Early last December, my Ayurveda teacher suggested I do inner child journaling, and I found inner peace.

Well, until I stopped for no reason—I did continue with my journal work but not daily since I was writing regularly. When I booked an appointment for an ayurvedic health assessment, I met with my regular teacher. A true vata, tall, expressive, good listener, she always helps me clear my imbalances.

At that appointment, after suggesting nutritional and movement changes for three months, she noted how to journal my little Jann, or Janice: write a question to my inner child and then write the answers with my non-dominant hand. Left is my dominant.

As a former artist, I took three different colored pens and pulled out the plain side of quartered invoice pieces of paper—no sense wasting a once alive tree and eagerly got to work.

This type of journaling was not new to me; I had heard about it through an online mental health therapy class available as an adjunct to working with a therapist. At that time, I used my non-dominant hand to draw and only dominant to write my answers to whatever my question was at that time.

Using black, my left hand wrote the question to my inner child; my right answered in red ink, and with purple, my right drew the answer. As I sat back to analyze the work, I laughed at the shaky words and the cartoonish drawing but saw the words had depth; they drew out the burning answer to a long-ago issue. The cartoon me wrapped a warm hug around my heart and a clarity was staring into my soul.

Yes, my non-dominant hand drawings bought life and real meaning to my answers and led me to seek work with another counselor.

Fast-forward to now. I have returned to an online therapy program to seek help…the reason is only important to me. Although my previous therapist was great and helped me work on one of two concerns, I needed someone new to me. I scored. My new therapist is, like me, a student of Buddhism, a daily meditator, and a lover of nature. We connected immediately and my process commenced.

Meeting once a week, I went through and did every assignment, which included the previously mentioned inner child work. I started day one and immediately put into action what needed to be done.

I ended my online sessions three days ago. I settled not only my family relationship but also my drinking, with no wine nor desire for two months.

As I heal my right leg from a serious fracture, my focus is 100 percent in healing, and alcohol has no place there.

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