Days after college graduation, with soon to expire gift card in hand I wandered my local Schuler Books.  And by wander, I meanI beelined to the non-fiction area to find the next book that would be a guide to make my life perfect. At 22 I felt stuck. I wished the key to feeling better was in one of the books I read and assumed just I hadn’t yet read the right one. As I meandered I felt like I’d already read every self-help, spiritual, and diet book in the store, but I needed to use the gift card so I wandered into the stationary section where I bought myself a colorful journal.

No one taught me to journal or suggested I journal -- I just started writing down my real, raw authentic thoughts and feelings for maybe the first time ever. I didn’t yet know why but it felt cathartic and liberating so I kept doing it. Eventually I realized that writing alone in my journal for hours gave me  a real high. For my entire life up until then I’d been filtering myself--being a version of myself that would be liked, accepted, and make who ever I was with feel comfortable. I did this so well that I didn’t even know who I was. But in my journal I could express my darkest, weirdest thoughts as well as my lightest, most lofty goals without fear of judgement. I was able to see my thoughts and emotions, sort thought them and decide which ones where useful and which ones were holding me back.  

What I wrote could be messy, undone, and even nonsensical because it was all just for me. It was freeing and allowed me to get to know myself in a way I never had as a teenager. Eventually, I was able to take this new found self-awareness into my work and relationships.

This was 2012. The next few years I kept frequently journaling, whenever I had an uncomfortable feeling I needed to process I’d write about it. I’d guide myself to the root of what I was feeling, uncover why I was feeling that way and begin to come up with a plan of how I could shift or change or take action of feel better. I let myself vent or be where I was, sometimes negative for pages, but I never allowed myself to end there. By the end of each journaling session I would force myself to pivot and focus on my role in the situation or how I could change whatever was happening. It became a free mini therapy session with myself that I could do anytime and anywhere. I did a lot of real therapy too. This isn’t a replacement for that, but it is a useful companion to it. Journaling made my therapy sessions deeper and more productive because I could walk into them armed with self-awareness and then my therapist could point out blind spots or areas where I could go deeper and change.

By 2014, I’d been journaling for several years and started doing a version of Morning Pages (an exercise from her book The Artist’s Way) that I called my Morning Dump (this is the first tool in my journaling book). I began recommending journaling to friends and podcast listeners whenever they told me about something difficult they were going through. I’d bashfully ask, “I know it’s kinda weird, but have you journaled about that?“ they were NOT into it they didn’t think they had time or know where to start.

 I had no agenda, it just really helped me and I thought it might have the same effect on other people. Turns out it did. By the end of  that year, I had a deal to write a book of 55 journaling prompts. While writing the book I noted my process, including the questions I asked to guide myself into the previously unexplored corners of my mind. I shared these prompts with friends and eventually had such a large arsenal of tools I couldn’t fit them all in one book. 

Eventually, the book came out and I was suddenly deemed the “journaling expert”. I was no expert. I was, however, a journaling enthusiast because it genuinely helped me and still does! And now I've been publicly sharing about it for nearly 5 years. In that time, I’ve taught countless journaling workshops and even made a tv show about it. 

<<<<< Even after all this time, I still don’t tire of the topic of expressive writing. I’m glad I chose a topic for my first book that is versatile, expandable, and timeless. I did not make up journaling, I just loved it and shared it.   >>>>>

Expressive writing or journaling is something that people have used for centuries to process their emotions and it's something people will continue to use since it's completely free and accessible to everyone.

 I don't know what I'm thinking or feeling unless I'm writing. Journaling has been like a free solo therapy I can do with myself at any time to check in on how I'm actually feeling. Even though I journal and am more self-aware then I once was, I still constantly wear masks in my relationships and life to protect myself or out of uncertainty or my desire to be liked, journaling is the place I can remove all those masks and be my truly authentic self. Journaling has continued to be the best way to process my emotions. Journaling has been useful for everything from anxiety to relationships, organization and creativity. In a sea of expensive and time-consuming self-care practices, I love how accessible this is--it costs basically nothing and you can do it anywhere. Some people enjoy being really fluid with it while others like to be guided by prompt or tips. Sometimes it can be really useful to write in groups (more on that coming soon).  For now, try it on your own. If you’re new to it give it a whirl, if you’ve been doing it for a while take it for another spin through this lens. 

Tip 1: Just start. 

Like with anything else you learn best by doing and the more you do it the easier it will become. It’s impossible to do it wrong.. No one has to see it and it doesn’t have to be done any single way. Not trying is literally the only way to fail at this.

Tip 2: Get Curious

Approach journaling like a scavenger hunt that will lead you to your innermost feelings. The journey ahead is thrilling, but it’s new territory. Get curious about what you’ll find, but don’t rush.

Tip 3: Don’t  Edit

We’re taught in English classes to analyze our words, sentence structure, and not to mention punctuation, spelling, and grammar, however none of that matters here.

Tip 4: Dance with Resistance

Resistance will arise while you’re journaling because you’ll start feeling emotions you don’t want to feel. We often numb those feelings with food, sex, drugs, TV etc. Leaning into discomfort is the only way to change.

Tip 5: Befriend Yourself

For many years, I didn’t allow myself to authentically express who I was, so I lost touch with my true self. To heal and come into my own, I had to get to know myself. I did this with my journal.

Through letting out my real thoughts onto the page, I could see the real me, not the watered-down chameleon I showed the world. A deep sense of self-awareness is one of the true keys to happiness and fulfillment. Always bring your real self to your journal.

Tip 6: Cultivate Awareness

Journaling gives you tools to shorten the time between coming out of the flow and going back into it — flow being the state where everything seems to be moving effortlessly. Choosing different thoughts in unpleasant situations enables you to shift from out of the flow to back in more quickly. When you feel out of alignment, bring your attention to your feet (because they’re farthest from your brain), and notice the present moment. Awareness is a muscle — journaling strengthens it.

Tip 7: Be Radically Authentic and Honest

Make a commitment to be radically authentic and honest when journaling: dig up the secrets you’ve buried and hidden. If you’re lying to yourself or writing what you think you should be writing, stop, return to the present, and write what’s true for you. If you’re not being fully honest with yourself on the page, journaling is a waste of your time. If you’re writing for someone else or ‘in case someone sees’ it’s not journaling. By being vulnerable and acknowledging what we’re ashamed of, we let go of any guilt we’re holding on to. As Brené Brown teaches, shame cannot survive being shared, and admitting our shame to ourselves is the first step.

Tip 8: Fake It Till You Make It

Kurt Vonnegut says in Mother Night: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” It works to fake it till you make it.

If journaling is new for you, going this deep might cause some strong reactions:

a) Wanting to stop or quit
b) Feeling like a fraud
c) Thinking you’re wasting your time
d) Turning off your new, heightened awareness and turning to familiar, comfortable habits to avoid the feeling.

Don’t stop. Journaling shows you what’s going on at a deeper level when you allow yourself to examine your feelings as they authentically flow out of you. When you’re enjoying playing pretend as a writer — keep going. With time, the routine becomes ingrained, and before you know it, you’ll no longer be pretending.

When you ask yourself a good question you’ll likely get a good answer back from your intuition. I wrote a book of basically 55 good directed questions. But here are a few to get you started.

It’s a simple question that we ask other people all the time but we rarely ask it of ourselves. So just sit down for 5-10 minutes and write about how you’re feeling right now.

Here are a few more:

After you answer each of these questions. Ask yourself why and let your pen flow to see what comes up, again don’t judge it, just write without any editing.

If you liked this you’d love my class Journaling 101 on Bluprint & my book.