Let It Out → General → Journaling Faq

JOURNALINGFAQ

Let It Out | HELP book and tea cup

When my book about journaling first came out in 2016, I found myself going on countless podcasts and early morning local news shows as the “journaling girl.” They’d frame me as the “journaling expert,” in reality I think of myself more as a journaling cheerleader than an expert. But I do have  years of experience journaling, helping other people start journaling, and coming up with journaling prompts, tools and exercises so people ask me questions about journaling all the time.

Here are the most frequent ones I get.

WHATSHOULDIDOWITHMYJOURNALSAFTERIWRITEINTHEM?

This is different for everyone. I know many people who have a robust archive of journals they’ve kept for years and I think that’s really cool. I’m more a minimalist who doesn’t like to have a lot of things around so when I finish a journal I’ll typically mine it for any gems that I want to keep like good ideas, or memories I want to hold on to or tear our or take a photo of then I’ll simple recycle it. I do keep some but often with legal pads and scratch journals I simply toss them when I’m done. I find that if I know I’m hanging onto them I’ll end up writing for my future self to read them and this might prevent me from being as free as I’d like to be.

WHATIFIMWORRIEDSOMEONEWILLFINDTHEM?

This is a tough one. Like I’ve said throughout this class, a cornerstone of journaling is writing exclusively for you, not for for anyone else. So If you’re worried about this it makes it very difficult to honestly journal and process your experience through personal expressive writing. Ideally you’d trust whoever you live with to respect your privacy and space and not read your personal writing but if you’re at all worried about that, you could simply write sensitive content or content that affects other people on your computer and protect it with a password or hand write it and burn it or destroy it after.

WHATIFIMBEINGPRECIOUSABOUTWHATIMWRITING?

I completely understand this. After my book came out and I was publicly talking about journaling all the time publicly I started getting gifted beautiful journals from people. I realized I would find myself editing myself. I wanted the thoughts and feelings I was letting out in my journal to match the beauty of those journals I was writing in and this defeated the purpose of simply letting out the real raw true sometimes dark and messy thoughts in my mind. I started letting myself write on a legal pad. This plain old pad of paper gave me the freedom again to be completely open, raw, and real with my words again—to cross out, misspell, and write in all caps if I want to. So if this happens try a legal pad or even black computer paper without lines.

HOWDOYOUHANDLEHAVINGMULTIPLEJOURNALSFORMULTIPLETHINGS?

This is a great way to use those beautiful journals. I keep them for different subjects like my quote journal, gratitude journal, and travel journals, that way I’m usually filling them with genuinely beautiful content so the insides match the outsides. But I most frequently journal on a simple legal pad.

WHATSTHEDIFFERENCEBETWEENAJOURNALANDADIARY?

I’ve been asked this question a lot since the publication of my book and I think it depends on the person for how they define each word. It’s mostly semantics however, the way I define it in my brain is that I look at diary writing as writing out ‘what happened to you’ where journaling is writing out  ‘how you feel about what happened to you, what you want to happen to you in the future, and reflecting on the experiences you had and will have and processing them like you would with a friend or therapist. Both are helpful and cathartic, similar but unique.

WHATSTHEBESTTIMEOFDAYTOJOURNAL?

Literally anytime—I think journaling in the morning is great when you first wake up to process your dreams, check in with yourself and how you’re feeling, and get an outlook on what you want to accomplish during the day ahead. I also think journaling at night is powerful to reflect on the day that just happened and empty your brain before falling asleep and prepare yourself by listing out your worries and fears before falling asleep. And honestly any pocket of time throughout the day is great to check in with yourself and do some journaling in the midst of your days. It can be ideal when possible to stop, drop, and journal to process an emotion in real time as it comes up. While this often isn’t possible due to work and daily responsibilities I love to journal in the middle of the day with I have the space to do so. But basically what’s great about journaling is that it’s a malleable practice that you can mold to your own life and schedule and do anytime that works for you.

 WHATSTHEBESTAMOUNTOFTIMETOJOURNAL?

Again, this is completely malleable and putting a timeframe on it might deter people from doing it at all. I journal in all different amounts of time, sometimes it’s a quick 5 minutes of jotting down some thoughts and making a list of tasks between things in the middle of the day, other times I carve out an hour or two on a Saturday to really allow myself to write freely whatever’s on my mind that I need to work though and process, however this is much more rare. It’s much more common for me to write in little pockets of time than large chunks.


HOWOFTENSHOULDI/DOYOUJOURNAL?

I don’t like quantifying anything when it comes to journaling or attaching any “shoulds” to it. There are so many self-care and wellness practices flying around I don’t want journaling to get added to a laundry list of activities for self-improvement. Rather use journaling as a way to enhance yourself, not improve it. Do it whenever you feel like it, never force it. It costs nothing and will be there whenever you want it or have time for it. It doesn’t matter how infrequently you do it, it’s just like riding a bike it comes back to you the second you start doing it again.

I go through periods where I’m journaling consistently and other times where I haven’t journal in months. 

Usually I know when I need to do it because I feel like I lack self-awareness and clarity. When that happens I simply carve out some time for myself to write and figure out how I’m feeling about whatever is happening in my life. I might not want to sit down and face it by processing it but I always feel better after much like a workout or a tough conversation with someone—it feels like progress and forward movement.

 

WHEREISBESTTOJOURNAL?

Anywhere! What I love most about journaling is how mobile it is. You can do it on an airplane (one of my favorite places to journal), in the park, at the beach, in your bed, at your desk, or even voice journal as you’re walking down the street. It can be done anywhere. I highly recommend always carrying a notebook with you so you can write by hand if you want to however, you can always write on your phone in the notes app which you likely always have with you.

ISITBETTERTOWRITEBYHANDORISWRITINGONTHECOMPUTERORPHONEOKAY?

It’s all okay however I do think there is something particularly special about writing by hand for a couple reasons. Firstly it slows me down, I type about as fast as I think but with hand writing I’m not quite as quick so it forces me to slow down my thoughts a bit to catch up to what I’m writing. Secondly, when writing by hand there’s a lot more emotion that can come into the words through how hard you’re writing, how big your letters are, if you’re crossing off, drawing arrows, drawing things around the text, or crossing off. With typing it’s basically looks the same from about 4 feet away regardless what the words say while with handwriting you would likely be able to see the emotions and feeling in the words from a distance.

Let It Out | journaling on computer

WHATSYOURNUMBERONETIPFORJOURNALING?

Don’t edit yourself, always allow yourself to be present and real with whatever you write down without any judgment. There’s so much editing and filtering when we have conversations with other people, even close people like friends, family and therapists we slightly edit and filter let your time in your journaling be completely free and flowing with whatever you’re honestly feeling or thinking in the moment. Don’t worry what is sounds like or if it makes sense just let it out.