Why I’ve Returned to Daily Journaling (and hope to never let it go again)
I’m recently back to journaling most days after a good nine-month hiatus. I’ve missed it so much. For me, journaling feels like emptying my bucket of all that’s within. As I get older, I’ve noticed its importance for my mental and physical health. My journal (I like to type my entries into my tablet using the Day One Journal app) becomes the forum where I need not explain things, unless I want to. I can tell my journal whatever comes to me and without judgment. I also love that I can unlock enormous ideas within.
And I’m not the only one. The data tells us 74% of Americans find “emotional venting” via journaling improves their mental health. 65% found journaling reduces their anxiety. I agree with both data points and find other additional benefits to my creativity, clarity, even my sleep. In this week’s musings, all inspired by a journal entry by the way, I’m sharing the hidden power and comfort I find through journaling and the surprising boost it brings my coaching, my entrepreneurship, and creativity, too. You can hear me read this essay as this week’s Competency No 5 podcast here.
How journaling helps me creatively
As my years pass, I get bigger, bolder ideas for my essays and other writing. I also develop a stronger point of view. The years help me feel clearer and less questioning on what I sense and see. (Isn’t that lovely? I find it so.) Some favorite pieces of writing this past year I tapped into as a concept first through journaling.
You may remember me musing on The Lost Sunglasses earlier this year. I lost my first Tom Ford sunglasses (at Ōhope Beach in New Zealand) when frolicking in its great surf with my sons, niece, and her newly wedded husband, my new nephew. I ruminated too long over this loss when I knew logically, I’m happy someone else probably found the designer specs and sheepish for wearing them in the water in the first place.
Journaling on the innocent event revealed something deeper was going on. I realized I related to money and wealth differently than before, in part because years had passed, and because with my surprising business growth as a newish coach to a thriving industry, my financial security has grown. Losing sunglasses in the sea and needing to replace them brought up insecurity of more impoverished times behind me, something I’m not sure we ever really recover from. I’m not sure I could have unlocked this deep, honest writing (nor felt comfortable enough to share it) without the journal entry first. The journaling encouraged the deeper reflection which made the writing feel important — something far bigger than me and those blue, smoky-framed Tom Fords I lost.
Other favorite essays, like My Wee Secrets on Small Talk, also appeared first in my journal after noticing that so many clients, returning to their offices after long, isolated stretches at home, came to me for help with this craft. I mused in my journal (with no smugness, I promise) why don’t I dread small talk and realized, once more, I had a lot to say there — enough for an essay.
How journaling unlocks my curiosity
Writing on this more now, I’ve realized the journaling not only allows me to “empty my bucket” it becomes a forum for my deep curiosity — unrestrained and uninterrupted by someone who might otherwise get bored or lost.
I can really go deep into those woods in my journal and without worrying I’m becoming tangential. I can tangent all I want and as long as I want. And am I locked in as I journal? So much! A chicken might walk into the room as I type away. I’d really not notice.
With the small talk essay, it took me journaling with full curiosity and a quest to answer my own question … so why don’t I dread small talk? I work remotely, but really feel no struggle here at all. I connected the feeling of comfort vs discomfort to constant moving of locations in my youth and moving across three continents independently as an adult and countless times in each city I lived. (In Tokyo alone, my base for five years in my early 20s, I moved eight times. In San Francisco, seven times in seven years.) Moving meant having to develop new community. My wellbeing and survival depended upon this act, which requires courage to speak to strangers and find good, quality roommates who might fend for me when and if in trouble. Over time, this effort built confidence I still feel today.
I also realized from this entry small talk’s not small at all. In coaching (and as a business reporter) it’s always the small talk (at the front of a session or the end of an interview) that unlocks the gems serving the coachee or interviewee the most. That’s when we’re least guarded. I could only make these creative connections which may spark bravery or inspire others in the journal. (And in anything I write and then share, that’s always the goal.)
How journaling brings me calm
Which brings me to another reason I’ve re-learned my love for journaling, which you might have guessed by now, I find truly wonderful. I settle my mind and calm my soul as I journal and especially notice this powerful shift afterwards.
I might come into the journaling session a little rushed or harried, trying to get out the door someplace on a schedule. I may then journal from the passenger seat with my family, or, bustling through a night-time routine and making the journaling the “last thing I do before going to bed.”
As I journal and empty, and muse, and discover, and seek meaning in whatever makes me curious, I find my breathing shifts from its familiar shallow to deeper, longer, more committed? Not sure if that word’s right here; but, I do notice a shift coming from the calm that comes from feeling truly listened to, just as I feel when I receive a quality coach. I also notice my sleep improves and I’m less apt to wake with a ruminating thought I’d not yet unraveled. The journal offers that space.
As I close off this musing on journaling, I wanted to offer some small additional ways I’ve found journaling help me recently. Journaling provides me a forum to:
- Notice what I’m grateful for — and proud of — right now, without changing a thing. (The visual list helps shock me, in a good way, of all that’s going great.)
- Share what I worry about (and notice that once I write it down, I’m not worried much at all, it’s just a thought that floats by.) Journaling helps shift that worry to a fluffy cloud.
- Air my annoyances, knowing again, they’re not that big a deal. I notice also the annoyances take little time to share. What makes me proud and excited takes longer, which in itself, feels helpful, Sage-like, cathartic.
- Air a strategy, just a starting point at least, which lightens up the static and any overwhelm of the day ahead. By sharing with the journal I build progress or tell my Inner Judge to settle down because I won’t miss the deadline. See! (The journaling tells it: I have made progress.)
- Air some exciting hopes I’m perhaps too shy to share beyond the journal as it’s so lofty, so out there, so ambitious. (In this moment, I notice how I feel in my body as I share it to the journal, my first confidante, as for clues on its validity.)
Do I have barriers to journaling? So many. And you’ll notice my intentional title (why I’m returning to journaling). I often fall off the wagon because it feels indulgent alongside other daily self care including keeping a good sleep routine, art, family time, and exercise. But just as other journaling unlocks big ideas, so does this one and I’ll make it my Medium article and Competency no 5 podcast for this week. I know our day feels full; but sleep and rest helps us restore better for the next day and if journaling does that for me, all the more reason to continue.
Debbi Gardiner McCullough coaches and trains foreign-born leaders to become more confident, concise, and mentally fit communicators. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and coaches worldwide with BetterUp.