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Elle Turner

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A year of big changes: coping with overwhelm, anxiety and grief

May 3, 2017

Hey there, Hope all is well with you today. It’s a little over a year since I left my day …

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Hey there, I’m Elle Turner and I’m thrilled to welcome you to my online world. If you love stories and stationery, making plans and making changes, then I’m so glad we’ve found each other! Stay a while. You’re very welcome here.

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Although I’ve written in different formats for as long as I can remember, writing has taken on a more central role in my life over the past ten years or so. Once I started focusing on writing, I was much clearer about what I wanted to do with my life and discovered a sense of purpose. What induces that feeling is different for everyone, but for me it was writing. The benefits: Clarity Writing helps me articulate thoughts and feelings in a way that allows me make sense of them, both personally and when thinking about where I want to go with Em and Lime. Writing helps me grasp and pin down the ideas floating and colliding in my poor head that would otherwise get away from me. I don’t worry about whether or not I sound particularly coherent, I just write what I’m thinking and eventually I find my way through the mess. Confidentiality Like I said, I don’t worry about whether or not I sound particularly coherent and that’s OK because I’m the only one who sees what I write. I can try out thoughts and plans without worrying about what anyone else will think of them. Space to explore new things I think our journaling style changes according to what we need it for, so over the past few years a lot of my journal has been take up with planning, working out what I want to do (and not do) work-wise, exploring the pros & cons of different business options and figuring out the best fit for me at this time. Ability to identify patterns and themes Re-reading recent journal entries helps me identify if I’m continually coming back to the same issues without doing anything about them. I may not consciously realise something is bothering me or needing dealt with, but if I see I’m repeating myself in my journal, I know it’s time to take some action. Enhancing mood and gratitude It seems everyone is keeping a gratitude journal and, while it’s easy to feel the phrase is over-used, the concept is a solid one. Focusing the mind even for a few minutes to note down all that has gone well in the day, or all that is going OK just now generally, has definitely has a positive impact on my mood, so I try to incorporate this in my writing. For journaling prompts, click through bio. 💚

Journaling is versatile and your practice can evolve as you do. Journaling is a very personal activity and it takes many forms. Whether you use your journal practically, creatively, or both, your journal will be unlike anyone else’s and the method of journaling that works for you will be your own. It’s a versatile practice too. What works for you now may need to change in the future and that’s OK. Your journaling can evolve as you do. I’ve journaled in different ways over the years from my personal diary practice as a teenager, through a practical record keeping approach when my children were small, a short foray into digital daily journaling using an app, to my current method, the way I’ve been using journaling to help me over the last few years. My recent journaling practice has been all about navigating change. I reduced my day job to part-time hours after I had my children and was lucky then to be able to consider if I was on the right career path for me. Pretty quickly I knew I wasn’t. I’d known for many years that I wanted to start my own business and that I wanted to write, but didn’t really know how to go about making it happen. So I did the only thing that came to mind and started to make notes in my journal. I used the blank space to get stuff off my chest, explore what I’d like to do and achieve clarity on how to go about it. It took a long time (and a lot of paper and ink) to figure out exactly what I wanted my business to be and how I wanted to incorporate writing within it. And it’s an ongoing process. Emerald and Lime is not the end result, it’s the starting point, so there’s a need for more journaling to figure out the future! If you’d like to start your own journaling practice, but aren’t sure where you want to begin, click the link in the bio for a free list of five options to fill a blank page and see where they take you! Happy writing!

Don’t let the blank page scare you! I love writing and I’m lucky to be able to spend a lot of time with a pen in my hand, both for work and for pleasure. And, equally, I love starting a new notebook whether for writing fiction, for remembering all the things I need to do, or for journaling. There are many forms of journaling (including those not solely using the written word, for example art journaling and scrapbooking or memory keeping) and different people mean different things by the term. I tend to mean "the act of intentionally using a notebook for some practical and/or creative purpose," but one of its main appeals, I think, is that there’s no right or wrong way to do it. It’s not always easy to get started, though. There’s nothing quite like a blank page for robbing your mind of something to write! If you’re keen to find your own journaling practice, but aren’t sure what to write on that first scary page, here are a couple of suggestions Set an intention (for the day, week, month or your journal as a whole) Write a paragraph describing what you will use your journal for to provide you with a focus going forward. You could do this for the whole book, or re-set your intention monthly, or weekly, or whenever your intention changes. Find an image or photo that represents something meaningful for you This could either be simply something you like, or perhaps you could use it to remind you of a goal your journal is helping you work towards. Stick it into your book and write about why you chose it. If you'd like more suggestions, click the link in the bio and I'll send some to you!

Hellllooooo! I'm back from my trip to the US! We had a (very) fun time in Washington DC and Boston and having come back looking forward to the next holiday season! (Well, sort of. My guys have exams this week, so I think they'll save any thoughts about future holidays until they're over...) I'm putting together a travel journal from the trip that I'm hoping to finish over the next few weekends. Spending time going through the photographs and all the bits and pieces I collected for the journal is like visiting both beautiful cities twice! Happy days! What's been your highlight of the past month?

Hey there, I’ve just popped on quickly to let you know that I’m taking a short break! The shop’s on pause for a couple of weeks, meaning orders can’t be placed, but it’s still open for browsing. My email list will probably be the first to know when I’m back up and running again, so if you’d like to keep in touch, click the link in the bio. When you sign up you’ll be able to download a free weekly planner. Keep it handy on your desk, pin it on the wall or stick it to the fridge! Em and Lime has a single page PDF for you to track your appointments, write yourself reminders, and note down your daily To Do list. Print it out as many times as you like – you could keep yourself on track for the whole year! Have fun while I’m away! See you soooooon! Elle xoxox p.s. remember to click the link in the bio so you can grab your copy of the weekly planner! 💚

It’s about a month since I posted on the blog about my attempts to get my self-care act together, so I thought I’d do a quick check-in to let you know how things are going. If you didn’t see the original post, I explained that over the last 18 months or so, while transitioning from my day job to running Emerald and Lime, I’ve done a pretty poor job of looking after myself. I thought it would happen by itself with no intentional intervention from me and, in a nutshell, that was wrong. Last month I put a plan in place involving exercise, hydration and fresh air and set up a tracker so I could track my progress. On the blog this week there’s an update - the lessons I’ve learned and where I’m going to go from here. Click the link in the bio to read, and pick up a copy of the tracker I’ve been using. 💚

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