Journaling is my life hack

Journaling is my life hack.
I have gotten the rolling of eyes, the doubtful looks and the plain ol’ I couldn’t care look whenever I have mentioned this to anyone. This often happens when friends or family have just bared their soul to me and are waiting for some solution. A solution to why they are feeling the way they do and how they can work themselves out of it. When I mention journaling, the idea sort of gets glossed over or it is totally ignored. Or maybe it feels too simple or pie in the sky.
But do you remember when you were a teenager at some point, you had that old beaten up notebook you called a diary and you hid it away? It was a place to confess your struggles and fears without judgment or punishment. It likely felt good to get all of those thoughts and feelings out of your head and down on paper. The world seemed clearer.
I know most of us want an instant solution to what we are feeling and most of the time we want it to be complicated. We don’t want to do just this and that and then presto we will be problem-free. It can’t be that simple there must be another way. A way that we don’t have to face our inner demons.
But the thing is deep down we do know the answers we are just not ready to face it.
I was a denialist as well.
How could penning down words on how you felt in your notebook every single day do anything for your psyche? But as I sit there exploring the inner depths of my soul, I found clarity seeping through on those pages. My answers were right there in black and white, it was up to me to use that information or not.
The most constant human desire is not to be loved, it’s to be heard. And those pages hear you. They hear you without demeaning you. They hear you without judgment. And they hear you without attacking you. Most of the time whoever we talk to will immediately tell us how to solve our problem and I can tell you most people don’t want that. They want affirmations for what they just told you, they want to be heard. And no one can hear you better than yourself. Journaling will help you break the patterns of self loathe and self hate even though you are exploring yourself on those pages. It’s your safe place, the place you can be honest about yourself.
“Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them.” — Stephen R.Covey
What you put down on those pages will be scary. Writing helps you access the inner dimensions of your psyche and you will resist it. The first few days will consist of what you did that day or even what you ate or cooked. There will be some resistance. the subconscious is powerful and when we attempt to break up our daily patterning about what we think about ourselves there is going be a mental temper tantrum. But once this stumbling block is out of the way, you will dig deeper. And when you do, you will feel a sense of fulfillment and contentment.
Journaling is my way of finding my true self under all the layers. It helps prioritize my fears, worries, and concerns. When I do this every day, I can recognize my triggers and learn better ways to control them. And so that makes it in my book a worthy life hack and something everyone can do and start right now.
What I love the most about journaling there is no right or wrong way to do it. Some people prefer to journal in the morning, so they are ready to face the day. This works for me, but sometimes after a particularly hard day I will put pen to paper so I can debrief my thoughts on to paper. And help me work through issues I might have had. An old scrap book and pen or an expensive bujo journal it doesn’t matter. What matters is that use that journal.
Every single day…
