Journaling, the number one practice that keeps me grounded
I've only missed a couple of days of journaling recently due to a hectic week and the first longer trip in two years and I’m feeling uneasy. I'm hoping to begin the new week by catching up on writing. Otherwise, I won’t be able to fully calm down and get on with my day.
I started journaling when I moved to Washington, DC in 2019. I was feeling extremely lonely at times and putting my thoughts on paper was my way of venting. Before that, I must admit, I thought journaling was a silly practice. Keeping a diary seemed like something my teenage self would rather do. Not only did daily writing helped me gain clarity. It was very useful when writing a guide on the J1 training program because I kept notes on how I spent my days completing the exchange.
Nowadays, I begin my days by writing. I follow Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages exercise, which she recommends in her books The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity and The Listening Path. Morning Pages are three pages that you handwrite each morning as soon as you wake up. Instead of the recommended three pages, I usually try to fill an A4 sheet with small print. Here’s what Julia Cameron writes about the power of Morning Pages in The Listening Path:
“Writing Morning Pages is like driving with the high beams on: we <<see>> ahead of ourselves, farther and more clearly than our normal low-beam vision. Potential obstacles stand out clearly. We learn to avoid trouble. Equally valuable is our pages’ ability to spot opportunity. Our <<luck>> improves as we pick up the cues our pages are sending.”
“Pages corner us into action. They do not settle for anything else. They tutor us into taking risks - risks on our own behalf. The first time pages raise the notion of action, we may find ourselves thinking, <<I couldn’t do that!>> But pages are persistent, and the second time they raise the notion, we may find ourselves thinking, <<Maybe I could try that!>> As the pages edge us further on, we find ourselves recording, <<I believe that I’ll try…>> And we do try - and quite often we succeed.”
“I sometimes miss pages on early travel days. Arriving at my destination, I do <<evening pages>>, but they are not the same. Writing at night, I am reflecting on a day I already had and am powerless to change. Morning Pages lay out my day’s trajectory. <<Evening pages>> record the day’s journey as hit or miss. Belatedly, I see the day’s many <<choice points>> - places where I could have chosen more productively. Instead, I squandered my day.”
My trusted Smith-Corona accompanies me even on vacations
I keep a sheet of paper in my typewriter at all times to jot down any thoughts that come to mind throughout the day. As I wrote before in the post Using a typewriter in 2021, when I’m not feeling my best, I sit down at my typewriter and tell myself that I will write one page of text. I always have more hope by the end of that page, and solutions to my worries seem to magically appear out nowhere.
In his book Storyworthy, Matthew Dicks talks about doing the so-called Homework for Life. It is a practice in which you write a few sentences at the end of the day in order to identify and tell stories that already exist in your life. I've been doing that for two years now. Importantly, Matthew Dicks points out that this practice allows you to better remember your life, make sense of it, appreciate it more, treat it as a gift:
“As you start to see importance and meaning in each day, you suddenly understand your importance to this world. You start to see how the meaningful moments that we experience every day contribute to the lives of others and to the world. You start to sense the critical nature of your very existence. There are no more throwaway days.”
My mind was blown away when I first read it. Now that I think about it, I feel like my life isn’t slipping through my fingers when I take a moment to reflect and write down the few important moments in my day.
I neatly organize my written pages. I like to go over them once in a while. It’s a great way to become more introspective and self-aware. Writing about my feelings on a daily basis, even in small amounts, is changing my life. I used to neglect that part a lot and there was never enough time for reflection. When I revisit my pages, I can see my growth and how far I've come. What appeared to be a dubious practice has now become something I rely on.
