I still remember my resistance to journalling quite fondly. I would try, and seemingly fail, at putting pen to paper. Over and over again I tried. It’s quite revealing to look back on those half formed, half attempted journal entries. If only that version of me knew what lay ahead.
I don’t know what kept me going back to try again. I am so thankful I persevered. I was able to breakthrough. The revelations and relief from journaling are something else. Journaling is worth the effort. You only get out what you put in.
This is my journaling approach. I send it to those who are interested in starting a practice, but might not know where or how to start.
Key word: practice.
It’s not perfection we are striving for, but practicing the act of connecting with ourselves. Honestly, there is something profound about the mind to pen connection. Parts of ourselves not otherwise revealed in conversation or thought. I truly believe it is our bodies talking to us, telling us what really is up with us. The practice often surprises me what comes out of that pen.
My approach to journaling:
✅ nice book with quality paper
✅ nice pen
✅ choose a timeframe or number of pages as your goal/daily goal
✅ do not criticise your work or spelling or grammar or provide context about the issue as though you’re explaining it to someone else. Remember it’s just for you and you only*. It’s not a published book or going to be read by anyone (except you if you choose to later on).
✅ write all thoughts and feelings for this timeframe/page number. Basically no thinking, just write. Even if it’s ’I don’t want to fucking do this right now’ – keep writing that until another thought comes up and then write about that. Then onto the next thought or feeling. Maybe that’s all you write that day (reminds me of writing lines in detention).
✅ Let the thoughts/feelings flow out of you. It’s important to be curious and not judge your thoughts or feelings. “Hmmm interesting”. This gets easier with practice.
My thoughts and feelings jump around a lot. I will start with one thought, move onto to other topics and then a thought about my first topic comes back so I’ll write it, and then back to another topic. This is perfectly okay. (An insight of how it feels to live in my brain 😅)
✅ timer/page number hit – close the book and get on with your day.
Soooo many times I have had revelations I was not aware of at all. Like I’ll be pissed at something Scott did or someone said and then I find out from journalling it’s actually about something that happened to be when I was a kid, or something profound like that. Or a problem at work I’m frustrated with that’s reminding me of high school. Then next time I’ll journal more about this discovery and what it means. Or if I can’t work it out, I talk to my therapist about it. Sometimes I work out that I’m just plain hungry! Very profound 🧐
Another technique before bed –
✅ write every thought or to-do-list item that’s troubling you down
✅ close the book and tell yourself out loud ‘I’ll think about those things tomorrow/later’
✅ One therapist recommended doing this and then going for a shower to visualise all of these things being washed down the drain. It works pretty good.
Helps me access sleep easier. The thoughts are somewhere other than my head. A lot of the time I don’t come back to the list either (current edit: I just bought a planner for the first time in my life. I am very new to it. Think the only other planner I had was in highschool and almost certain the only thing I wrote in there was my friend’s birthdays… haha. So now I write them down in there to cross off later). Some things I will add to my official to-do-list.
Just ideas! Share what works for you too so I can try too.
I think why it helps is getting all the thoughts and to-do list out onto paper and out of your head. It puts it somewhere so it’s not forgotten. The noise certainly dulls with this.
If you are really struggling with this exercise, I would start with simply 5 mins. You can do it for 5 mins, and that’s truly enough. It will help develop your journaling muscle which gets stronger the more we use it, like anything. Starting is the hardest part for me.
Lots of love,
Kate