Looking back on the life I’ve lived has been a rich undertaking of good and bad, positives and negatives, highs and lows.

It has reminded me of joy and pain, happiness and sorrow, extreme faith right next to intense fear.

Being a hard core INFJ, I can’t always verbalize things right on the spot.

When I feel, or hear or read something, I must follow that with some quiet time for reflection.

Read more about being an →INFJ here.←

There are a few ways that I can process my feelings and ideas.

First off is to sit quietly, daydreaming if you will.

This method can sometimes give my ideas time to come around on their own time.

So if you see me looking like I’m somewhere else, know that I could be processing something I read or heard.

Of course it’s also entirely possible that I am really somewhere else!

Another popular way for me to get things processed is to get with “my people”.

I have many friends, but a handful of “people”.

Talking deep, saying what needs to be said, asking questions; these are all things to do with “your people”.

Long ago my mom told me that most often, when I kept talking, I answered my own questions.

Now she – she was “My People”.

I paid attention after she said that and found it to be true.

The last way I’ll share with you here is writing.

Writing in a journal, or on a computer are my favorites.

Some say handwriting is their go to, but I find that either works for me.

Suffice it to say that with my admiration for lovely penmanship, and my lack of it, I often use my laptop instead.

It’s always a cinch that I’ll be able to read it at a later date.

That being said, I have over 40 journals.

40 journals of this and that.

40 journals that would qualify in the junk category.

But strewn throughout those 40 journals, some true treasure is hidden.

The treasures can be identified by the highlighting, the underlining, the circling, the arrows, the different colors of ink.

I actually began doing a Table of Contents for my handwritten journals, but alas, too late for some of my earlier ones.

(So if you decide to do a handwritten journal, my suggestion would be to do the Table of Contents thing at the beginning!)

On my laptop, I have an ongoing document that holds many of my thoughts.

This allows me to read them over, and move them all around until they make sense.

I used to forget more than I remembered.

Sometimes that processing of thoughts comes at the most inopportune time.

Mostly it is when you are doing something else; when you didn’t see it coming.

Enter napkin notes, post it notes, grocery list notes, written on the palm of your hand notes. (the original palm pilot?)

They all pulled together at the end of the day to write down somewhere permanent.

Nowadays, it isn’t uncommon to see me in the checkout line, tapping notes to myself in my phone for future reference.

Back before cell phones, I had a boss who would call her home phone, and leave herself messages she didn’t want to forget.

I always thought she was strange, but oh!

Now I see she was brilliant, and she got things done!

As mentioned →Here← and →Here← the process takes on different forms.

For me, writing is the most important way that all of those thoughts are managed.

During the life of this blog, thought life has been discussed over and over.

If you’re interested in more of my perspective on this, you can just put “Thought Life” in the search bar.

(Another reason I enjoy the laptop writing.)

Sometimes, during the process, the words get long winded, and that’s OK, because these words you write down are not for everyone.

I encourage you to give it a try.

This note taking, this writing it all down.

Once you have been able to connect the dots, you can decide on what, if anything, you want to share with the world.

(Like this blog)

Join me next time for Raw and Real #10 for – Travel.

Until then …