Does Journaling Help?

Journaling is not as ‘dear diary’ as it sounds. To me, it used to hold a very cliché concept of a teenager in their bedroom writing ‘dear diary’ a thousand times before locking the notebook with a tiny key they keep tied around their neck. Or those diaries that you wrote in ‘secret ink’ which you could only see with a special light. All those cheesy diaries advertised on kids’ channels in the early 2000s come to mind when I and I are sure so many other people hear the phrase ‘Dear Diary’. Journaling is different. It is not cheesy or played out and I don’t know what you wrote about as a teenager, but it might not be the same (my entries are incredibly different).

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I wrote journal entries or diary entries on and off. Most of them intermingled with the strange story ideas of my young writing life. A lot of these entries recalled my day, who said what and my reactions to them. This was the habit of a lot of young people, and I think it helps so much because when you’re young, all over the place and the world isn’t making any sense, these diaries can help you figure things out. Journaling is similar, it helps you unpack everything running around in your head and spill it on to a page instead of letting yourself fixate on things that do not lead you through your life.

I ‘rediscovered’ journaling through a writing Instagram page I follow. This person added time-lapses of her journaling to her story every day. Sometimes she shares her entries with the world but other days her she only shares the time lapses. From her sharing, she shows how journaling helps her start the day, and proceed on to her creative endeavors.

I still had the stereotypes of the teenage diaries in my head. But as time went on, and I saw more people journaling for different reasons, I thought that it might be good to revisit the practice.

When I journaled as a kid, I followed the same topics most people do when they’re young. Friends, family, and school. These topics obviously expand in different avenues for…

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