I Figured Out Why I Would Never Journal…and Now I Do
Changing this mindset was the biggest thing I did in 2022.
We’ve seen it all over the personal development space: exercise, meditation, and journaling. These are head and shoulders the most recommended lifestyle changes if you’re looking to improve your life. These are usually followed by some more detailed or fringe concepts like cold showers or ice baths, fasting for “X” days,
I’d like to rip into the journaling recommendation a bit here. I actually intend to rip it to shreds, and here’s why.
Ask any journal keeper if they ever go back an read their entries from time to time. For the overwhelmingly majority of folks, they’ll say no. Why not? I mean, they’ve put a lot of work into jotting down their thoughts, feelings, to do lists, fears, goals, dreams, etc. Wouldn’t it make sense to review these every now and again?
Look at the iconic Matthew McConneghay for example. His new hit memoir titled Green Lights is predominantly pulled from the pages of his extensive years of keeping a journal. He hung onto it all these years and actually found himself in a place where he could make some use of it.
Use of it, that is, beyond what it gave him day in and day out along the way.
Herein lies the #1 far and away top benefit of having a journal…you get a place to brain dump. To emotion dump. To fear dump. To dream dump.
Having a journal, i.e. a place that’s non threatening and non judgemental, to unload all your inner goodies and baddies is one of the best kept secrets of the modern age.
Since we’ve been scribbling images on cave walls, people have been getting things from out of their heads or the ether of the universe, if you will, down through our minds, through our fingers, and out into physical reality. There’s something profoundly existential and cosmic about the whole transaction that makes my third eye twinkle.
But wait, Johnny. You said you were going to rip this journaling idea to bits.
Actually, I said shreds, but whatever….yes. Let’s do just that.
Unlike Mr. Matty McCanaughey, not many of us will ever have the need or use in going back into our journals for any useful purpose. While we’re here at this gas station, however, I would like to say that there would be a great and totally different reason for keeping a diary…something equally great, but done with a totally different mind.
So if the main use, for our purposes at least, is to use the journal as a brain dump to get thoughts, fears and feelings out….why keep it? In fact, quite in the opposite setting of the mind, if you intended to hand onto such rubbish, then there will be a subtle block deep in your mind that will allow you to go close to the edge of where you need to go, but no further.
If, however, we knew this paper was going to be crumpled up and tossed into the trash, torn to bits and fired into the fireplace, or chewed up and swallowed with a hint of garlic, then wow-the-fuck-wow!!! Look out ladies and gents, for we’ve just stumbled into the aforementioned best kept secret of the modern era.
In knowing that there’s no damn way in hell that any other set of eyes will ever read these words we’re about to jot down, don’t you think you’d have an unbridled freedom you’ve probably never felt before? Do you think your entire collection of pent-up anger and regret may come spilling out like a flood gate opening? So be it….the sooner ya get that shit outta your gut, the better.
I could go on with some more colorfuls and whimsicals, but in light of keeping my articles under the 4 minute range (something I jotted down last week as a goal for 2023, I think.. I don’t have the paper).
In short, to wrap it all together, don’t look at journaling in the same light as keeping a diary. Journaling, as we’re going to use it, is a tool in the same respect that going to a shrink would be used. The main difference is your journal pad won’t look at you through horn rimmed glasses protected behind a shield on the wall from Stanford.
So give it a try today…you owe yourself this try. Write the shit outta that paper. Let it go. Dump it. Knowing the whole time you’re going to tear it up so small that nobody in their right mind could ever read it.
Let me know how it all went in the comments. I’m willing to bet this might be something that you’ll keep as part of your bedtime routine more so that a cold shower would be.
Cheers and all the best!
