So, my mother has been after me to journal. I have been putting it off because I have been feeling rebellious and didn’t want to.

Why Journal

So, why should we journal? Well, this is a question that I have researched and pondered. There are several basic reasons why we should journal:

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• It is our personal history.
• It is great for family stories and legends.
• A place to put your most private thoughts and desires.

What other reasons for us to journal?  For me it

• allows me to track what the fearsome foursome are up to.
• gets all the negative out of my head and on to paper.
• helps me see any situations or circumstances that may aggravate any of the fearsome foursome, trigger vertigo or depression, or any other health issues.

Journal vs Blogging

I have been using this blog for basic journaling. Sharing my experiences and how I feel about them. However, since this is a public forum, the are many things that I do not share.

A journal is a private forum. Someplace that we never have to share unless we want to. It is a place for us to vent our frustrations, write down the thoughts we would never say out loud.

I journaled religiously when I was younger. It stopped at the beginning of my second marriage. I don’t know why.

My therapist recommended it so I did occasionally writing things down, but not often.

Hand Written vs Typed

It is time to begin again. So today I did. Hand written and in cursive. I have a spiral notebook just for that.

So why hand written? Because it engages the brain differently than typing.

When we type, it is simply a matter of patterns and rhythms. We don’t have to think about it so much. My fingers type almost as fast as I think and all by themselves.

When we hand write things our brain has to slow down. It is engaged not only in thinking about what to write, but also in physical process of forming the each letter. This engages different brain pathways and allows you to see things differently.

That is why I choose to hand write my journal. It forces me to slowdown. In hand writing, if you make a mistake you cannot just back space and delete it. It is permanent. It becomes something scratched out, but always visible.

This does something different for me. If forces me to complete each thought before I write it down. I don’t like scratched out words. For some reason each scratched out word feels wrong and interrupts the thought.

Why did I choose to write in cursive? I am trying to involve as much of my brain in the journal writing process as I can.

I have not written in cursive in decades. I have to think about it and review what I am writing. This forces me to really look at what is in my head. What am I really thinking and feeling.

The Hope

The hope is that this will allow me to really begin to understand where I am at mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It is hard to ignore something when you have to write it down.

Getting the negative out of my head and pinning it to the paper is also very helpful. I am returning to negative thought patterns that I have fought so hard to get out of. By putting it on paper I can map my way out of that darkness. Maybe I can avoid it all together.

While it won’t make what I am struggling with go away, maybe it will give me insight on how to better deal with it.

It is a place to start.