I get up & one of the first things I do is get my journal out write my intention for the day write my tool that I’ll be using for the day write what I am grateful for… Three wins from the past day & just what I am grateful for in myself as well. I have journaled for so long.. I’ve done it.. Just like diary entries & stuff like that ever since.. I think my first journal started in nineteen-ninety-seven & I still have all of them until now. Yeah. I’ve got quite a library. Haha! Which is cool. I like that. It just started by feeling really different & feeling ostracized from society. Not being able to fit in in the school I was going to especially. It was in rural Hunter Valley. Cessnock. Wine country. So I went to high school there that was my first entry into high school & being from a background of Islamic Musilm Arabic I was probably like the only one there. I remember another kid at school they were from Indonesia but I am pretty sure that he was not Muslim. Him & his brother & me & my brother & that was it. So. Just having those feelings.. & in the second year of high school I was outed to the whole school. I wrote a love letter to a boy I had a crush on & the next day the whole school knew. So that was also the start of my journaling. I love being reflective & giving a lot of thought into my journey I guess.. Being able to express that in the written word. I just love that. I just like to write. I love writing I love that expression. Aside from journaling I also do a bit of poetry as well. I’ve kept every single one. Every day is different. It depends what mood I am in it depends on what intention I am setting for the day. Yeah. Changes all the time. But I do get that whole like OK I’m about to sit & down & journal. So there is a whole process mindset & mindframe & environment & atmosphere. Basically I just put on a playlist whatever music I am feeling that I would want to write to put that on & just start writing just whatever wants to come out will come out. OK I developed the feelings in at the end of ninety-seven I told him at the beginning of ninety-eight & I left the school in ninety-nine. So it was two years of hell basically & then maybe a week or so later he & his family made a complaint to the school & the school kicked me out. But it didn’t phase us because we were leaving & going to Sydney anyway. I just got an extended holiday period. Haha! Just for having feelings for a guy. I am doing life modeling. I’m also doing online tutoring. Yeah I love it. It is a bit of a meditative process as well. Like a lot of people think that & my first time of thinking about it was like.. Holy shit am I really going to do this? Am I really going to stand in a class naked? Like naked? Like I shit myself public speaking. The audience are intending to just be respectful & have that whole expectation so you don’t have to worry about if they are going to criticise me. All that falls away because they aren’t there for that so.. Yeah it is really liberating. They are all there with such respect.. I was talking about where I write my intention. That is supposed to be everyday because it is setting yourself for the day. That part is a separate thing. My actual diary that I write in that is separate that is not every day that is just whenever I feel the need that something has to come out. Something that has happened or I gotta plan for the future or something like that or what is the word… Prominent. That basically comes from my mens therapy group that I am involved in & it was an amazing experience that I had. So my partner found this guy online his name is MJ… He is just I don’t know how to explain it. Haha! He is just an amazing dude. Basically it is a three day event you’re locked in a room with a bunch of dudes & you just talk just start talking & he is able to call out whether you are talking shit or if you are stuck in your head or if you are talking your true self he is able to pick up the differences… & yeah it is just really like opening your mind up to a different way of being. Basically detaching yourself from all the bullshit in the world that is conditioned through us & onto us & letting all that go. So that is where that comes from that every day morning & journaling that is where that is from.
Sol is a community service worker / model / collaborator.