Journaling
I confess I’ve been an intermittent journaler throughout my life. I’ve tried it in many different forms over the years, but I’ve just never been great at writing down what I did each day, or learnings, or thoughts and feelings etc. Until recently, until I established a routine that works for me and the phase of life I’m in.
I would like to preface this with the fact that I originally didn’t like the feeling of actually writing, but over time I’ve found it gets easier and now I actually enjoy it.
Different types of journaling I’ve heard over the years
Health journaling - an example; scoring how you feel about your top five ailments each day.
Gratitude journaling - an example; writing a list each day of 10 things you’re grateful for.
Action journaling - an example; writing down what happened that day.
Creative journaling - an example; having a journal on hand all the time to just write down any creative thoughts throughout your day
I saw an interview with Anne Hathaway, yes the super talented The Devil Wears Prada actress, who spoke about grabbing a bit of paper when she’s feeling anxious and stressed, scrawling everything down and then lighting it on fire which I thought sounded pretty cool.
My Routine
I have a dedicated space set up with all my bits and bobs all ready to go, so each day I go to the same spot. I got a really nice pen so it looks nice when I write too, and I pop in some meditation music (I just search “Meditation Music” on YouTube).
Every morning I wake up, light a candle, pull and oracle card with a mantra for the day, then note it in my journal as well 1, 2 or 3 sentences about anything on my mind. I then get into my meditation for the day.
Every evening I light my candle again and write “Today I’m grateful for"… and just bullet list the things that have come up that day.
All up I’d say I journal for less than 5-6 minutes a day. Sometime I go a bit longer if I have a lot to feel grateful about.
The benefits
There are two main benefits I’ve found;
By writing a gratitude journal each evening it gives me a few minutes to reflect each day and process any thoughts or emotions that have arisen.
By doing a gratitude journal in the evening (instead of watching TV to numb myself) I’ve been getting to sleep easier and waking up in a better mood.
I think the main thing to get started is to…
Think about your daily routine and how you can make the space to do it.
And think about what you’d like to get out of it. Is there a specific thing you’d like to focus on, instead of trying to do it all and do it perfectly.