‘We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection’ Anaïs Nin

⭐️ Do you feel life is going too fast and you don’t really take it all in?

⭐️ Maybe you feel life is passing you by and you don’t have much control over it all?

​⭐️ Would you like to slow down, have more time and take more notice of your life?

The most powerful way to slow down, take more in and understand your life more is through journalling. Taking the time to communicate with yourself will slow you down and help you to understand your life at a deeper level.

I started journalling when I was eight years old.

​My family and I had just moved from England to Ireland, I was homesick and having a hard time at school so I used journalling to cope with these changes.

I wrote to my best friend in England, wrote on my bedspread and on my bedroom wall. I realised these weren’t the right things to do as I ended up in hospital after that! 🙄

Then I started writing in my small school notebooks which was much healthier place to write. I wrote about how the kids at school mocked my accent, my clothes and  the extra help I needed with the Irish language.

I was reminded daily of the people & places that had brought me great joy that I no longer had. Writing about my friends, school, teachers, school swimming pool, local park and local sweet shop became like therapy to me.  

This writing brought me much peace which helped me function in the external world, no matter what was going on internally.

My journalling kept me sane, and out of hospital.

As I settled in to our new life in Ireland, I started to write about the joyful things that slowly crept into my days. I wrote about my new friends (who are my friends to this day), my new neighbours, my new school, my new teachers and all the joy I found in our new home. 

This writing brought me great joy.

It was as if I was living all those joyful and happy memories over and over again, through every written word. I carried this journalling habit into my teens, through the subsequent three decades and now I depend on it more than ever

Journalling for me is a life saver, in a way it always has been.

The amount of journalling I do has dramatically increased yet what I get from it remains the same as when I was eight years old.

Journalling, among many other benefits,

❤️ Supports me to make sense of turbulent times. 

❤️ Brings me great joy as I take more notice of the joyful parts of my life.

❤️ Gets things out of my head and on to paper where they are less overwhelming.

A pattern I have noticed over decades of journalling is that I seem to journal the most when I am faced with challenges, I don’t seem to journal the joyful times as much.

That’s a natural element of journalling.

We don’t need as much support during the joyful times. We need the most support when life is challenging, when we feel despair, when we need someone or something to lean on.

It is during these challenging times that journalling can give us the strength we need to ride the waves of whatever storm we are going through.

Here’s 4 simple steps to start journaling,

✅ 1. Buy a nice notebook and pen.

✅ 2. Decide when you will journal, pick a quiet time of your day without distractions.

✅ 3. Journal your thoughts in your notebook, let these thoughts guide your writing.

✅ 4. Repeat when required, this is a lifelong learning practice that will enrich your life immensely.

✍️ Could journaling support you to slow down?

✍️ Would journalling support you in challenging times?

✍️ Would journalling give you more of an insight into the joyful parts of your life?

You can join my weekly newsletter for more insights on positive change by downloading your free copy of The A-Z of Effective Change below 😀

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x