Beyond Journaling: Shifting Self-Care For Writers
I’ve never been one to journal. Even as a kid, when other girls wrote furiously in their diaries, mine sat gathering dust. And the pattern has continued into adulthood—though I’ve graduated from Hello Kitty to Moleskine, the pattern remains the same. I’ve admired Bullet Journal pins on Pinterest, bought special pens to help get me in the mood, read helpful tips, and suggestions on how to commit to a journaling practice, all to no avail. While journaling is pitched as a great tool for relaxation, organization, or even productivity, it’s never been something I’ve found helpful.
Giving it some thought I’ve wondered if one of the reasons I find it difficult is that I don’t really find it all that relaxing. It just ends up being another thing I have to do. Surveying my friends, I find that there are folks who swear by their journaling and reading self-care routines, but more common are those who can’t seem to get into it, don’t “have the time,” or feel overwhelmed by the crushing pressure to perform in their journals. And so it may be than that for some, after working with words all day, finding stillness and calm doing those same things in their downtime just isn’t possible.
Of course, there are many writers who have famously kept diaries and journals, David Sedaris has even become famous because of these journal entries. Nevertheless, I’m gonna go out on a limb and offer this piece to all those writers, who like me, struggle to find journaling very relaxing or helpful to their creative process.
Extroversion overload
One of the benefits of journaling, it’s said, is that it helps you extrovert your inner life, but for writers, that’s already a huge part of our work. In fact, that could be one of the main reasons we love being writers. Whole worlds are built in our minds, conversations are rehearsed, fantasies explored, and we get to put all that down on the page. Writing allows us to be ourselves and yet fully other. Through character development and world creation, point-of-view, dialogue, and narrative arch, writers extrovert all kinds of ideas and feelings. Some we’d never dare express in our lived realities. Given this, if you spend most of your day taking your internal life and putting it down on paper, you may already be doing the work of journaling.
Sure, journaling can be a way to write down article ideas, and plot points, but it could also put a lot of pressure on your already tapped interior life.
Shifting Self-Care
Self-care can look like a variety of things and journaling doesn’t have to play into any of them. Recently, for me, self-care meant taking a pair of scissors to my quarantine hair. For someone else I know, self-care is just remembering to shower.
That said, there are loads of options when it comes to finding relaxation or even inspiration outside of journaling. You can explore meditation techniques that can help improve your creativity and which mimic the benefits of journaling. There’s also self-care practices that help you move your body slowly, intentionally, and with purpose. Apps like Calm or Headspace, offer different guided meditation options depending on whether your goal is stress reduction, mindfulness, or whether you just really love listening to nature sounds.
There’s much to be said too about the active practice of not writing. Sometimes picking up a hobby like ceramics or sketching moves your hands in a different way while keeping you in that kinesthetic flow. It’s said that ambulatory thinking processes affect creative output, meaning that while you’re busy hiking or doing another vinyasa flow sequence, your brain is still chugging away on that frustrating scene you were working on.
No Shame In Your Self-Care Game
If you’re a writer, there are no doubt days where writing can feel like a slog. Why add the pressure of journaling? Now, if you’re a journaler and have always found it helpful to shift focus away from your short story or novel to your journal, more power to you. If you, like me have found journaling to be drudgery or exhausting, then I fully give you permission to not journal. If you want to spend all day watching The Crown, go for it. Doing things other than journaling can be part of your creative process or your self-care regime.
The truth is too, that there’s an entire industry built around journaling that wants your money. Of course, you could buy a spiral notebook for 99 cents, but why would you when there are so many other shiny options? And that’s a big part of the allure. In recent years consumers have spent over $200 million on notebooks of various kinds. Sparkle pens, gel pens, markers, stickers, and other journaling accouterments have skyrocketed in sales. But don’t let the capitalism machine pressure you. If journaling doesn’t bring you joy, relaxation, or some other psychic benefit, don’t beat yourself up.
Self-care can look differently depending on what you need. When much of your life is spent reading or writing, your self-care may be you stepping away from the things you do for work. What someone else adds to their self-care routine may be the very thing you need to step away from.
