How, Why, and When to Journal
Welcome back and Happy New Year!
2020 was certainly one of the strangest years of my life. Now that the calendar has flipped over, I’m a bit convinced that it was all just a dream. Either way, here we are with it behind us. If you or a loved one experienced difficult times during this time, I am sorry. If you had a great year, that’s fantastic. All of us were impacted in all sorts of ways.
In line with today’s topic, I think it would be very useful for you if you took a minute to look back on how you reacted to this year. Really take a look at your reactions, your conversations, your habits and routines. Try to put aside a self-serving bias for a moment and ask yourself, are you proud of the way you handled 2020? In 10 years when this is all a distant memory, will you be able to look back on times of difficulty and be confident that you handled that in the best way possible?
If it’s uncomfortable to even consider the question, that’s okay! Maybe you recognized some reactions or behaviours in your life that you wouldn’t exactly love for people to know about. What a fantastic thing to know about yourself! That judging voice that pops in with all sorts of “could haves, should haves and would haves” is an important voice to listen to sometimes**. It lets us know how certain behaviours and thoughts contrast to our own image of an “authentic self”.
And think, for a moment, how good it might feel to say that at least half of those “should haves” came true. Imagine you actually were the person you wanted to be.
Some of us have a lot of work to do for that to happen. Others, maybe it’s just cleaning up our morning routine or remembering to drink more water. The point is, we all have somewhere to start, and it’s much easier than you might think it is to start making changes.
Journaling, or just writing about your life, is a potent place to start because the journal acts as a sort of reflective piece that forces your analytical mind to slow down. Our thoughts move much quicker than we can write, and it never ceases to amaze me just how many assumptions, biases, and blind spots my inner analysis has. It’s only when I begin to write that I see the massive holes in my line of thinking that has lead to the negative reactions I experience.
The speed of thought vs speed of writing discrepancy is absolutely vital for quality reflection, especially regarding issues or problems that have been a source of rumination for quite some time. Neurologically speaking, problems that go ignored fall out of our conscious evaluative processes where we carefully tease apart aspects of the issue, and into a sort of “background hum” maintained by a number of systems, one of which is called the Default Mode Network (DMN). The DMN is responsible for several processes which include constructing a coherent “autobiography” or life story. It plays heavily in constructing and maintaining our image of self and how our experiences have shaped us. Much to our dismay, our natural inclination towards negativity can paint our life story as a negative experience, especially when we don’t take the time to consciously evaluate our experiences.
By writing about our day/week/month/year/life, we briefly downregulate the hum of the ruminating DMN and manage to explore the “facts” that we use to construct a self-image. This is one of several reasons to introduce journaling into your daily routine. Taking a few minutes each day to slow down and consciously evaluate our experiences gives us the opportunity to remember those experiences differently. Often the largest component of memory is emotional, which can often be misplaced. I’m not sure about you, but I can think of 10 things that have happened in the past week where I saw that the emotional response I had during the event was entirely misplaced upon reflection. That’s not to say emotion is always wrong, rather that sometimes you just need to logically evaluate your responses. Maybe you misunderstood what that person meant by what they said, or maybe you noticed after the fact that you were a little hungry and probably shouldn’t have been so reactive with that child. Our emotional mind is very powerful and by virtue can sometimes override what the logical mind has to say. Journaling is a fantastic way to explore this reality within yourself.
When you journal is obviously entirely up to you. I would suggest preplanning a time where you will be available and willing to sit down with a notepad and pen. If you have busy mornings, maybe wait until you’re in bed later that evening. Or maybe you have a habit of doom scrolling Instagram from 2-4 pm every day; consider fitting in a few minutes amongst that.
Drop a comment down below if you think that journaling might be of benefit to you or your friends and family. I sincerely believe you will not only improve your life, but by proxy, the lives of everyone around you by taking a few minutes each day to get real with yourself. Your brain, family, friends, and future self will thank you.
Have a great week folks.
**: I think the judging voice is useful when you ask it a genuine question that you want an answer to. The ruminating mind on the other hand, which runs automatically, uses the judging voice in a negatively biased fashion towards yourself and/or the world.
