Thoughts on Journaling
This past week I bit off more than I could chew by trying to talk about friendship. It bested me this time. For now I offer you thoughts around journaling.
Of all the ways I take care of myself the most important thing I do is journal every day. I am convinced that the world would be a better place if everyone took 15 minutes each day to sit down and write as a means to have a conversation with themselves and get to know themselves better.
I know that there are several ways to journal. I’ve tried a fair amount. The version that stuck, and the version that I’d recommend is the following.
What’s stressing me out right now. Write down everything.
For each one, what’s a micro-baby-step I can take?
That’s it. It’s just a daily inventory of things that are taking up brain space along with a small amount of planning for action. A way to keep tabs of open loops. Doing it badly is better than not doing it at all. The unknown is way more foreboding than the quantified even when quantified poorly. Time and again doing this has shown me that the unknown things stressing me out are usually small.
Several years ago I was a walking ball of stress. About what, I do not recall. I do remember that part of what was eating at me was that I couldn’t remember all of the things that were bogging me down. So I sat down and wrote while following the above two prompts. I felt better. It was like magic. I decided to keep writing like this every day until all the things were taken care of. That day came, I stopped writing, and things were cool.
Six months later I was having a hard time keeping track of things. I tried the writing again and found that it helped yet again. I did the journalling, the stressful things came to pass, I stopped writing.
I had to go through this cycle four times to acknowledge that my life is better when I write every day. Even when I have nothing stressing me out. I’ll sit in silence and dig through my thoughts and feelings for anything. If there’s nothing that’s stressing me out I’ll ask myself what I’ve been thinking about lately, what future planning could I be doing, what aspect of my life could I be optimizing, etc.
Speed is important to me while I journal. I really want it to be a conversation I have with myself. I pose questions to myself and I answer them. I take random tangents and I don’t need to justify them because I have all of the context. Because I want to maximize thoughts-to-words I choose to type out my journals which has the added advantage of taking them anywhere.
As an example, here’s some of what I wrote in July of last year while trying to put my finger on some stress in my body.
Appropriately following yesterday's writing I feel dissatisfied with my time allocation. This has led to the weight in my solar plexus and a feeling of stress. I feel like there are things expected of me which I'm not too stoked on. Or, that I feel constrain my sense of freedom. Yeah, that's what it is. Classic Benjamin Michael. I was looking forward to catching the first class of BJJ then dancing only to be reminded of my tea time with [Redacted]. My feelings around this would likely be different if I had more confidence in the company I'll be keeping. Still, I'll give the time a fair shake. I also don't like that I have to ask for rides to SBF every week. Part of it is my ego and my issues with being needy. Huh, could part of my desire for freedom be founded in my desire to not need things from others? I bet there's something there. The weight is already lightening with that thought. If I'm self sufficient with my ride (in this case) then I won't be "burdening" anyone with my needs, my shortcomings (as I internalize them). What if [Redacted] really does enjoy the time with me on the ride down….
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