of writing. I do not have to write perfectly and I do not write about controversial topics. I mostly just post thoughts that I find interesting or videos that make me laugh. After the journal project, I have stayed the same way because Twitter and Facebook are very public, and I do not like to use them for writing my feelings or opinions.

I discovered that my emotional health, influenced the decisions that I made during the day and how I treated others. I also found out another thing with the journal, in terms of my spirituality and my energy. I am Catholic, but do not practice it very often. The journal to me, was like my religion. It made me connect with my better side, the side that likes peace and treating others with respect. Religion usually helps you be the better version of yourself, and the journal did that with me.

I would love to share with you, a blog entry from Rekha Shrivastava, a Certified Hypnotist and Rehabilitation Counselor. She discussed in her blog all the important aspects about feelings, how to deal with them and how to recognize them. If you are still not convinced about the positive results of having a journal and/or expressing your feelings, you should click here. I was impressed at how accurate she was when referring to the negative things that could happen to someone if they didn't express their feelings because they happened to me. 

To conclude, the journal project has helped me be a more open person to myself. Honestly, I wouldn’t have dared to talk about my feelings two months ago, even to myself. Especially, when I was starting a new college experience and had to focus solely on college work.  Now, I can let it all go with a pen and a piece of paper. As simple as that.