The joy of journaling

This week’s post will be short and sweet as it merely serves as a jumping-off point for a self-care practice worthy of your time: the art of journaling.


Keeping a daily journal need not be as huge and as scary as novel-writing, and in fact, it needn’t even be daily. No-one is asking you to draft 20,000 words by the end of the month. Think of journaling as another tool in your self-care kit that allows for deeper discovery, reflection and expression, which I will explore later. Not only this, but there are actually physical health benefits linked to regular journaling, such as decreased stress, a strengthened immune system and even a reduction in asthma symptoms.



So what about the mental and emotional perks of journaling? Personally, from a very young age, my more difficult thoughts felt all confusing and tangled up in my mind until the moment I got them down on paper and I could actually see them for what they were and therefore understand them better. I truly cannot count the amount of times journaling has helped me move through difficult periods in my life thus far. I liken it to completing a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Inside the box (our minds), the pieces (our thoughts and feelings) are all jumbled up, upside down, back to front, not making any sense whatsoever; tip them out, start fitting them together (aka journaling), and suddenly the bigger picture comes into view. As teachers, we are told to use a variety of modes of expression in our classroom, e.g., writing, speaking, art, physical movement, music, because each method allows for different ideas to come to the surface and leads to the development of new neural pathways. It is the same for understanding our own thoughts. If we have never tried to jot them down on paper before, we are not allowing ourselves to experience the clarity and growth that such an activity may bring.


And while so much about journaling is marketed towards women, what with the flowery journal covers and pastel-pink website palettes, I feel it is of vital importance to say that men, especially young men, should not overlook the effectiveness that journaling may have for unpacking their difficult emotions, of which - let's be honest - they have many. The socialisation of men and boys by patriarchal society has led to feelings such as fear, sorrow and self-consciousness being bottled up or suppressed, which can then spill out in unhealthy and inappropriate ways, namely violence and aggression. At least with a journal, we each have a private, personal space to sift through our psyches at our own pace and get to the bottom of what is really bothering us. It truly is a form of free therapy.


While not too different from a diary, your journal should be about more than simply logging daily events and detailing your deepest, darkest secrets. While any copybook will do as a journal, there is something nice about treating yourself to a special notebook that is aesthetically pleasing and just the right size (not too big, not too small) so that you will be motivated to come back and write in it on a regular basis. Hal Elrod, author of one of my favourite books The Miracle Morning, recommends journals with a page for each day - this, he maintains, spurs him on to write in it each day so as not to have any blank pages staring back at him at the end of the week.


Okay, so you have your notebook and your pen poised (or, since it’s the 21st century - your laptop) - what next? Where do you start? Find somewhere online that provides journal prompts - I personally have found the following sites very beneficial:

  • Psych Central - open-ended prompts arranged according to different life categories (career, relationships, personal growth, uncomfortable emotions)

  • Rebekah Joan - self-love, self-discovery and self-improvement being the compass points for the prompts here

  • Taylor’s Tracks - all the prompts here are connected in some way to self-love


If blending journaling with technology is more your vibe, then the websites and apps mentioned here are worth looking into. Some apps provide you with a daily journal prompt, thus eliminating the need to manually search every time you want to sit down and write.


Common journal prompts centre around gratitude (starting and/or ending your day with a quickfire list of things for which you are grateful), productivity (what goals do I wish to achieve today / this week?), self-acceptance (listing things about yourself that you love), among many others. Timing yourself can be a good way to stop procrastinating or ruminating and allowing for whatever bubbles up to make its way out onto the page without delay. Howver, there will be other times when you wish to do a deep dive and stay on a particular prompt for a bit longer, and that is perfectly okay too.


Also, if you are trying to develop awareness in a particular area of your life, consider adding it to the end of “Journal Prompts for ________”, for example “Journal Prompts for Work-Life Balance”, or “Journal Prompts for Realising My Potential”. The main thing is not to feel too fenced in by the process of journaling or to feel like you’re ‘not doing it right’. While what I lay out here are simply guidelines and some personal observations of my own, journaling is what we make of it and it is far more enjoyable when we fit it to shape our own lives, schedules, and abilities. Coming back after a period of time and leafing through your journal entries is also a great way to revisit some old ideas, concepts, and feelings, and compare them with where you are now in life, and where you would like to be in the future.

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