Let’s rewind to Christmas about seven years ago. I was at my grandma’s house opening presents and I opened a gift that was a pink and gold cheetah print journal by Juicy Couture (very 2011, I know). I had never been much of a writer nor had I expressed interest in wanting to write for non-academic purposes. My grandma asked me to follow her upstairs to her bedroom, where from under her bed she pulled out a huge bin, full of used notebooks. We started sifting through them as she told me that her mother convinced her to start journaling daily at a young age and she obliged. My grandma pulled out a worn red journal and flipped to a page. This page was where my grandma had written about her senior prom, where she had won prom queen way back in the early 60s! This was insane to my 13 year old brain, so I started to fill the journal she bought me.
At the end of every day, I lay in my bed writing. Writing about my day, my thoughts, my life, current events, music I was listening to, shows I was watching and anything else that popped into my head. I’ve been keeping up with this habit even now; journaling is a key part of my day. It helps me clear my mind as I prepare for a good night’s sleep. It helps me get my thoughts out in a private setting, where I don’t have to share anything with another person if I don’t want to. When adulting gets too hard, I take to my journal to let the emotions run out, and it’s so therapeutic.
Last semester, I took a class called Creative Problem Solving. In this course, we read an excerpt of this author who said that he started each day writing three pages of thoughts and ideas or just nonsense; and he talked about the benefits he’s experienced. He’s noticed his creativity flow much smoother without all these extra thoughts floating around. This reading opened my eyes to a new side of this habit I’ve had for so long.
Writing in a daily journal feels so much grander than you see in cheesy movies where people actually write “Dear Diary…”. Writing in a journal as a young adult is tangible evidence of all you’ve accomplished in your life. It’s amazing that I can open a notebook and read about how I was feeling on my first day of high school, and then how I felt on my graduation day. I can read about my highest highs and my lowest lows. Day by day I don’t really notice how much I’m changing but I truly see my growth when I walk down memory lane with my journals.
If you’re looking for a new way to clear your mind, try journaling. Put a pen or pencil to paper and just write down everything that pops into your mind. It may seem forced at first, like why I am doing this? But after some time, it’ll feel so natural to open your mind to these pages. Short-term, journaling gets everything off your mind, at least for a little while. And long-term, you can see how far you’ve come. I highly recommend journaling to absolutely anyone, because it’s a great way to look back and reflect on your past and clear your mind for the future.