Journalling: Being your own Therapist

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What Is A Diary?

It is a private personal record of your life.

In a diary, you write about your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviours and how the world around you affects you.

A diary is your letter to your future self of how you lived during the various seasons of life.

Diaries can be artistic or as plain as a school copybook.
If you want, you can get a colourful diary with prompts of inspirational verse. Or a simple refill pad.

In our digital age, some will prefer to keep a diary on a device. Fair enough.
However, a screen can not record your mood like handwriting can. The physical involvement of writing has a greater impact on your memory than typing to a screen.

Journaling is a messy process.
You may cry with tears dropping on the page.
You may be confused and scribble out whole paragraphs.
You may get angry with what you wrote. Tearing out the page, crumpling it up, only to calm down, realise what you wrote was true and stick it back in.
A screen can not do any of this.

An area where the digital space works very well is with mood apps. Numerous apps can track your mood, thoughts, and behaviours. Some allow for personal records. Some are more data collectors, where the information is presented to the person using them via graphs, etc.
These apps are useful indicators to you of what is happening at a superficial level and can help you realise that you may have need for deeper support.

Just to clarify that for this blog, a journal or a diary is the same thing.

Why Keep A Diary?

If you already have experience with keeping a diary, you will know that diaries can make you cry, can make you laugh at yourself, can tap into anger that you didn’t even know you had.

When you think of writing a diary, you may think it has to be deeply significant like what Ann Frank’s became. Or you may picture a young woman pouring out her love in a Victorian novel.
The truth is that your diary is whatever you make it to be.

Journaling is a brave habit to take on. It will confront you with the person that causes you the most upset in your life: you.

I suspect that perhaps the main reason why people don’t succeed with journaling is that they are afraid of it.
They are afraid of what they may learn about themselves.

The main reason people give for not doing a diary is that they just couldn’t get into it.
Perhaps it is a time issue, a privacy of space issue, or just drawing a blank. But many walk away from it after a few weeks.
I find these are people who have a general problem with spending time with themselves and being within their own headspace.

While I personally can vouch for the efficacy of diary writing, I know it is not for everyone.
That said, everybody needs downtime. A time to reflect, time to reconnect with themselves, their beliefs, their values.
How you do that is down to you. I strongly encourage you to find a way to do this.
It may be exercise, meditation, music, whatever calms your head and enables you to understand the madness of life a little better.

General Tips on How To Write A Diary

I introduce the concept of journalling in client work usually in session 2.
I outline the following guidelines to help the client start a successful habit of keeping a diary.

Privacy keeps you safe

Few things in life make you feel more emotionally violated than having your diary read by someone else.
A diary is the written record of your most personal thoughts, emotions and behaviours. You would not think of posting them on your social media (or would you) or broadcasting them live on a talk radio show.

So why would you leave your diary lying around for other people to read it?
They would likely be the people who have access to your personal space, usually family. These are the people whom you are most likely to be writing about in your journal.

Just as this is very hurtful to you, it may well be also very hurtful to them.
It is good that you process your thoughts and feelings about others in a diary. If these other people were to read this process, they may be hurt. It could also be unfair to you, as you possibly have not finalised your process of understanding the impact of that person on your life.
The other person may get a wrong impression of what you really feel about them.

So keeping your diary out of sight of others protects you and those with you.

Honesty makes the diary effective

If you are not honest in a journal, you are only fooling yourself.
What does honesty look like in a journal? Well, again, that is entirely down to you.

I encourage clients to hold themselves to account for their negative choices.
If you fail to acknowledge these choices, you will continue to make them, and nothing will improve.

OK, I don’t expect clients to have 100% self-awareness (do we ever) of their negative choices in their first diary entry. However, from the very beginning of journaling, you can be aware of new insights about yourself and others.
There is always something new to honestly consider about your life in a diary entry, even if you have been doing this for years.

Not being honest about your observations leads to self-deception and denial.
If you ignore problems or dismiss them, nothing will change. You will remain in the same negative state.

A suitable time

Finding the time that suits you helps to create the journaling habit.

Are you a morning or evening person? When you are most clear-headed and able to make sense of whatever is swirling around in your head and body.

If you are a morning person, journaling is a reflection on the day(s) that you had previously.
It also sets you up with a clean slate for the day ahead.
This clean slate can be a practical list for your day or a renewed commitment to try again or the opportunities you are grateful for.

If you are an evening person, your diary is the place where you leave your troubles of the day.
You are thankful for what went well and note what you need to learn from the mishaps.

Evening diary writing should help to create closure on your day so as to aid a peaceful sleep. Some people keep a diary with them beside their bed. If they wake up during the night with troubles on their mind, they can “dump” them on the page and say to themselves, “Right, I’ll deal with that after I get up. I’m going back to sleep now”.

A suitable place

Creating your own safe space is ideal.

This goes hand in hand with maintaining privacy. There is more to your journaling place than privacy. There is comfort, quietness, even stillness.

Remember this is the place where you access your most personal parts of yourself.
Do you feel safe from distraction? Visual or auditory distraction.
Are you safe from people disturbing you?
Do you like your chair, your table?
Is there enough light?
Being near an undistracting window is ideal. If there is a window, do you have blinds or curtains for when it’s dark outside?
When it is dark, I suggest using a lamp that just lights your writing area. This enhances the sense of privacy and reduces distraction.

In small modern homes, finding your own space can be very difficult. In that context, it is good to remember that you can use other spaces.
You could perhaps use a workspace early enough before others arrive. You could pick out a quiet coffee shop or pub that you could pop into on your way home. There are usually options if you look wide enough to see them.

A suitable duration

You should write as long or short as you feel the need. We all have lives that create demands on our time, so there is usually a practical limit on how long we can spend writing.
You are not writing a book.
I think 20 minutes is fine. 15 to 20 minutes should be enough to put on paper whatever you need to say for that diary entry.

When you are beginning to keep a diary, you may find it hard to start writing at all. I have suggestions for that later in this blog.

As often as needed?

When I speak about writing a diary to a client who has never done it, the big question is “How often per week should I do this"?

The main issue here is not to set yourself up to fail. If you set an expectation that is too high, you will fail. Chances are you will never try to journal again.

The objective is to develop a diary habit.
What is the minimum amount you think you would need to write to start a habit of journaling?
I would suggest three times a week for four to five weeks. That could be weekends and once during the working week? Whatever works for you.

I wouldn’t advocate ever doing a diary more than five times a week. It’s just not necessary, and you start to be repetitive.
Perhaps you need to act on what you're writing instead of repeating the same story over and over again.

What To Write, And How To Write It

Sitting down with a pen and a blank page in front of you can be quite daunting. Some people find it so uncomfortable that they don’t go any further.

How can you get past this initial block?

By starting to write something, anything.

Mention the weather, work, the people you live with, the people you work with, whatever comes to mind.

Ask yourself questions. What do you think about work? Do you get on with your family? What are you hoping to do for your time this week?

How do the things that come to mind affect you, good and bad?
Are you able to share the good things in your life well with others?
How do you manage the negatives in your life?
Are there negatives you can’t prevent?
What could you do to reduce the negative impact on you?

You usually only have time to write about one or two issues. That is ok. It is best to keep your focus narrow to successfully deal with them.

Below are some suggestions for headings you could use.
Headings are helpful for beginners, as they help you stay on track and develop a regular thought pattern in your writing.

If you choose to use these headings, please adapt them to suit your life.
These headings will be based around a morning-type diary entry, so again, adapt them if you are an evening writer.

What happened yesterday?

Were you at work? Did you meet friends? Did you eat well?

How did yesterday affect you?

Did you get on with people? Were you exhausted? Did you sleep well last night?

How did you manage what happened yesterday? Could it have been better?

Did you argue with people? Did you feel like giving up? Was anything enjoyable?

How about today, any plans?

Working from home? Socialising? Going to the gym?

How do you get on with the people you expect to meet today?

Your spouse/partner, friends, family, workmates?

Any goal, big or small, you want to achieve today?

A work project, going for a swim, contacting a friend?

As I said, these are only suggested headings.

A diary does not have to be just your words.
You could draw something, transcribe a quote from something you read, or even a song lyric.
You can stick in any item from your day. As long as it can be stored in the diary, go for it.
Perhaps you like lists and charts. Seriously, it is your diary; there are no rules. If it works for helping you to declutter your head and make life better, it is all good.

Personal Reflecting During A Season Of Counselling

You may currently be attending therapy and want to get more value out of it.
I encourage clients to reflect between sessions on the following aspects of their counselling experience.
These headings can be part of journaling. You do not have to journal to reflect on your sessions.

What happened in the last session?

What did the counsellor say, and what did it prompt you to think about? Were there worksheets used?

Based on what I’ve learned so far, what could I be practicing?

Are there any new thoughts, emotions, or behavioural responses that could be tested out?
Were worksheets given to be completed?

What issues, questions would I like to bring to the next session?

Has anything come up during the week that you believe is important to bring to therapy? Even something that has never been mentioned before. It is always good for a counsellor to be aware of what is going on.

There may be something from the last session that you would like clarified in the next session.

I encourage clients to put these questions somewhere they will see regularly. The dashboard of the car, a message on their phone, beside their bathroom mirror - it doesn’t matter.
A gym workout, a meditation exercise, a walk in the park, or a conversation with a trusted person are all good ways to process your thoughts about your therapy sessions.

Other Material Related To The Work Of Prevail Counselling

Click on the headings for the related blogs.

Starting the Journey with Counselling

An introduction to how Prevail works with a person before they become a client.
The significance of the assessment is explored.

Therapy and Money

Apart from income, what role do fees play for the therapist? How do fees protect the client from rogue counselling?
What discounts are available?

A CBT Approach used in Prevail

An exploration of how thoughts play a significant part in causing us to have low mood and destructive behaviours.
This is the introduction to the main model I use in Prevail.

General Information about sessions at Prevail

An overview of how sessions are done in Prevail. Including my available hours and my thoughts on the number and frequency of sessions.