Why journaling is the ultimate form of self-care
On a fateful day during the summer of 2018, I stood in the stationary aisle of my local Dollarama and picked out a pink journal with the words “Think, Write, Draw, Repeat” written on the cover in gold print. Today, that journal is filled with pages of handwritten rants and to-do lists, stickers and song lyrics, tear-stained pages, and multi-coloured gel ink. The spine is completely broken and the cover is fraying at the edges, but this $1.25 notebook is probably my most prized possession. There’s something so comforting about writing your deepest, innermost thoughts down in a special little notebook, so that they have a place to exist outside of your brain. It gives you the opportunity to connect with yourself on a fundamental level, allows you to document precious moments, tangibly represents how far you’ve come, and in my opinion, is one of the most important forms of self-care.
The most rewarding thing about keeping a journal is the fact that you’re essentially writing a series of letters for your future self. There’s this inherent sense of pride (and inevitably, a little bit of cringe) that comes with reading old entries and realising how far you’ve come; it’s a tangible representation of all the growth you’ve experienced throughout your life. For example, this is what the very first page of my diary looks like:
“I don’t wanna call this a diary because that brings images of notebooks with fluffy pink covers and girls giggling at sleepovers. No. This is a narrative of my thoughts and how they relate to events in my day.” —July 8, 2018
Can you tell I was heavily influenced by Diary of a Wimpy Kid as a child? Re-reading that entry is difficult for me because oh my God the cringe, but it makes me happy to know that the 13-year-old girl that wrote that has grown out of her “I’m not like other girls” phase. Today, writing in a fluffy pink notebook and giggling with my friends at a sleepover sounds like heaven. At that age, I was under the impression that being feminine and serious were mutually exclusive. I’ve come to realise that this is not the case (thank you, Legally Blonde). These changes happen imperceptibly, which is why having a journal that tracks them can be an effective indicator of growth. I didn’t magically wake up one day and say, “I am like other girls,” but I did get there eventually.
The key to practising self-care, growing as a person, and coping with stresses and traumas really boils down to the conversations that you have with yourself. Of course, there’s always going to be a sense of resistance that comes with being so vulnerable on paper. Often, that resistance manifests itself as laziness and procrastination (self-callout?).
Based on my personal experience, here are a few tips that might help you pick that pen up:
- Don’t force it. There’s no need to give yourself a rigid schedule for when you’re supposed to journal. It’s supposed to be fun and cathartic, not a stressful deadline.
- Bribe yourself. Buy a really pretty journal and keep it somewhere that makes it visible to you, like by your bedside or on your desk—don’t just toss it in a drawer or on a shelf.
- Skip the first page or two. I’ve found that when you’re writing in a brand-new journal, there’s a lot of internal pressure to make sure that the first page is perfect. By skipping it entirely, you take that pressure off and let yourself breathe.
- Use your notes app. If the thought of taking out a physical notebook and writing in it feels like a chore, open your notes app and type in an entry instead. Besides, the option to password-protect notes can really come in handy in this situation.
- Do it for the aesthetic. If nothing else, put on some indie girl music and sit on your bedroom floor with your journal like the tortured artist you are. Go to a park or a library and be that mysterious person lurking in the shadows, writing scandalous secrets in their diary.
If there’s any part of you that wishes your younger self would’ve kept a journal that you could read in bittersweet reminiscence today, know that your future self would thank you if you started right now. In a world where so much of our lives is dedicated to performance for the benefit of others, keeping a journal is private and blissful (unless you decide to publish excerpts of it in a newspaper). It’s not going to solve all of your problems, but it will give you a place to deposit all your deepest fears and niche celebrity crushes, as well as the space and time needed to revisit those thoughts with a fresh perspective.
