I have journaled off and on for over twenty-five years. For much of that time, it was a fairly haphazard thing - done only when I felt like it.

Then in the late 1990's I took a course in artistic creativity. One of the requirements of that course was to journal daily - at least three pages written by hand first thing in the morning. To be honest, I thought that was a totally nutty idea. But I decided I didn't have anything to lose by trying and at the time I had enough time to do it.

Well, that turned out to be such a powerful, eye-opening experience, that I have journaled fairly regularly since then.

It is also something I highly recommend to those taking my Powerstart Success course. To give you a better idea of what journaling is about, here is the excerpt on journaling from that course:

"At first glance, the action I am about to suggest to you may seem rather simplistic and you may be tempted to dismiss it as nonsensical. However, I can assure you from personal experience that there is a great deal of power in this. In fact, if anything, I would caution you about it. Unless you are a person already familiar with this or unless you are a person who is very clear about who you are and you have no major issues that you are dealing with, this will affect your life.

The action I am suggesting here is that you journal on a daily basis.

If you are not familiar with journaling, it is simply a method of writing about yourself and your life. There is no particular right or wrong way to do it. It is, however, not an exercise in trying to be a “Writer” – this is not about getting your spelling and grammar correct, or about getting your paragraphs just so. This is something you are doing for yourself, and it is the process far more than the written results that matter.

There are several things to keep in mind. To get the best results from your journaling, it is best to do it by hand and to do it first thing in the morning.

By hand, because there is simply something about the process of writing by hand that is more effective. I’m not sure of all the reasons why. It does seem to get the ideas you come up with to stick in your mind better, or to get at the issues more clearly. What I do know is that it works and works well.

First thing in the morning because that is the time you are fresh from your sleep and that nasty creature in your brain sometimes called “The Critic” isn’t yet as active or as “bossy” as later in the day.

For those of you familiar with the terms right-brain and left-brain, first thing in the morning is when you are better able to access your right-brain, that part of your brain that is the more intuitive, sensing, feeling part of your mind. It’s the left-brain, the more logical, reasoning side of your brain that we often give more credence to in the Western world. However, to better use your brain and to have a fuller life, both sides of the brain are needed and journaling will help to develop that.

For the duration of this course, you should do a minimum of two 8 ½ x 11” pages of journaling a day. Three pages would be better, but more than four would likely be unnecessary.

What will you write about?

Whatever comes to your mind. I have at times heard this kind of journaling somewhat inelegantly referred to as “brain drain”. So just write about whatever comes to mind. Write about how you are feeling, write about what bugs you or what makes you happy, write about your doubts and fears or your joys and pleasures. Write about your work or your relationships – or even just write about how you can’t think of anything to write about and that this is just foolishness and why did you ever agree to do this silly stuff anyways. And you will often find that somewhere in that process, something else will come up. More often than not, it is just the thing that you need to take a look at.

Be aware that it is often the things that you find yourself resisting that will be the things you should pay attention to. Life is letting you know what it is that you need to deal with, what it is that is standing in your way.

Learn to face the things that come up in your writing. Be aware that sometimes you will find yourself dancing around the issue for awhile before you come up with the courage to face it head on. That’s okay too. And sometimes you may become aware of a niggling sense that you are onto something but it just isn’t clear. Stick with it – eventually it will become clear.

(A word of advice here. To make this kind of journaling effective, you need to be able to write openly and honestly about whatever comes up. That raises the issue of confidentiality – so should you write anything of a particularly private nature – you will want to make sure that you put your journal in a place where it will remain private and away from prying eyes.)

In case you are still wondering about this journaling business, let me share something of my own experience.

I first heard of this kind of journaling in a book for artists and creativity called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. At the time I was looking for a way to get my artistic creativity going again.

When I first read her suggestion about doing the journaling, I thought it was totally out to lunch. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I really wanted to get going with my art and that I had lots of free time, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But I really did want to improve things and I figured there wasn’t anything to lose by trying this dumb idea for the twelve weeks of her program – so I made the commitment to do it.

To make a long story short, by the end of the twelve weeks, I was so convinced of the effectiveness of the journaling that I kept on with it for another three years before I took a break. At that point I wanted to see if it really still made a difference. The result – it wasn’t more than several months before I went back to it. It is simply so powerful and effective a tool that I would rather not be without it.

Journaling was also a major part of the POWERSTART program I came up with for myself that winter after our “summer from hell”.

Where I find journaling helpful is in the way it gets down on paper the thoughts that have such a habit of going around in circles in my mind. Once you have to organize your thoughts enough to write them down, it gets things a whole lot clearer. There is also something about reading it on paper that seems to take it out of your emotional mind, so to speak, and allows you to look at it more objectively. It’s a bit like reading a letter from a friend – somehow it seems easier to give someone else advice than to do it for yourself.

What it also does for me is help me make decisions much easier. I work out the things that are holding me back, I plan and organize, and then I go ahead and act. I have become far more effective in my actions when I am doing my journaling.

It also helps as a way of getting the emotional stuff out of my mind. You may find when you first start, that much of your journaling will be whining and complaining. I know mine was. As an acquaintance of mine who has also done this journaling said, after weeks of hearing yourself whine about things, you finally get tired enough of it and do something about it. So it becomes a motivation for change.

I’ve found that journaling has a way of keeping me honest with myself. I may be tempted to be lazy about things or to skip out on disciplines I know I should be doing – but sooner or later it shows up in my journaling and I have to face the fact that I am not happy with the consequences of my laziness or procrastination or whatever. Then, I have to make the choice of doing something about it or listening to myself endlessly whine about it. It doesn’t take much to get tired of the whining – and I really do like the results of getting things done – so I get back at it.

Something else I have found from my journaling is a deeper sense of compassion and understanding – for others and for myself. If I can be truly honest with myself, I can’t just sit in judgment on myself, I have to be open to understanding why I did what I did. I have struggled with a lot of dark times in my life and for a lot of years I was very, very hard on myself for being such a failure/loser, etc. As I have worked through those struggles, and especially after I started the journaling, it became much easier to accept myself as a human being – not perfect, but one who was trying to make the best of what I had been given in life. That understanding and acceptance of myself has made it far easier to be understanding and accepting of others too.

So, I offer the suggestion to journal during this program, as a powerful tool for influencing your life. There will be times when it will be a struggle, there are times it will be like an emotional roller coaster, but there will also be amazing times when insights will come to you like the proverbial light being switched on. Other times, it may just be a gentle, peaceful coming to awareness. Whatever it is, it will be an influence. Use it wisely and well."

from POWERSTART SUCCESS, © 2002 by Evelyn Grace Marinoski