12345 (Junk) Journal Club

5 journal prompts, 4 recommendations, 3 habits, 2 bucket list items, and 1 theme to muse on for the week

Welcome back after summer break! I hope the first month of your summer let you put some things down, get outside, and get out of your head a bit.

Over the past month, I’ve been finishing my resident in adult psychiatry and starting my fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry. The past year has been a time where I had more elective time, and thus more freedom to start two creative projects: this newsletter and co-hosting a mental health podcast, which is now in season 2! The last month has been full of bittersweet emotion, as well as now nerves and excitement to begin a new chapter in training where I am once again a small fish in a big pond—though still in Boston.

Over the last month, I’ve had some time as well to reconnect with creativity or bad art just for the hell of it in posting again on TikTok, and sitting here, writing to you all is something I feel rejuvenated to do again. Since making more and writing more in short form over the past few weeks, it struck me how easy it is for me to fall down the trap of wanting to quickly formalize what my Substack is like, and to not allow myself time and trust to try out different formats for articles, newsletters, or challenges. First and foremost, social media and writing is about consistency and fun at this point in my life, and it can be easy for me to lose sight of that, or to somehow always feel the urge to formulate something into a big, coherent project. I don’t write that way on TikTok, and writing in short form again reminded me that play and experimentation with themes is allowed here, too.

Here’s a form I’m trying out today: the 1-2-3-4-5 method for my newsletter. You’ve probably seen people doing weekly R.E.P.O.R.T., and I love that format. This format is for the first full week of July. Here’s what each stands for this week:

• 1 Theme: Some piece of media, pop culture, and/or art that is resonating with me this week or month, and how I'm trying to live by it (and you could, too).

• 2 bucket list items: These can be seasonal, yearly, or lifetime. Mine are usually seasonal and can be anything from going to a vacation in a different country to watching a summer sunset on the Charles. Most are little, which makes them doable.

• 3 habits: The habits I’m working on this month, why, how they are going, and a little about sticking to your own habit change from my background as a therapist.

• 4 recommendations: This is one I get to have fun with and dive into broader lifestyle and discoveries with you all. It can be an idea, an item, an experience, a movie—anything I’m loving lately, old, new, free, or not.

• 5 journal prompts for your week: because this is where I started, and is one of my favorite ways to explore all the other habits, bucket list items, and the theme each week. Pick and choose ones you enjoy!

Alright, let’s get this going for this week, aka July 6th-12th!

1 Theme for the Week: Bad Art Summer Camp

For those of you following on TikTok, you already know that my overall theme for the summer is returning to the joy of making things when you were a kid at summer camp, and it did not even cross your mind that you were making it for competition, consumption, or clout. I think this ability to re-enter a sort of mental flow of play is a key component to any antidote to getting off of our screens and back into our bodies and communities. This does not need to look like a formal art practice—in fact, it shouldn’t at all, and you might want to avoid the urge (like me) to formalize.

Think about how when you were in art class in school, there would be different units, a different project each week. There wasn’t really a chance for most of us to get overly perfect about it, because we had 45 minutes twice a week and then the project supplies would be gone. There is a relief that comes when creativity has a frame that makes us just get right into it. And, as always, lots of bad art is generally the most common place any good art comes from.

2 Summer Bucket List Items

• Watch a sunset over your favorite local body of water: I did mine during a recent very slow jog on the Charles River, as I am training for a 10k in August simple so I feel strong enough into jogging that I can enjoy the outdoors this fall when the leaves change.

• Plan a trip to the beach (or lake, or pond, or pool). Notice how I said plan, not go? Though the planning isn’t the item itself, sometimes you have to make the item this week a logistics session so you can have the bucket list item crossed off next summer.

3 Habits

• Following a hybrid workout plan that focuses on fun each day (ie working out most days of the week, utilizing what I talked about in this post on working out for your brain).

• Flossing + actually using my very simple, very much prescribed skin care each night.

  • I had to get a deep gum cleaning at the dentist and your girl is HUMBLED right now.

• Run the washers: I’ve tried complying with a “clean sink, clean clothes” approach with this, and it just isn’t something that is easy for me to do each day. However, when I realized I can run my dishwasher for only 2/3 of a load of dishes, my life improved immediately. Similarly with laundry, though it won’t be daily, smaller loads are easier, can be done quickly, and don’t get avoided as much by tired or stressed out me.

  

  found exploring while on a walk/run

4 Recommendations

• If you’re someone who is thinking about body image and it impacts how you exercise or show up for your self-care practices, a month ago I was on the Dr. Shannon Show for an episode on Body Image and Exercise.

• I recently read Chelsea Fagan’s (of The Financial Diet) second novel, The High Dive, and I could not recommend it more. It deals with enemies to lovers, real conversations about politics and finances, and all in the setting of a yacht sailing around the Mediterranean

• These Athleta Brooklyn Heights High Rise Cargos in Tall are so good I have three pairs of them now, and use them both for workouts, for errands, and as scrub bottoms in the hospital. They’re also on sale right now.

• I recently renewed my library card, and instead of doing some tasks and admin for work from home, I did them in my local library after walking there. This is your sign to find third spaces you like, and to make yourself a regular.

5 Journal Prompts

• It is almost the midpoint of the summer, and it IS the midpoint of the year. I wonder how you’ve spent the first half. What have you gotten to do or enjoyed so far? What are you proud of yourself for? Is there any way you like to keep memories or reflect (ie junk journaling, diary entries, scrapbooking) that you’d like to update for the year so far?

• Let’s address the second half, but just stay with the summer for now. What bucket list items do you have for now until September? Is there anything you used to love to do in the summer as a kid, like riding your bike at sunset or going to the public pool? What would make you feel like you dove in this summer when you reflect back on it come November?

• Bad art is something many of us adults struggle with reconnecting to, even when we want to. When was the last time you did something creative that was just for fun, and it felt like you got lost in it? As adults, I think this often can happen when we are doing something for someone else or with children, like making up a game or getting really into decorating someone’s birthday cake.

• What was your favorite place to be creative or make art when you were a kid? Summer camp bracelet making? Art class with modge podge and tissue paper? Were there any projects you made when you were a kid that you are still sort of proud of kid you for having the ingenuity to do?

• What’s one new favorite idea, place, or item that you’ve discovered in the first six months of the year, that 2024 you didn’t know about and didn’t know you’d discover.

  

I’m so glad to be back and writing with you all, and am curious how you feel about this format. I had a lot of fun writing it, and like being able to give a week or so of journal prompts and themes at a time.

Take care, and take your time,

Margaret of Bad Art Every Day