Stress. Worry. Fear. Anxiety. Rumination. Overwhelmed. Disjointed.
Below I share my personal experience and evolution with journaling but if you want to skip to the ideas and tips, click here.
When these emotions are floating through my mind, I find it difficult to focus on anything else. My body may be still in one space, but my mind is twisting and turning, spiraling down a never-ending deep pit. The emotional toll of it all produces physical ailments in the form of nervous ticks, elevated heartbeat, and even acne.
It is time to journal.
I have been journaling for most of my life; I recently found my pink fuzzy Hello Kitty journal from elementary school and reread journal entries in that thing. 02-08-2004: I have a poem to tell you, Here it go’se: I love you Dart. You’re in my heart. When you’re gone, I write these songs. And I love you too much !! : ) I eventually traded the pink fuzzy journal for a black and white composition notebook in middle school; a lot of rage and random thoughts filled the pages during those years. Sometime during high school, however, I dropped the habit and did not truly pick up journalling again until 2018.
As with most things, it took a rock bottom experience for me to realize the way I was living my life was not working for me and something needed to change.
In late 2018, I was dumped by a person who I felt deeply connected to and forced to face who I was as a person — a volatile individual who had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I took to quitting alcohol, pouring the handles and bottles I had in my apartment down the toilet in between sobs, and picking up a journal at the direction of my counselor.
Pages and pages of heartache and a desire to change. The walls of text seem to be sad, determined, disgruntled (lower “d” disgruntled, iykyk), manic, and a bit all over the place. An accurate representation of how I was feeling during that time of my life. On days I had a lot in my head, I turned to the notebook 3, 4, 5 times, filling pages during each writing session.
Journaling back then was a means to get the mess out of my head and onto something tangible.
I continued on with that safety-net type of journalling for years until 2021 when, surprise surprise, I underwent another breakup. Yes, it was with the same person who I split with back in 2018, only this time I recognized it was a mutual mismatch and not that I was the sole terrible person in the relationship.
How journaling saved me this time was different.
I no longer wanted to only journal about how I was feeling but look toward creating the life I wanted. I stopped writing in the journal I used during that relationship and started a new one. Mindful of the language I wrote in the pages, I was careful to write what I wanted my life to look like and not focus so much on how I was feeling in the day-to-day.
Scripting. I was scripting my life.
Whenever the tough emotions would flood my system, I picked up my journal to focus on how I wanted to feel and what I envisioned for myself. After each journaling session, I felt calm, encouraged, and even happy about the direction of my life. Although these descriptions can be considered fictional stories I told myself, the positive result was stark.
I cannot stress enough how valuable this was for me and how grateful I am for pen and paper.
Now, in 2024, I notice a shift in my journalling habits. I have my scripting journal that I use at least once a month (and trust me, I am itching to use it if I wait that long in between entries) as well as a stream-of-consciousness type of journal to help get thoughts, ideas, worries, etc down as they come up throughout the day. It seems to fit best for me since I am still creating my life in the scripting journal and allow for the collection of thoughts to be cleared out of my head so I can focus on the task at hand and be undistracted.
Check out my post on scripting and the best scripting techniques I use to manifest my desires.
Ideas on how to start.
Do you want to start journaling? Do you already have a journal but want to expand? Are you curious about the different types of journaling there are? See my list below for 8 different types of journals and their uses.
1 – Daily Recap Journal
Take time to write about your day. You can be as detailed as you want or focus on one conversation or event that made you smile. I kept a daily journal or daily record like this for three separate one-year periods since turning 18.
2 – Gratitude Journal
A journal dedicated to writing about what you are thankful or grateful for. This can be used either at the bookends (morning/night) of the day or throughout the day as inspiration strikes.
3 – Anxiety Journal
As it sounds, this type of journal can be filled with the ramblings and worries of the day. I have mixed feelings about this kind of journaling, but know it helped me through pretty dark times of my life so I cannot discount it completely.
4 – Scripting Journal
This is the most powerful type of journaling I have ever done. I will dedicate an entire blog entry about this because it is unreal how this has shaped and continues to shape my life.
5 – Healing Journal
This type of journaling would include revisiting past hurt and wanting to rectify or heal the wounds you feel. Sometimes it can include letters to people who have done you wrong or even rewriting the past to what you wish would have happened. All things that you’ve spent ruminating on can be healed through intentional writing.
6 – Creative Journal
Meant for creating fictional characters or short stories in this journal. I cannot remember if I heard this concept first on a YouTube video or in a book, but spending time writing nonsense make-believe stories to spark imagination and creative energy.
7 – Dream Journal
This journal is to be used immediately after you wake up to record what you can remember about your dreams. The more you do this, the more you will start remembering dreams. I believe we can learn a lot about the subconscious when we take the time to interpret these dreams.
8 – Business Journal
Something you can use to write down tasks, ideas, to-do lists, etc all related to your job/business/side hustle/etc.
In Conclusion
I find it helpful to compartmentalize what I write in different journals since it helps my brain to keep the bad, healing thoughts separate from the future fun scripting journal ideas. If you use one journal for everything, try splitting it up and see how it improves your life.
Do you keep a journal (or 2)? How has it improved your life? Let’s chat about it in the comments, below. I look forward to our conversation.
Thank you for reading.
