My Journaling Journey is a series within a larger series about Individuation and growth. You can find the introduction here if you missed it.

What is Journaling?

The root word for journaling is from old French ‘jour’ and means ‘daily’. In some sense that’s all it means but over time it has come to mean ‘to write daily about something’ – often about one’s life. There are as many ways of journaling as there are people who journal.

Journaling is one of my tools of reflection for growth. Over time, I have benefitted from journaling in self-discovery through observation and reflection. Journaling helps me understand myself and others better. It is also helps me notice my growth patterns and see when I get stuck in life. Not only does journaling help in reflecting retrospectively it is also for planning forwards. In this way the practice improves my sense of calm and peace; and even elevates my moods. It improves my health and therapy process. Mostly journaling helps me to pinpoint what’s truly individual about myself and this helps me in my ultimate goal to grow and individuate. Carl Jung mentions ‘reflecting’ in this quote: To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is. Reflection is very important, and journaling is a good way to keep all my reflections together.

I am quite sure that most of you, as writers, probably use a journal in some form; and you are capable of searching the internet about journaling. This begs the question ‘why am I writing about journaling?’ The answer is that I want to share about my personal journaling story and that’s what makes it worth sharing. 

I have used many different forms of journaling but I never used a journal just as a diary entry: ‘dear diary.’ I must have been about ten years old when I came across it and I thought it was silly, yet it is a form of journaling. Journaling could capture data about our health, diet, fitness, sleep; or about the reflections of our feelings and thoughts; it can be of spiritual or intellectual observations; it could be done in conjunction with therapy. Instead of giving you a list of 25 different types of journaling I am going to discuss my life as a life of journaling. And I will italicize all the different types of journaling I have done or don’t do. 

My inspiration for writing

When I first saw my father writing in his captains shipping logs I was four years old. I developed an admiration and love of the idea of writing to capture life as I watched him log his trips and the crew in detail. He was my inspiration and I started emulating the process even before I could write the letters of the alphabet. I scribbled away in my books just like my dad.

I had a bit of a setback when I went to school because I couldn’t spell and I became painfully embarrassed about writing anything in fear that I would be punished or be laughed at. This is an example of the child’s ego being hurt and humiliated by a spelling system and the memory stayed with me as an adult. It was one of the issues I explored as an adult, in journaling, as it affected my self-esteem and confidence, especially in sharing my writing. This was part of my individuation process. Although I was clever at mathematics and came third in class in junior school I believed I must be stupid because I couldn’t spell. It was like a ‘thorn in my flesh’ for many years and held me back in sharing my ideas with the public.

In order to be free of this critical voice that told me I was incompetent I was challenged to explore the origins of it. As I allowed the memories of humiliation to surface I journaled about: my struggle with spelling, my memories of teachers, the pain, the fear of punishment and humiliation, etc. I wrote unsent letters to my teachers to express, from a parent’s perspective, about how my child was humiliated for having a learning problem (dyslexia) and letters of forgiveness from my inner child. I also dug deeper and found the embers of the writing desire that my father had ignited. Through writing to myself I began to blow the breath of life over the embers and eventually I embraced the woman I had become through all the writing I did. This was not a straight trajectory but a dance of backwards and forwards, pauses and ups and downs. Eventually I felt comfortable to share my writing publicly.

Even although I struggled with spelling I was journaling secret poems and thoughts by the time I was eight years old. One childish poem I wrote at seven was
‘the rain is coming,
the rain is coming,
the dew is here
and the rain is gone.’
I remember being totally bedazzled by the sun shining on all the dew drops on the thick grass. I started dancing and skipping about singing enthusiastically. I was impressed enough to think I should write it down. Poems record our memories.

When I was eight years old I also developed a very deep and personal relationship with God and I wrote about it. That’s what people would call spiritual journaling.  I wrote prayers and answers from God and Scriptures. I continued to do this as a teenager too. Throughout the ages there are examples like Hildegard von Bingen (1098) and Saint Francis de Sales (1567) who wrote about their spiritual experiences; and there are people from different religions who still journal about spirituality. I was particularly influenced by Hildegard and St Francis.

Totally committed to journaling.

By the time I was a teenager I was hooked. I couldn’t do without journaling. It was part of expressing my soul. I didn’t show my writing to anyone but unfortunately I know my mother read my journals at least once because she referred to something she could not have known unless she read them. I didn’t confront her about it but from then on my journaling was coded so that people could not understand them easily. It became a form of shorthand and code words. I began to use metaphors so that no-one knew who ‘the old cow’, the teddy bear, the cockerel, the stallion, the butterfly, the man with the scar, the woman, Pinocchio, etc. were. I can thank my mother’s nosiness for developing my use in metaphor.

As you can hear my journals reflected the level of maturity I was at, such as lamenting over boys, or mean teachers, hence the need for metaphors.  In my teenage years I also wrote many poems about ‘what an insignificant nobody and a measly little worm I was.’ And this is often what young teens do. Over time, in my twenties and thirties, I began to journal poems, dreams, goals, observations of myself and how I interacted with the world. Journaling, is not only a testament of how I have grown, but it is a method of seeing myself and the world more clearly; and giving time to introspection and reflections.

There were times when I obsessively journaled or tracked my diet, calories, and my exercises. These notes became grist for my mill as I looked back over these times with objectivity and saw how demanding I was of myself and how punitive I was when I didn’t keep to the plan. I had very little self-compassion. When I suffered from depression as a young mother I tracked my moods. Mood tracking was helpful in seeing the changes in me. Happily now, there are apps that can take care of those types of journaling as I personally find it mundane. Although tracking of my peak flows became vital when I was diagnosed with asthma. And keeping a food journal was useful for identifying food allergies.  

As a young adult I wrote mostly about dreams, goals and aspirations but as I moved into my thirties and had my own children I journaled about my life as a mother, friend and a wife and wrote about the struggles and the joys of being a woman. I also kept a journal when the kids were young where I just made lists because that’s all I had energy. My lists journals recorded the events of the day or plans for the next day. It was a bit like the fashionable bullet journaling that Ryder Carroll published in his book ‘Bullet Journal method’ in 2018. It describes a ‘method’ that efficiently organizes one’s life. List journaling or bullet journaling helped me with the responsibilities of running the home, bringing up the children and keeping track of my husband’s business.

Other styles of Journaling

Some people recommend sprint journaling where you write as fast as possible; often writing out your anger, sadness or grief. It seems like a purging process of feelings and I know some people who burn their writing afterwards because they don’t want others to see it. It can be a nice ritual but I have not felt drawn to sprint journaling or purge journaling. I have other ways of ‘purging’ anger, grief and sadness which I will explain in future. There is also Julia Cameron’s book, ‘The Artists Way’ where morning pages are recommended. You write the first thing that comes to mind for 15 minutes. It is supposed to clear your head and also allow fresh ideas to emerge. I have tried it and do not use this method much except for when I have writers block.

Inner voice and promptings

When journaling about my life James Hollis’s words could apply as a type of guide: ‘The act of consciousness is central; otherwise we are overrun by the complexes. The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacophony of the outerworld to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood.’ Journaling for me is an act of consciousness that tames my complexes. As I journal I shut out the noise of the world to discern the inner voice and then I dare to live the promptings. And I respond to the call to individuation through listening and taking action. I will tell you more about this when I talk about meditation.

I hope this overview has given you an idea of my Journaling Journey and I would be happy to answer any questions. I have two more sections of journaling and I look forward to discussing therapeutic journaling and visual journaling soon. I will end the series with some practical thoughts on how I curate my journals.

Take care, till next time.