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Personal Journaling: A Tool Worth Trying 

Regular visitors to Courage2Change know our two-fold mission: to support our current and former clients in their ongoing recovery, and to provide information and tools for those who may not have access to professional services. Here on our Tools for Living page, we bring you the best tools we know for your self-directed journey.

1. You can clarify your feelings and express them safely.

You may be surprised that many of our most intense feelings are secondary to another feeling altogether. For example, anger is a secondary feeling. Beneath it, we often find fear, inadequacy, or frustration. (See Paul’s article on emptying for an example of this in marriage.) Often, due to experiences we learned very early in life, it is hard to sort these things out.

When Paul and I first met, I told him I didn’t see anger as separate from frustration. They are the same, I insisted. After all, I had once seen my father beat a lawn sprinkler to smithereens because he couldn’t fix it—wasn’t that frustration? Anger and frustration were one in my experience. He agreed that was my father’s response to frustration was anger, but do all people become angry when frustrated? No.

I continued to hold my position that frustration leads to anger for everyone. But as we talked, I recalled my second therapist asking me when I was 25: "Do you get angry, Jan?" Why, yes, I told her, of course. Later that night, discussing this, my husband said, "No, you don’t get angry. You cry."

This insight turned out to be a major breakthrough for me in my recovery. I realized that I denied my anger. My father had seemed to have only two emotions: happy and angry. He denied frustration, sadness, inadequacy. He had often been angry, but I could not be. For me, it had been safer to be sad, to cry. 

So as a young adult, I learned to ask myself: Would other people feel angry in this situation? If the answer was yes, I then acted assertively. Within months, I had reclaimed my anger.

Journaling about such experiences is a very powerful tool in recovery. We can discover denied feelings, and decide how and when to express them. In this way we can learn one of the greatest gifts of recovery: self-control.

2. You learn to observe yourself and your significant others.

Perhaps the most important skill you can learn in therapy is the ability to observe yourself and others. In meditation practice, the teacher speaks of developing a fair witness. Psychologists write of the observing ego. Both disciplines recognize the importance of developing this part of us. They are describing the phenomenon of our ability to act, while also watching ourselves act. It’s as if one part of us is in the moment, thinking and doing, and another part of us is watching. Haven’t you been aware of that experience? 

The problem arises when the observer part of us becomes too critical—that’s bad, that’s good. Such value judgments are important, but often come to us so quickly, we are reacting to some internal voice (which is undoubtedly Mom ‘s or Dad’s) instead of simply allowing ourselves to see what is.

In the journal, we can record an event or a conversation as word-for-word as we can remember it. In fact, when my clients report to me that they are confused by the mind games of another, I  recommend that they purchase a voice-activated recorder. And frequently, the use of the recorder itself resolves the problem! The gameplayer sees they will now be held accountable, gives up the game. But even if this doesn't happen, playing the recorder back later—or reading the journal entry later—allows for a certain objectivity which helps the confused one sort things out and find his or her own contribution.

Writing slows reaction times down. Couples who keep a conflict resolution journal, writing notes back and forth to each other when discussing problems, find that they are less reactive, and more able to express themselves exactly as they truly intend. 

I am including in my journal the instant-message conversations I have with my 14-year-old daughter while she is with her father. I copy, paste and print these for the three-ring notebook that is my current journal. An interesting experience! I have found that she and I often communicate better by computer, without the element of that certain tone of voice and facial expression that is guaranteed to tick me off. (And, in all fairness, she says she feels the same about my tone of voice too.) This is an example of another kind of objectivity that learning to observe can provide.

No matter how objectively you journal, you will still sometimes miss things you cannot see in the moment. When you will read your words weeks later, it is as if someone else wrote them, and you can see more. This review is an invaluable tool.

3. You can build a relationship with yourself and find who you really are.

A recent study reported that one-third of those interviewed said they have no clear sense of self. If they were isolated from others, they said, they would have no way to know what to do or think. They weren’t clear about what they believed about their lives or who they were, except in relation to others. 

We often hear in therapy from people who are very uncomfortable being alone, and as a result have repeatedly found themselves in dysfunctional relationships they knew better than to pursue. If there is a lack of balance between the pull of your external life with others and your internal life with yourself, journaling is a way to go inside and find the person you are and can be.

4. You can clarify your thinking.

Life can be confusing. We are complex creatures, and there are often many parts to us that are in conflict with other parts. All of us struggle to some degree with the desire to be independent and free, and the desire to be in close relationship. We can experience stress due to the many roles we must play: child, parent, friend, spouse, worker. It is difficult to find balance.

Sometimes we find ourselves at a crossroads, with a decision to make. Often at such times, we hear conflicting advice from significant others. (That’s the major advantage to seeking professional counseling: your therapist has no ax to grind in your life but what best serves your growth, unlike your family, who just "want you to be happy"—often their way.) In your journal, you can list pros and cons; you can record what this one says, and that one, without the emotional response that arises when in that person’s presence. You can step back, and think without pressure.

5. You learn a tool you can use now while you are in therapy, and later when new stressors arise after therapy ends.

This a-ha! experience can come to as you journal as well. Many times in my own journaling, I’ve been surprised by what appeared on the computer screen as I typed, or what came out of the pen moving across the page. 

But more often, I found that a-ha! when reading back over the past weeks or months, as I recognized a pattern I hadn’t seen in the moment. Sometimes, it’s an insight I’ve had many times before that seems to keep slipping back down into my unconscious.

1. I have no privacy.

I always feel sad when I hear this reason. Those who cannot trust that their spouse or partner will not read their journal experience a lack of safety in their relationship that is important to recognize.

II know that my own journals could be vulnerable to my children. Therefore, I make certain they are not easily found—an obvious enough solution! But not one that will work if one has a spouse who is searching. Remember that you need not write in your journal the confessions you are most afraid others will find.  

Other ideas: Keep a creative journal. Write your journal in third person, as if it were a short story. If found, you can always imply artistic license: "Writers often use their imaginations to build on their lives."  I never, ever advocate lying, due to the effect of guilt on the liar’s recovery. You can answer in generalities, you can "take the Fifth," you can sit silently or say you will discuss this later. You do not have to lie. You can answer with a question: "What would that mean to you, dear, if that were truly how I felt?" A dream journal or a journal of artwork would be difficult for another party to interpret.

Consider writing only the facts. If the discovered journal were truly an objective account, in which the truth were recorded as faithfully as possible, there would be no reason to apologize. Therapists are trained to separate in their notes the objective data from their assessment. Objective data is that perceived by the five senses: what we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. If a person were to record those things, what would be the danger of discovery?

Even if feelings were also recorded, and a spouse objected, one might say: "True, my feelings may seem odd to you, but they are my feelings, right or wrong."

Lack of privacy indeed may lead to conflict. But the journal would reveal, not cause, this conflict. An opportunity for growth and use of new skills is presented.

2. I don’t have time.

This is a major problem. However, journaling need not be time-consuming. Creative writing instructors often use a timed technique: "Set the timer for ten minutes, go." Opportunities to journal present at lunchtime, while waiting at a doctor’s appointment or at a  child’s sports practice.

Use of time is an important choice we make every day. Try judging this and every choice you make by one question alone: Is this good for my recovery? Somehow, having this higher value—more than what your mother wants, or what the boss wants, and especially what you want—can lead to Right Action, as the Buddhists say.

Look for spare moments to journal. Leave for work ten minutes earlier. Write when you get there. Make your journal—your time with yourself—a priority.

3. I don’t know what to say.

Writer’s block is a problem for everyone. Natalie Goldberg recommends in her creative writing classes that we start our ten-minute journaling practice with phrases such as "I remember," or "I don’t remember," and write as fast as we can, without editing, and just see what arises.

I recommend that you write as soon as you can about conversations that confuse you or emotions you experience which seem too strong for the situation—whenever things just don’t seem to fit. This is a sign that something unconscious is going on. Don’t be disappointed if no great insight arises from the writing. Just file it—save it—review it later. The important thing to remember is that you have acted. The answer will come.

For those random moments in waiting rooms, at practice, wherever, it might be good to have a list of questions on hand to address for ten minutes.  I found a great website, Topics Du Jour, which lists enough questions to last me for years. Check it out!

4. I’m too disorganized

I love this reason. I too struggle with organization! Back in college, I was able to keep the traditional spiral notebooks. Now, with an active practice, husband, children—who can keep up with it? I’ve begun using a three-ring notebook, so that I can write on whatever piece of paper is handy, use the computer, whatever—then punch holes and file.

During a very difficult year in my life, I journaled only sporadically and didn’t even file in a single binder. I found bits and pieces—dated entries, letters, cards, notes from my kids, church bulletins of special days, special event programs—in my desk, in boxes, everywhere! What a pleasure it was when I took a day to punch those holes and put these random bits of my life in order. That journal’s a hodgepodge, but so was my life at that time. That binder is as special to me as any I kept more regularly.

5. I don’t like to write

Here’s good news. You don’t have to write. You can make lists (occasionally, I preserve a to-do list in my journals to remind me someday of what seemed important once.) You can take photos. You can draw pictures. You could take a videocamera and walk around your house, commenting on what you see through the lens that’s important to you. You can take you take a microcassette recorder to lunch with your friend and, with permission, record the conversation.

If you’re in therapy, you can ask your therapist for homework each week (boy, your therapist will love that!) and file it in your notebook. For example, if you see Paul or me for marriage counseling, you’re likely to hear of Harville Hendrix’s wonderful book Getting the Love You Want. It has exercises in the back you can file in a folder. That’s a journal too.

Our bookmark on creative ideas loops back to this question, but check it out the other ideas as well!

6. It hurts too much

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