are you in a relationship with yourself?

I was honoured recently to be asked by Day One, the world's number one journaling app, to be a guest on their podcast. I'm a huge advocate of journaling as a powerful tool to cultivate mindfulness, resilience and wellbeing.

In my conversation with Kristen Wright the Day One Podcast host, we discussed a number of topics relating to mindfulness, journaling, creative practice and how my journalling practice has evolved and supported me.

One of the things I was asked was for tips and advice for starting a journalling practice. I thought I would share some of that conversation with you as it made me think about some of the barriers to journaling.

Why so intimidating?

Often when I suggest to clients that a journaling practice could be beneficial, I am met with a reaction similar to if I'd suggested they roll naked in a patch of nettles. Sometimes people will say "Oh I tried it when I was younger and it was just too horrifically embarrassing to read what I'd written."

Why do we often find the idea of writing down our thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes and dreams - or even just the mundane details of our day so intimidating?

Partly I think there's the belief that it will take too much time (perception of time is a whole other newsletter topic!)

Partly I suspect it's because if we were younger and tried it, we hadn't developed enough self compassion to be able to embrace and accept all our impassioned, earnest naivete as we might do for our own children.

Cultivating a relationship

But one of the biggest reasons I feel is because we don't appreciate that starting a journaling practice is like cultivating a new relationship. It just happens to be with ourselves.

When me meet someone new for the first time, we might have a chat and feel a certain rapport or draw to someone. That might inspire us to want to spend more time getting to know this person. We might gradually over the course of weeks and months, spend more and more time with them, each time learning a little more about them - what makes them tick, their likes and dislikes, values, sense of humour... in turn we share insights into our own preferences and thoughts. As trust and familiarity build, we might in time feel comfortable revealing more vulnerable aspects of ourselves. Our hopes and dreams. Fears and foibles. That's how a relationship naturally builds. A slow, gradual development of mutual trust, comfort and intimacy.

Now imagine if you met someone for the first time and they immediately began pouring out their deepest, darkest secrets and desires to you. Really personal stuff. I'm willing to bet you'd feel horribly uncomfortable, think it pretty inappropriate and vow to try to avoid this person from here on in. Clearly they must be a bit of a nutter!

So is it any wonder that if it's been a long time since we've spent time with ourselves if out first attempt at journaling is to pour out a lot of pretty intimate and vulnerable thoughts and feelings, it feels deeply uncomfortable! Even shocking. We haven't learnt to trust the process, or trust ourselves with sharing and confronting this information.

Start small

My advice then to podcast listeners was, if you're not used to spending time with yourself (perhaps in the way a regular meditation or yoga practice might support) to start very small and gently. Begin with just five minutes a day. Ask yourself one question each time. What makes me happy? What am I grateful for today? What am I proud of today? What did I love doing when I was a kid? When was the last time I played? There are many ways to access these kind of prompts. Journaling apps like Day One can provide you with a daily prompt. Or if you prefer the idea of a paper journal, there are hundreds of pre-printed ones like The Five Minute journal, or you can use any old notebook and a prompt deck like this one.

You can download my free pdf guide to journaling here if you're interested in learning more. You can also listen to the full podcast interview here.

When was the last time you hung out with yourself and got to know you?

What might you discover if you did?