Why Your Journaling Habit Might Actually Be Holding You Back
My knees were on fire and my back was in knots. My seat was bruised and my whole body ached.
And my mind...well my mind was just out of control.
It was 2006, and I was on my first ever silent meditation retreat. It was only two nights and three days long, but it felt like a lifetime.
Early on I realized I was in way over my head.
Even after years of yoga I'd never been able to meditate for more than two minutes, and I'd hated trying to sit still with my thoughts for even that long.
What the hell am I doing here? I wondered.
I struggled through every sit from sun-up to sun-down, trying to will the teachers to ring that cursed bell and release me from this torture even a moment sooner, and I dismissed the walking meditations entirely as a waste of time.
I was cynical, resistant, and agitated.
But, aside from the delicious vegetarian meals, there was one saving grace on that retreat – the nightly Dharma talks.
A wise and generally hilarious teacher would get up in front of the group and explore suffering (which I was intimately familiar with on this retreat) and how to alleviate it.
I loved the talks, with one glaring exception: They wouldn't let us write any of it down.
It physically pained me to not be able to capture the nuggets of wisdom these teachers were ladling out.
Wait wait wait wait wait, I didn't get that!! Why are you forcing me to miss all this important stuff??!! my mind protested.
At that point in my life I didn't yet trust that what I needed would come to me - in that meditation hall or in life in general.
When I started digging into self-development work in my 20s, I thought I needed to write everything down. So much so that I started numbing out to my actual experiences by over-intellectualizing them in my journal.
I worried that if I didn't write it down, it would mean it hadn't really happened.
At a deeper level, it was like if I didn't write it down, I couldn't trust that I'd be able to "keep" the insights I needed.
That retreat was a huge shift moment for me. I saw with clear eyes for the first time just how attached I was to validating what I thought or felt through some external source.
From that point on, I started getting better at letting things go.
I started checking in with myself in a work meeting to see if I really needed to be writing every word down, and 9 times out of 10 I realized I didn't. I got more present and noticed I was actually capturing more useful information, not less, but not scribbling every word down.
I started approaching journaling this way too. I started to only write down what felt good to get out there, dropping concern about whether it made sense or sounded smart.
The writing process started feeling more joyful and supportive, rather than like an obligatory "should".
Journaling is a brilliant practice on all kinds of levels, and I'm by no means suggesting you ditch your journal completely.
What I am proposing, though, is that you consider looking at how you might be using your journal as a crutch.
Is there any way in which your journaling habit is actually distancing you from what you're really feeling or what really wants to be explored in your life?
Is there any way that you hide behind your journal rather than actually taking action?
My biggest takeaway from that retreat has truly changed my life:
What's meant to stay will stay. What’s meant to go will go.
The more you let yourself trust that, the more life will open up to you.
You don't need a play-by-play log to validate your experiences.
What you're feeling is valid simply because you're a human being feeling it, and what you're experiencing is what it is whether you affirm it in writing or not.
If writing feels supportive and joy-enhancing to you, then by all means, write away.
But you can trust that you already know what feels right to you in your life from the inside out, and that you don't need anything (or anyone) outside you to validate that truth — including your own words on paper.
Whether you write it all down or not, trust this: You'll receive the lessons you're meant to receive in your life no matter what.
So you can relax and let the process unfold without worrying whether you've captured every detail. The core essence will leave its mark in the perfect way for you.
Trust that, and trust yourself.
Lots of Love,
Melissa
PS - If you'd like to take the letting go practice a step further, find a safe spot to go through the ritual of burning pages of your old journals. Feel yourself letting go of all the old stories you don't need to define you and creating space to welcome the "new" that wants to come into your life.
PPS - If you enjoyed this post, thank you for passing it along to someone who might get a boost from it.