How to journal?
December 3, 2023 10:08 PM
I think journaling would be a good idea for me. I want to keep it 100% private so no one else can read it, and towards that end I am waffling between a old fashioned actual paper notebook and Google docs. But the real question is how do I approach this without worrying about being embarrassed later?
I kept a diary in a spiral bound notebook when I was younger and then years later I made the mistake of going back to read it. I was shocked. I had been so shallow, so embarrassing, so clueless - I changed a lot of my ways of thinking (especially about relationships) based on that rereading. Now I want to write again but I’m afraid it will sound stupid.
Now objectively this is ridiculous, I know. Furthermore I know the answer is Just Do It Anyway. What I’m looking for here are some other perspectives on journaling that I can think about while I try to get past the initial hump of me thinking that I’m documenting my stupidity in ways that will horrify me in years to come. Or tips on password-protecting a spiral bound notebook…
I kept a diary in a spiral bound notebook when I was younger and then years later I made the mistake of going back to read it. I was shocked. I had been so shallow, so embarrassing, so clueless - I changed a lot of my ways of thinking (especially about relationships) based on that rereading. Now I want to write again but I’m afraid it will sound stupid.
Now objectively this is ridiculous, I know. Furthermore I know the answer is Just Do It Anyway. What I’m looking for here are some other perspectives on journaling that I can think about while I try to get past the initial hump of me thinking that I’m documenting my stupidity in ways that will horrify me in years to come. Or tips on password-protecting a spiral bound notebook…
For me, journaling has been more about processing the current moment and getting it all down on paper in real time, and I rarely go back and read what I’ve written (for the same reason as you, I sound so silly!) I’ve found that using the journal more as a tool versus a record helps me be less embarrassed of what I write. Maybe consider doing morning pages, which is sort of stream of consciousness writing that you aren’t meant to judge. You’re inspiring me to get back into journaling :)
posted by sucre at 10:51 PM on December 3, 2023
posted by sucre at 10:51 PM on December 3, 2023
I like digital for the ease of updating and searching for specific dates. The other advantage of privacy is that sure you have to worry about a cloud security breach but with a diary unless you are famous, the biggest security risk is people in your household snooping.
Dreamwidth is my home base. I often make private posts and filtered posts just for very close friends. I can export readable backups and they are stable. No fancy apps and not good for images.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:05 PM on December 3, 2023
Dreamwidth is my home base. I often make private posts and filtered posts just for very close friends. I can export readable backups and they are stable. No fancy apps and not good for images.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:05 PM on December 3, 2023
As a teenager I kept a diary. I have never felt the need to reread it. I did read a few pages once, and like you, blushed at my teenage outpourings. But like sucre, for me writing in my diary was important in the moment, its value was not as a record. I eventually chucked it all. Neither I nor posterity will ever care that it's gone.
I suggest you keep a paper diary and store it in a locked drawer, and also buy a shredder. Shred the diary every now and then. Perhaps as a routine (shred weekly or when one volume is full), perhaps on special anniversaries (the day before your birthday), perhaps after personal milestones (the day you realise you're over a breakup) - whatever works for you.
posted by tavegyl at 12:40 AM on December 4, 2023
I suggest you keep a paper diary and store it in a locked drawer, and also buy a shredder. Shred the diary every now and then. Perhaps as a routine (shred weekly or when one volume is full), perhaps on special anniversaries (the day before your birthday), perhaps after personal milestones (the day you realise you're over a breakup) - whatever works for you.
posted by tavegyl at 12:40 AM on December 4, 2023
My go to is a cheap (like 50 cent) notebook.
Alway have it with you.
Aim to write 15 mins per day, no restrictions on what, when, or how.
Move to an actual daily diary ONLY if you feel the need.
It's like meditation.
If you start with literally 2 mins per day, soon you will want more.
posted by KMH at 1:19 AM on December 4, 2023
Alway have it with you.
Aim to write 15 mins per day, no restrictions on what, when, or how.
Move to an actual daily diary ONLY if you feel the need.
It's like meditation.
If you start with literally 2 mins per day, soon you will want more.
posted by KMH at 1:19 AM on December 4, 2023
I use Google docs, and I delete my posts after a certain time.
I don't have the same issue with worrying about seeming stupid, I do it for other reasons, but this approach might work for you too?
I find that most of the value in journalling comes from the act of writing and I don't need to go back and read things in any case.
Maybe knowing that you'll delete these posts at the beginning of each week (or whatever) could free you from this particular worry?
I find deleting earlier posts feels good, as if I'm clearing out mental rubbish.
posted by Zumbador at 1:37 AM on December 4, 2023
I don't have the same issue with worrying about seeming stupid, I do it for other reasons, but this approach might work for you too?
I find that most of the value in journalling comes from the act of writing and I don't need to go back and read things in any case.
Maybe knowing that you'll delete these posts at the beginning of each week (or whatever) could free you from this particular worry?
I find deleting earlier posts feels good, as if I'm clearing out mental rubbish.
posted by Zumbador at 1:37 AM on December 4, 2023
One of my bosses won a Mentor of the Year gong. One of her mentoring SOPs was to fish students out from the Slough of Despond and get them to go through their first lab books with her. Even for one at the lowest ebb of self-esteem, it is a revelation to see just how plug-ignorant and clueless you were when you started. You cannot but feel better when it is clear that you have learned so much, and that your toolbox is so much better filled with sharper tools now.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:44 AM on December 4, 2023
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:44 AM on December 4, 2023
Since you did ask for perspectives: it struck me that I would have interpreted your experience of reading back your old entries in an entirely different way… if you now feel that your old self was shallow and/or clueless, isn't that a wonderful indication of how much you've grown? To me, that sounds like something to celebrate!
It's both an accomplishment and a sign of what changes you're capable of. I encourage you to take it as a hopeful sign of how far you could come in being who you want to be.
(I don't know how old you are, but for most of my twenties, I assumed that "grown-up" meant that I was done growing/learning. I'm happy now to know that that is not the case.)
posted by demi-octopus at 1:52 AM on December 4, 2023
It's both an accomplishment and a sign of what changes you're capable of. I encourage you to take it as a hopeful sign of how far you could come in being who you want to be.
(I don't know how old you are, but for most of my twenties, I assumed that "grown-up" meant that I was done growing/learning. I'm happy now to know that that is not the case.)
posted by demi-octopus at 1:52 AM on December 4, 2023
What I do is take a paper journal and anything that’s truly, truly horrifying, rip the pages out and shred. Keep everything else.
posted by corb at 3:33 AM on December 4, 2023
posted by corb at 3:33 AM on December 4, 2023
As others have said above, if you don't look back at yourself from years ago and cringe a bit then you haven't grown as a person.
More concerning to me would be the privacy aspect. I fundamentally disagree that your journals would be more private online; the number of data breaches that happen is large, and you're trusting your most private thoughts to others to secure. That breaks me out in a cold sweat.
If I want to write something I don't want others to read, I write it in a Word doc which I password protect, then store it on an encrypted drive. You need physical access to the drive to even start to get access to the data, then you need the password to unencrypt the drive, and a different password to unlock the doc.
This approach would make it slightly less easy to journal on the fly but security is literally a straight competition between accessibility and security. The more accessible, the less secure. The more secure, the less accessible. Security companies everywhere are always trying to square that circle.
If security is the most important thing for you, do not keep your journal in an online account. Or if you MUST do that, use a company like Google or Microsoft where your chances of a breach are lower than using an app written by someone you've never heard of. Security is hard, and Google and Microsoft spend billions every year on it. Plus you can use MFA on your Google/Microsoft account to massively decrease the risk of your account being compromised. And still password protect the actual document.
But really, if security is your #1 concern, keep it offline.
(My source for these opinions is a career spent in various enterprise IT roles and knowing that seriously important data is usually kept airgapped from the internet for good reason)
posted by underclocked at 3:47 AM on December 4, 2023
More concerning to me would be the privacy aspect. I fundamentally disagree that your journals would be more private online; the number of data breaches that happen is large, and you're trusting your most private thoughts to others to secure. That breaks me out in a cold sweat.
If I want to write something I don't want others to read, I write it in a Word doc which I password protect, then store it on an encrypted drive. You need physical access to the drive to even start to get access to the data, then you need the password to unencrypt the drive, and a different password to unlock the doc.
This approach would make it slightly less easy to journal on the fly but security is literally a straight competition between accessibility and security. The more accessible, the less secure. The more secure, the less accessible. Security companies everywhere are always trying to square that circle.
If security is the most important thing for you, do not keep your journal in an online account. Or if you MUST do that, use a company like Google or Microsoft where your chances of a breach are lower than using an app written by someone you've never heard of. Security is hard, and Google and Microsoft spend billions every year on it. Plus you can use MFA on your Google/Microsoft account to massively decrease the risk of your account being compromised. And still password protect the actual document.
But really, if security is your #1 concern, keep it offline.
(My source for these opinions is a career spent in various enterprise IT roles and knowing that seriously important data is usually kept airgapped from the internet for good reason)
posted by underclocked at 3:47 AM on December 4, 2023
I agree with a lot of what is above - I primarily journal to get stuff out of my head that I don’t want to carry around with me. Like there’s a part of me who was never really allowed to express my anger or frustration as a toddler or kid and so occasionally I just need to have a temper tantrum about or at someone and having my journal be that place has improved most of my relationships. I don’t even believe a lot of it (I read it back to identify cognitive distortions) and so it’s not really something I feel embarrassed or proud of. It’s a place I go to put things in the recycling and to maybe start a reflection process that will conclude in days or weeks outside the journal.
I think a lot of apps or paper journals with structure focus on prompts or approaches that are too haughty or grandiose. Like yes it’s great to reflect on a person who meant a lot to you and why, but for me, the point is to get it all out and through that process I might find something worth reflecting on. So my advice is find the cheapest, most convenient place you can and just scribble nonsense, worries, positive thoughts, things you need to do, whatever. Just get it out of your head.
posted by openhearted at 4:13 AM on December 4, 2023
I think a lot of apps or paper journals with structure focus on prompts or approaches that are too haughty or grandiose. Like yes it’s great to reflect on a person who meant a lot to you and why, but for me, the point is to get it all out and through that process I might find something worth reflecting on. So my advice is find the cheapest, most convenient place you can and just scribble nonsense, worries, positive thoughts, things you need to do, whatever. Just get it out of your head.
posted by openhearted at 4:13 AM on December 4, 2023
I changed a lot of my ways of thinking (especially about relationships) based on that rereading
So you got a tremendous amount of of value from that review, even if it was cringe.
But you also got introduced to introspection, and that's a skill you're going to bring to your next efforts at journaling. This time, when you write, you will be thinking a lot more about what Future You might think about what you're saying today, in a way that you start becoming Future You right in that moment. You have already learned to be more cautious about how right you think you are about anything, and that will show up in your journaling.
In practical terms, use the google doc and write your most recent entries at the top. I just hold down the = key for a second (==============) to make a divider and then start typing above it. That way you don't have to scroll past an ever-distant you from the top down to get to the end.
And if it's any comfort, you are older now and probably on the whole a lot more savvy about the world than what we tend to find in our young-self journals. You WILL discover stuff that wants evolving, but it's likely to be a lot more strategic and actually worth going back to - if you even need to, you may well remember well enough to not.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:15 AM on December 4, 2023
So you got a tremendous amount of of value from that review, even if it was cringe.
But you also got introduced to introspection, and that's a skill you're going to bring to your next efforts at journaling. This time, when you write, you will be thinking a lot more about what Future You might think about what you're saying today, in a way that you start becoming Future You right in that moment. You have already learned to be more cautious about how right you think you are about anything, and that will show up in your journaling.
In practical terms, use the google doc and write your most recent entries at the top. I just hold down the = key for a second (==============) to make a divider and then start typing above it. That way you don't have to scroll past an ever-distant you from the top down to get to the end.
And if it's any comfort, you are older now and probably on the whole a lot more savvy about the world than what we tend to find in our young-self journals. You WILL discover stuff that wants evolving, but it's likely to be a lot more strategic and actually worth going back to - if you even need to, you may well remember well enough to not.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:15 AM on December 4, 2023
I kept a diary in a spiral bound notebook when I was younger and then years later I made the mistake of going back to read it. I was shocked. I had been so shallow, so embarrassing, so clueless - I changed a lot of my ways of thinking (especially about relationships) based on that rereading.
We are all shockingly stupid in a variety of ways at all stages of our lives. The ability to learn and grow from reflecting on your own past issues is not embarrassing so much as it is amazing. Not all that many people actively take steps to improve how they think and behave in their lives. Can you learn to see it from that perspective rather than the possibility of shame if anyone learns about your younger self's thoughts?
posted by jacquilynne at 5:32 AM on December 4, 2023
We are all shockingly stupid in a variety of ways at all stages of our lives. The ability to learn and grow from reflecting on your own past issues is not embarrassing so much as it is amazing. Not all that many people actively take steps to improve how they think and behave in their lives. Can you learn to see it from that perspective rather than the possibility of shame if anyone learns about your younger self's thoughts?
posted by jacquilynne at 5:32 AM on December 4, 2023
I changed a lot of my ways of thinking (especially about relationships) based on that rereading. Now I want to write again but I’m afraid it will sound stupid.
It sounds to me like that's something you need to journal about. You've gained insight from your past and have learned. But it seems like you're afraid of what you may still not know, and are already blaming yourself for not automatically knowing something yet.
But why is that? Why is it that you feel like you're supposed to just automatically know everything already, instead of learning as you go the way the rest of us are supposed to do?
....There you go, I've given you something really deep and introspective to write about.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:33 AM on December 4, 2023
It sounds to me like that's something you need to journal about. You've gained insight from your past and have learned. But it seems like you're afraid of what you may still not know, and are already blaming yourself for not automatically knowing something yet.
But why is that? Why is it that you feel like you're supposed to just automatically know everything already, instead of learning as you go the way the rest of us are supposed to do?
....There you go, I've given you something really deep and introspective to write about.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:33 AM on December 4, 2023
Halka is a private journal where the words vanish as you type. 99 cents for iphone/iPad. Maybe try that first to brain dump and get past the inertia before moving on to other methods?
posted by eyeball at 6:04 AM on December 4, 2023
posted by eyeball at 6:04 AM on December 4, 2023
I love the "shred especially sensitive pages" plan. In general, embarrassment is fine; if anything, looking back on my journal is powerful for trends and reminding me "no, that thing I'm sugarcoating now really upset me badly at the time". The immediate benefits of journaling are present regardless of whether you ever look back, too (although "journaling", thinking deeply about your emotions, is not the same as just keeping a diary!) I worry more about a partner finding the journal with all my dumb momentary doubts and "working through things" and taking it as the Deepest Expression of my Innermost Being or losing respect for me. So shredding really bad pages seems good to me.
posted by Lady Li at 7:01 AM on December 4, 2023
posted by Lady Li at 7:01 AM on December 4, 2023
I'm a professional archivist who has kept a journal on and off since I could write. For the last several years, I have consistently written in my journal several times a week. I rarely go back and reread my journals, but I enjoy knowing that I *could* if I wanted to.
I vote for writing it down in a paper notebook. For what it's worth, I write in my journals in pencil because ink can fade - in my professional life I've handled diaries written in pencil from the Civil War that were still readable, while many inked diaries were falling apart because some inks are corrosive.
Others have covered the security issues, and as long as you don't keep journals in a moldy damp basement or attic, they will be readable for years to come. You can burn them when you want, but if you do, you can't get them back if you ever change your mind and want to reread them.
posted by mostly vowels at 9:46 AM on December 4, 2023
I vote for writing it down in a paper notebook. For what it's worth, I write in my journals in pencil because ink can fade - in my professional life I've handled diaries written in pencil from the Civil War that were still readable, while many inked diaries were falling apart because some inks are corrosive.
Others have covered the security issues, and as long as you don't keep journals in a moldy damp basement or attic, they will be readable for years to come. You can burn them when you want, but if you do, you can't get them back if you ever change your mind and want to reread them.
posted by mostly vowels at 9:46 AM on December 4, 2023
You can buy an erasable notebook from Rocketbook for under $20. It's designed for you to scan it with an app before you wipe it off, but you could just skip that step. I think if you spend a dozen or so sessions furiously writing down everything you're most ashamed about and erasing it after, your fears might fade a little.
posted by rollick at 10:49 AM on December 4, 2023
posted by rollick at 10:49 AM on December 4, 2023
I really want to encourage you to cultivate compassion and understanding for your younger self, because that self is also you today. Cultivating compassion for your younger self will help you have more self-acceptance now.
A few years ago, I re-read my journal from late middle school and early high school. There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to cringe at, and I had to keep reminding myself of how young I was and to send warmth and compassion to my younger self, who was going through some really tough times.
And I vote for paper notebooks.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:56 AM on December 4, 2023
A few years ago, I re-read my journal from late middle school and early high school. There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to cringe at, and I had to keep reminding myself of how young I was and to send warmth and compassion to my younger self, who was going through some really tough times.
And I vote for paper notebooks.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:56 AM on December 4, 2023
Learn to write in a code that's easy for you to write but slow to read back. Then you have to REALLY want to reread to revisit your entries. All my high school journals are in Tolkien's Tengwar alphabet and while I could decipher them if I really wanted to, I'm not just dipping in out of idle curiosity the way I might if it were in cleartext.
posted by potrzebie at 1:45 PM on December 4, 2023
posted by potrzebie at 1:45 PM on December 4, 2023
Ever see a performance of Krapp's Last Tape, or read it?
A Journal has two purposes. One is to get you through the day to day stuff: "Still uncomfortable but can't poop. I can't get the crud out of the burned on frying pan. Oh, when, oh when will my crush call meeee...." Some people blurt that out at their housemates, others can't even get it out on paper, many write it down in a Journal. The unabridged Pepys Diary runs to six volumes and it is a truly tedious slog.
The other purpose of a journal is to help you with your personal growth. The unexamined life is not worth living, right?
Most journals end up being almost entirely the former, and many don't end up doing the later at all because personal growth is often illusionary, or just really difficult and slow. Consider that while therapy is really well regarded as a means to reach personal growth, most people who attempt therapy get nowhere with it. Simply keeping a journal or talking to a therapist is more likely to turn into a core dump of personal detail, or a rant, or rumination session than it is to lead to growth, despite the fact that journaling and therapy are two of the best tools we have for personal growth.
You despise past you. That's bad. Keep in mind that pooing your pants when you are one year old is nothing to be ashamed of, everyone did it, was supposed to do it and, if the world don't end and the creek don't rise, will continue doing it so long as the human race exists. Similarly, younger you was at the correct developmental stage for their life and experience, whatever you may think now - so the problem is with you feeling shame for being younger and dumber when you were younger and dumber. I think perhaps that one use for your new journal may be to experience personal growth around your ego and desire to be more perfect and admirable. You might need to do some grieving or recalibrating your expectations to be realistic.
So the question is, how can get rid of self consciousness enough to not be ashamed of writing the truth in your journal? You fool only shallow people with no perspective when you post the best of 130 selfies on face book, after spending the afternoon taking shots of yourself at the scenic hiking location instead of hiking. But if you feel inadequate writing anything less than a clearly delineated time line of steady improvement and self-awareness, you're going to make that improvement and self-awareness much harder to achieve.
The trick, I think, is to be systematic about the self-awareness and to develop objectivity. This is hard to do when you have big feelings. If, for example, you keep getting flooded with feelings of resentment because your job isn't going well, it can be really hard to figure out what actual solutions lie within your control. That your manager is mean and unreasonable may be the underlying issue, and that you can't afford to quit or get fired, may ensure that you are unable to get away from the person being mean to you. Wallowing results. The big feelings may leave you unable to do anything but hurt. Months later, when the situation has been resolved, is the earliest that you can get perspective, and you end up berating yourself instead. "Why didn't I just ignore him?" or "Why didn't I start job hunting sooner?" or "Why didn't I just submit and do whatever it took to keep the job?" Why? Because you were in such a bad situation that you couldn't see a way out. Naturally reading about the two and a half years you spent trapped with the Manager-from-Hell is going to fill you with pain and dismay. You don't want to have been that person. But it isn't that person's fault.
Journaling and personal growth get stuck when you keep responding to feelings and don't have perspective on the situation. The stronger the feelings, the harder it is to move away from them. There was a recent post here on the blue about a busload of children, kidnapped in Chowchilla, who suffered severe PTSD. The authorities assumed that because they were kids they would bounce back, but in fact none of them went on to lead ideal lives of sunny and serene happiness, because their emotional balance got damaged and never went back to their original set point of feeling security.
Often life is a matter of figuring out how to have a good life around the big feelings that you can't change. You may not be able to stop the pain, but you can build a good life in those times when the pain is not overwhelming. Something like what happened to the kids of Chowchilla happens to all of us. The minor slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune leave us reacting to emotions instead of easily being able to clearly and dispassionately look for the things we can control and change. Some of us start life pretty bad at it and get worse. But the process of wisdom, wherever you start and whatever happens to you, is based on figuring out what you can control and what you can let go of, and getting better at living with reality.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." But it's bloody difficult because we get caught up in trying to meet our own material and emotional needs. The feelings don't go away. Insight frequently leads to worse pain. If you get the insight, "I am the way I am because my father had unrealistic expectations..." you can end up aware of a huge burden of pain you have been carrying, and you are worse off than when you began, because that pain blocks you from using the insight.
This is where being objective - and using a little deliberate dissociation to turn off being reactive to the feelings - is the critical step. Once you get "I am the way I am..." knowing the why is only so useful, because growth comes from finishing with, "...so what can I change about myself, what do I not want to change, and what do I want to change and how do I do it?" Journals work well if you have some system, rather than just going with a core dump. There are lot of systems out there. You figure out your best choice by trial and error.
One system is to ask yourself the same three questions every day. Three typical questions to ask are "What went well today, and why?" What do I need to work on?" and "What am I doing towards my long range goals?"
You can still spend pages on the core dump about What The Manager From Hell Did Today and Why Won't My Crush Call Meeee. The growth part of the journal comes from the structure, and the questions you ask yourself about what you did and what you felt. With luck you will notice if you record four full days of being in a rage spiral after TMFH observed snidely, "Late again?" when you were ONLY SEVEN MINUTES LATE, goddamn him!! The journal questions are there to help you figure out the difference between the "Late again?" scenario, and the one where he handed you six hours of work he had previously given you no inkling of, half an hour after you were supposed to leave, while demanding you finish it before you do.
You want those times when you look at your journal and cringe to happen much sooner - like a week to a month after you write the entries, while there is still time to ask yourself what the heck you are doing and why you are still doing it. Waiting the right amount of time and then rereading is almost essential. You wrote: I changed a lot of my ways of thinking (especially about relationships) based on that rereading.. That means the journal was extremely useful! If you don't document your stupidity, you will remain blissfully unaware of it. Or worse, you will live under a cloud of anxiety because you suspect it. The first step to self understanding is self acceptance. You are STUPID! You are also brilliant, of course. But to be human is to be stupid, to learn to be a tiny bit less stupid is brilliant, and yet everyone still dies stupid because we all have enough stupid to last our whole lives.
There is one really good side of examining all your faults and your warts and frailities. Our worst traits are also usually our best strengths. So if your old journal makes you cringe about how needy you were, the insight you missed when you reread it was how you cared about relationships and how important it was to you to connect to people. You've got the motivation to gain social skills. You were on a winning track. If your old journal makes you cringe about how conceited you were, the insight you missed was that your abilities were out of synch with other people, you weren't getting good feedback on them, but that you believed in yourself and had enough skills and strengths to believe in yourself. Whatever it was that you are describing now as shallow, and embarrassing and clueless was the result of you putting yourself out in a new situation, trying to solve it even before you had enough information to do it, trying to work out what was valuable and trying to attain it. Of course you were shallow. You were still a puddle that had yet to turn into a stream that was going somewhere! You'd have a problem if you weren't shallow compared to where you are now. Shallow is how it starts, clueless is how it starts - and embarrassment about it is only justified if you deliberately turn your back on growth and learning and loving.
So, what about mechanics? Many people prefer handwriting for journals, and it is often recommended because the slow pace of writing helps the writer marshal their thoughts and even to remember better what they were writing. I personally find that the slow pace of handwriting results in me forgetting where I was going and leaving out important things. If I try to hand write things it isn't long before I am writing so fast that my handwriting ends up becoming illegible.
This is only part of why I prefer typing. The other reason is how much easier it is to refer back to something you wrote earlier, and even copy-paste phrases or information from earlier. I can copy-paste the answers to my daily questions all on one page and compare them and look for patterns. If I notice "Spent too much time on MetaFilter" five times in two weeks, I am much more likely to do something about it than if I just have a vague sense that sometimes I get caught up in writing absurdly prolix replies to MetaFilter questions. It's much easier to search electronic documents too.
But your brain is not my brain and you probably write and think very differently than I do. So I suggest you try alternating using paper with using a device for the first two or six days... and then when one of them seems to be working better, copy what you wrote from the one that works less well into the one that helps you think more clearly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:50 AM on December 5, 2023
A Journal has two purposes. One is to get you through the day to day stuff: "Still uncomfortable but can't poop. I can't get the crud out of the burned on frying pan. Oh, when, oh when will my crush call meeee...." Some people blurt that out at their housemates, others can't even get it out on paper, many write it down in a Journal. The unabridged Pepys Diary runs to six volumes and it is a truly tedious slog.
The other purpose of a journal is to help you with your personal growth. The unexamined life is not worth living, right?
Most journals end up being almost entirely the former, and many don't end up doing the later at all because personal growth is often illusionary, or just really difficult and slow. Consider that while therapy is really well regarded as a means to reach personal growth, most people who attempt therapy get nowhere with it. Simply keeping a journal or talking to a therapist is more likely to turn into a core dump of personal detail, or a rant, or rumination session than it is to lead to growth, despite the fact that journaling and therapy are two of the best tools we have for personal growth.
You despise past you. That's bad. Keep in mind that pooing your pants when you are one year old is nothing to be ashamed of, everyone did it, was supposed to do it and, if the world don't end and the creek don't rise, will continue doing it so long as the human race exists. Similarly, younger you was at the correct developmental stage for their life and experience, whatever you may think now - so the problem is with you feeling shame for being younger and dumber when you were younger and dumber. I think perhaps that one use for your new journal may be to experience personal growth around your ego and desire to be more perfect and admirable. You might need to do some grieving or recalibrating your expectations to be realistic.
So the question is, how can get rid of self consciousness enough to not be ashamed of writing the truth in your journal? You fool only shallow people with no perspective when you post the best of 130 selfies on face book, after spending the afternoon taking shots of yourself at the scenic hiking location instead of hiking. But if you feel inadequate writing anything less than a clearly delineated time line of steady improvement and self-awareness, you're going to make that improvement and self-awareness much harder to achieve.
The trick, I think, is to be systematic about the self-awareness and to develop objectivity. This is hard to do when you have big feelings. If, for example, you keep getting flooded with feelings of resentment because your job isn't going well, it can be really hard to figure out what actual solutions lie within your control. That your manager is mean and unreasonable may be the underlying issue, and that you can't afford to quit or get fired, may ensure that you are unable to get away from the person being mean to you. Wallowing results. The big feelings may leave you unable to do anything but hurt. Months later, when the situation has been resolved, is the earliest that you can get perspective, and you end up berating yourself instead. "Why didn't I just ignore him?" or "Why didn't I start job hunting sooner?" or "Why didn't I just submit and do whatever it took to keep the job?" Why? Because you were in such a bad situation that you couldn't see a way out. Naturally reading about the two and a half years you spent trapped with the Manager-from-Hell is going to fill you with pain and dismay. You don't want to have been that person. But it isn't that person's fault.
Journaling and personal growth get stuck when you keep responding to feelings and don't have perspective on the situation. The stronger the feelings, the harder it is to move away from them. There was a recent post here on the blue about a busload of children, kidnapped in Chowchilla, who suffered severe PTSD. The authorities assumed that because they were kids they would bounce back, but in fact none of them went on to lead ideal lives of sunny and serene happiness, because their emotional balance got damaged and never went back to their original set point of feeling security.
Often life is a matter of figuring out how to have a good life around the big feelings that you can't change. You may not be able to stop the pain, but you can build a good life in those times when the pain is not overwhelming. Something like what happened to the kids of Chowchilla happens to all of us. The minor slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune leave us reacting to emotions instead of easily being able to clearly and dispassionately look for the things we can control and change. Some of us start life pretty bad at it and get worse. But the process of wisdom, wherever you start and whatever happens to you, is based on figuring out what you can control and what you can let go of, and getting better at living with reality.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." But it's bloody difficult because we get caught up in trying to meet our own material and emotional needs. The feelings don't go away. Insight frequently leads to worse pain. If you get the insight, "I am the way I am because my father had unrealistic expectations..." you can end up aware of a huge burden of pain you have been carrying, and you are worse off than when you began, because that pain blocks you from using the insight.
This is where being objective - and using a little deliberate dissociation to turn off being reactive to the feelings - is the critical step. Once you get "I am the way I am..." knowing the why is only so useful, because growth comes from finishing with, "...so what can I change about myself, what do I not want to change, and what do I want to change and how do I do it?" Journals work well if you have some system, rather than just going with a core dump. There are lot of systems out there. You figure out your best choice by trial and error.
One system is to ask yourself the same three questions every day. Three typical questions to ask are "What went well today, and why?" What do I need to work on?" and "What am I doing towards my long range goals?"
You can still spend pages on the core dump about What The Manager From Hell Did Today and Why Won't My Crush Call Meeee. The growth part of the journal comes from the structure, and the questions you ask yourself about what you did and what you felt. With luck you will notice if you record four full days of being in a rage spiral after TMFH observed snidely, "Late again?" when you were ONLY SEVEN MINUTES LATE, goddamn him!! The journal questions are there to help you figure out the difference between the "Late again?" scenario, and the one where he handed you six hours of work he had previously given you no inkling of, half an hour after you were supposed to leave, while demanding you finish it before you do.
You want those times when you look at your journal and cringe to happen much sooner - like a week to a month after you write the entries, while there is still time to ask yourself what the heck you are doing and why you are still doing it. Waiting the right amount of time and then rereading is almost essential. You wrote: I changed a lot of my ways of thinking (especially about relationships) based on that rereading.. That means the journal was extremely useful! If you don't document your stupidity, you will remain blissfully unaware of it. Or worse, you will live under a cloud of anxiety because you suspect it. The first step to self understanding is self acceptance. You are STUPID! You are also brilliant, of course. But to be human is to be stupid, to learn to be a tiny bit less stupid is brilliant, and yet everyone still dies stupid because we all have enough stupid to last our whole lives.
There is one really good side of examining all your faults and your warts and frailities. Our worst traits are also usually our best strengths. So if your old journal makes you cringe about how needy you were, the insight you missed when you reread it was how you cared about relationships and how important it was to you to connect to people. You've got the motivation to gain social skills. You were on a winning track. If your old journal makes you cringe about how conceited you were, the insight you missed was that your abilities were out of synch with other people, you weren't getting good feedback on them, but that you believed in yourself and had enough skills and strengths to believe in yourself. Whatever it was that you are describing now as shallow, and embarrassing and clueless was the result of you putting yourself out in a new situation, trying to solve it even before you had enough information to do it, trying to work out what was valuable and trying to attain it. Of course you were shallow. You were still a puddle that had yet to turn into a stream that was going somewhere! You'd have a problem if you weren't shallow compared to where you are now. Shallow is how it starts, clueless is how it starts - and embarrassment about it is only justified if you deliberately turn your back on growth and learning and loving.
So, what about mechanics? Many people prefer handwriting for journals, and it is often recommended because the slow pace of writing helps the writer marshal their thoughts and even to remember better what they were writing. I personally find that the slow pace of handwriting results in me forgetting where I was going and leaving out important things. If I try to hand write things it isn't long before I am writing so fast that my handwriting ends up becoming illegible.
This is only part of why I prefer typing. The other reason is how much easier it is to refer back to something you wrote earlier, and even copy-paste phrases or information from earlier. I can copy-paste the answers to my daily questions all on one page and compare them and look for patterns. If I notice "Spent too much time on MetaFilter" five times in two weeks, I am much more likely to do something about it than if I just have a vague sense that sometimes I get caught up in writing absurdly prolix replies to MetaFilter questions. It's much easier to search electronic documents too.
But your brain is not my brain and you probably write and think very differently than I do. So I suggest you try alternating using paper with using a device for the first two or six days... and then when one of them seems to be working better, copy what you wrote from the one that works less well into the one that helps you think more clearly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:50 AM on December 5, 2023
My preference for more than forty years has been notebooks. I also liked to draw small sketches to supplement texts. When I wrote them, I used the journals as daybooks to record the goings around me and for personal thoughts and feelings that I didn't want to share with others.
Looking back, I am more than a little embarrassed at some of my views, primarily because of my naivete and muddled thinking. On the other hand, the benefit of reading old journals is realizing that most of the time, I wasn't quite the asshole I sometimes thought I was. But then, also vice-versa. I take this as a sign that I've somehow advanced in one way or another from the person I was to the person I am. This also has the effect of conferring humility on me--my story is not yet over, so I still have plenty of time to screw stuff up.
In the more turbulent years, journaling was a centering device, often helping me to break the loop of distressing mind-fucks that provided me with hours and hours of insomnia. That was worth something, although I still find the notes I wrote in those days to be upsetting.
As a self-critique, I would suggest beginning an entry with a list of things happening that day without going into too many details. Just jot down what you did or saw. Afterward, write your thoughts and feelings about the day's events (or anything else that pops up in your mind) using whatever mode suits the moment. You may want to blather on using a stream of consciousness without regard for grammar or spelling. Don't worry about how it looks; you can clean it up when you write your memoirs.
But do take time now and then to compose some issues or thoughts carefully. One of the problems with my earlier journals is that I tried to get too cute and screwed up an excellent narrative instead of just writing down what happened. I can read between the lines of much of it, but I wish I'd been more careful about details and not so enthusiastic about creating sparkling prose.
posted by mule98J at 11:32 AM on December 5, 2023
Looking back, I am more than a little embarrassed at some of my views, primarily because of my naivete and muddled thinking. On the other hand, the benefit of reading old journals is realizing that most of the time, I wasn't quite the asshole I sometimes thought I was. But then, also vice-versa. I take this as a sign that I've somehow advanced in one way or another from the person I was to the person I am. This also has the effect of conferring humility on me--my story is not yet over, so I still have plenty of time to screw stuff up.
In the more turbulent years, journaling was a centering device, often helping me to break the loop of distressing mind-fucks that provided me with hours and hours of insomnia. That was worth something, although I still find the notes I wrote in those days to be upsetting.
As a self-critique, I would suggest beginning an entry with a list of things happening that day without going into too many details. Just jot down what you did or saw. Afterward, write your thoughts and feelings about the day's events (or anything else that pops up in your mind) using whatever mode suits the moment. You may want to blather on using a stream of consciousness without regard for grammar or spelling. Don't worry about how it looks; you can clean it up when you write your memoirs.
But do take time now and then to compose some issues or thoughts carefully. One of the problems with my earlier journals is that I tried to get too cute and screwed up an excellent narrative instead of just writing down what happened. I can read between the lines of much of it, but I wish I'd been more careful about details and not so enthusiastic about creating sparkling prose.
posted by mule98J at 11:32 AM on December 5, 2023
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Then, if you DO want paper, you're going to want a way to lock it up. Both the current journal, and completed ones. There are locking pouches and bags, too - not just lock boxes of various sizes.
If, on the flip side, digital makes more sense to you - well, it doesn't have to be on your computer. There are a huge variety of password protectable apps for tablets, phones, plus web-based services.
It wouldn't surprise me whatsoever if there are some out there that could be set to not let a person look at their own writing for a certain period of time... and if there isn't, someone ought to create one.
(And the reverse, too - think Facebook post memories or Google photo memories, but random old journal snippets... sheesh. I can think of half a dozen permutations of that right off the top of my head, and if they were built into one service with user-adjustable settings....)
posted by stormyteal at 10:25 PM on December 3, 2023