Why Journal?

I’ve documented this before. I have never had to deal with mental health issues that other people deal with. Reality is I didn’t understand the magnitude of the problem until several years ago. More and more people I know were battling with depression and other mental health issues. That’s when I started to take notice.

Knowing that I had never dealt with that before doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen in the future. So, over the course of the last two years, I’ve started being more and more aware of this issue. The fact that it affects people in different ways. The fact that it can affect anyone, no matter what your background is. 

After reading a ton of articles and watching a lot of YouTube videos I realized journaling was a good way to help deal with mental health. I wasn’t a big journaling person at this point in my life. I decided that perhaps I should give it a go. Why not, right? The best way to get to a destination is to look at a map before you go right? Not wait until your lost to seek help. That’s how I felt about this. I’m not battling with mental health issues but why not go ahead and start trying to lay the framework now rather than wait until it’s too late.

So I started journaling. I wrote in a notebook for a long time. I still do morning pages in a Moleskine notebook in the morning. I switched to a digital journal for the rest though. Mainly because I feel it’s more private. What does that mean? Self consciously I hold back in a paper notebook because I’m worried someone’s going to steal it and read it (I watch too much TV apparently). Reality is I know that nobody is going to take these and read them. But it’s in the back of my head and I know I write differently when it’s in a digital form that is locked as opposed to a handwritten notebook.

My journal is all over the map too. Sometimes it’s a bunch of pictures from an event that I was at or participated in (i.e. the strongman competition from two weeks ago). Other times it’s venting about work or friends. Other times I leave a voice memo. I can tell you I feel better after journaling. I can tell you that I like being able to talk about feelings and or emotions.

Life is messy. And sometimes we need a place to sort out the mess. Sometimes we need a place to deal with the raw emotions that happen on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes we need to sort out our own feelings. That’s what journaling is for me. That’s why I started journaling. And that’s why I will continue to journal.