Journaling: something new that has helped my mental health

I have always been envious of people who could journal. A friend of mine still has her journals from school and she goes through them from time to time, just to reaffirm how she has grown and yet, maintained her child-like awe and terror in new experiences.

Reading about all the benefits it has, has made me want to begin. It didn’t help that I would see these Reels of people handmaking their journals, using all these pretty tapes, pens, bows, stickers, etc. Frankly, the imagery of bullet journaling looked too complicated and though I would admire it from afar, I couldn’t bring myself to start.

Apart from the mechanics of journaling or where and how to begin, the very idea of journaling terrified me. What if someone read it? What was even the point of writing down things – with pen and paper – when I could type it on a password-protected Word document which I could carry with me everywhere?

I had tons of excuses so, I tried other things. I tried keeping a doodle journal but I could barely do it with any amount of consistency. I realized I was more of a words person and less of a pictures person so it was no loss to me when I stopped.

I kept a gratitude journal for quite a while – for more than two years – through this minimalist app a friend suggested. I enjoyed it and during the pandemic, it was a perfect tool for me to stay sane. But then the pandemic ended (fingers crossed) and the gratitude journal could no longer hold all that I needed to say.

I was cleaning my drawer, as one does on 28^th December instead of doing a recap of the year gone by, and I saw this diary I had. It was made of handmade paper and had been a gift from a colleague. While giving it to me, he had said, “Because you write.” The diary was languishing in my dusty drawer and I thought…why not. Let me try this journaling malarkey.

I stripped all the terrifying bits of journaling: fancy tapes, soothing background music, pretty handwriting, pastel colours, etc. I had four different coloured pens which would do just as well. And I found a time of day where I could write undisturbed: morning. I chose to journal in the morning instead of at night because I’m too tired by then and all I want to do is read until my bedtime and then go to sleep.

Deciding the right time for me actually helped the most. I had wrongly assumed I had to journal in the night about how my day had gone but I realized I could do a recap just as well the next morning. So what if I wrote “dear diary, yesterday was a bad day” instead of “dear diary, today was a bad day.”

I am proud to say, I have been able to do it consistently for a month now. And the wonders of the mind, even though my current journal is barely half-filled and I have 2 empties in my drawer, I’m already looking at buying some personalized journals – maybe even leather-bound ones 😐

I am also happy to tell you that journaling has been helping, especially shutting down my mind chatter. There is only so much I can write, my hands are not used to writing 500 words in 20 mins anymore, so what I put down on paper is essential, barebones. Those barebones have been helping me accept and acknowledge what my day was but also to leave it on paper and not carry it into the new day.

Have you tried journaling? If yes, how do you journal?

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This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter.

Header photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash

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