The Summer I Started A Journal Club

After moving to Austin, I quickly became aware of Future Front TX, their markets and Summer Club offerings. It felt like an inclusive, progressive, safe space to explore and express, and support small business, which I appreciated.

At the time, I didn’t picture beginning my own club, but as luck would have it, nearly 3 years later, I changed my mind :)

When I submitted my pitch in the Spring, I didn’t know if it would actually amount to anything. I’m glad it did.

Thanks to their team’s generosity, encouragement, and the support of friends, I felt ready to experiment with the offering of the Moonrise Mindset Journal Club💘.

Creating the initial assets and landing page was so much fun and the structure and format just poured out of me, which I always think is some kind of sign that it’s the right time.

I wanted to begin with a session for folks to explore what season of self and life they were in, and the associated questions, learnings, and intentions. Following that up with a session to pause and acknowledge, appreciate, and celebrate ourselves and how we all show up (something we rarely do, or are encouraged to do), and finally, wrapping up with a session all about envisioning and connecting with the future self.

I’d already had the pleasure of hosting Full Moon journaling workshops at 7th Street Candle Co., so I was able to draw on those learnings, as well as the experience from my own journaling practice.

I was so nervous before the first session in July and had to adapt to the large group size. Rather than an entire group discussion, I pivoted to smaller breakout groups to keep the intimacy intact.

The second session in August felt great and I had fun! Still nervous, but already had one session under my belt. Not only was I receiving direct positive feedback from attendees, but from listening to their discussions, I could tell they were taking the prompts and session structure and making them their own - doing the work, looking inward, and being gentle with themselves and each other. Still processing this TBH.

Taking place earlier in the evening than the previous two sessions, the third session’s class size was nearly half of the others. Could have been the traffic, day of the week, topic of the session, or the nature of being the last one, but the smaller group size allowed us to play with, and experience, that entire group chat dynamic, which felt wonderful, allowed me to guide the discussion a bit more, and engage everyone.

This Future Self topic was the one I was the least sure about and it ended up being so beautifully powerful for folks; reassuring in many ways and not without acknowledging the ups and downs, and turmoil that emerges in life. Some pictured their tomorrow self, some pictured their much older self, and others saw themselves in the nearer future. The group discussed feeling more confident to move forward, with the support of their future selves.

I’m so grateful to have had the experience of leading these three in-person guided reflective journaling sessions, the first of Moonrise Mindset Journal Club.

Here’s to keeping it going - IRL, online, and in all the ways!

xx