Tag: daily journals

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ Years ago, I mentioned on the blog that I have kept a daily journal for over a decade. That particular journal (and its easy to do, short answer format) is unfortunately out-of-print. You can sometimes find them used: Building the Best You by Caroline Harper. However, dare I say, I came across an ever better one! The Five Minute Journal by Intelligent Change is a really easy-to-keep-up with thought-provoking daily journal. If you have been meaning to keep a daily journal, this one is an excellent place to start.

+ Last week, we lost another dear elder in our family. I’m in my mid-fifties. I am starting to lose my elders at a more rapid pace. I am finding myself more often empathizing with friends who are losing their own dear elders, in their families. One year, one of my friends lost both of her parents in rapid succession. I remember her saying that she kept running around, looking for “the adults” to come and to tell her what to do. It’s a swallow hard moment when you realize that you are “the adult”. It’s sometimes shockingly agonizing to realize that the “changing of the guard” is happening. It is sometimes overwhelming to realize that you and your generation are more and more quickly becoming “the elders.” And so the questions arise: Are we up to the task? Are we wise enough? Are we strong enough? Are we serene enough? Are we comfortable enough in our own skin, to be a much-needed comfort and support for those generations coming up behind us?

+ On a happier note, I just came back from another adventure. My daughter, a tennis enthusiast, got the opportunity to work for The US Open and so we joined her in New York City last week. We also got to visit with our eldest son and his fiancée and other family members and friends and we got to see a lot of really good tennis. Overall, it was a great trip and a nice way to end, what has turned out to be one of my favorite summers in a long while. While I’ll never be a “city girl”, you cannot beat the food choices, the eye-candy, and the endless energy that New York City has to offer. And contrary to belief, most New Yorkers are really nice people. They’re direct. They’re “to the point”, but New Yorkers always want to help in their own unique, practical, no-nonsense style. New Yorkers have a unified pride singular to their location. I’ve been fortunate enough to have travelled to many cities in my life, in the United States and abroad, and as I sat on the subway one day and I looked around at all of the variations and nationalities of people sitting in just one little subway car, it struck me that I have never seen this beautiful, truly diverse melting pot of variation anywhere else which I have been. I suppose if you are truly a melding of everything, you can better empathize with everybody and everything. And that is the real magic of New York City.

“Your Journal is like your best friend, You don’t have to pretend with it, you can be honest and write exactly how you feel” – Bukola Ogunwale 

“There are constant cycles in history. There is loss, but it is always followed by regeneration. The tales of our elders who remember such cycles are very important to us now.” – Carmen Agra Deedy

“New York is not a city; it’s a world.” – Iman

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Ten Years

I finished up one of my two-year journals yesterday. I set it on top of the other four finished journals. So for ten years now, from the summer in which I was 42 until this summer when I am 52, I have written a daily journal entry. I wish that I had journals from the age of 12, but before I was 42, keeping a journal was a spotty, sporadic, unintentional thing. There is something about middle age, that brings an urgency to realizing the brevity of your own life, and the compelling need to understanding how you are living your own life, into vivid focus.

I use the Building the Best You journals. They are currently out of print, but you can still get them from used book sellers. (just make sure that the ones you purchase are in “like new” condition – i.e. not written in) I just ordered two more of them yesterday, even though I already have a small pile of empty ones in one of my cupboards. I like doing that, as an act of confidence in myself. It shows commitment to continuing to do a journal entry every day, and the best part, of course, is that each book magically adds two more years to my life. Ha!

These journals aren’t particularly special. They ask the same six questions every day, so that you can compare your answers, year over year. The best part about them is that there is hardly any room to write. You have to answer the questions more in “phrases”. The answers which you write are more of a “gist” or a “theme” of your day. Every six weeks or so, is a page of longer questions and there is a little more space to answer those questions, but again, it doesn’t require a lot of time or energy to fill the small spaces. The format of this journal, makes it easy to commit to doing it for the long term.

What do I get from journaling? It’s a small time commitment that gives me so much in the way of self-knowledge. It’s a place to spill my messy feelings and sort them out. I have a daily record, which turns into a weekly record, then a monthly record, and finally, a yearly record of what I did, and what I am currently doing with the precious days of my life. I read this quote this morning:

“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of.”   – Charles Richards

I think this is sort of a dark quote. I don’t necessarily agree with it. What I have found out from daily journaling is sometimes those moping days, those restless days, those sick days, those recalibration days in which you don’t do a whole lot, are often the days that you end up using to pivot, and to fuel yourself into a new direction. And honestly, daily journals are mostly truly life affirming – when you read over a few months, or a year, or even ten years, it’s amazing to see how many experiences which are packed into one human life. With daily journaling, I also get to notice my patterns, and my habits, and areas where I may be just going through the motions. I get “wake-up calls” about what aspects of my life I might want to consciously change and do better, and about other areas in my life that I can feel really proud about myself and want to continue. I have gained so much overall perspective from my journals. I can see that most things that I was so upset about at one time, mean almost nothing to me now. In fact, sometimes the things that I jotted down that were deeply upsetting me, I can now barely remember what happened. I also see that the truly awful stuff in life is really much more rare than all of the goodness, beauty, wonder, gentleness and evenness that our everyday lives are filled with on a reliable basis. When I remind myself and others that the storm clouds always, always pass, it’s not just fluffy talk. I have written proof. This is so comforting.

It’s never too late to start journaling. I wish that I had started the daily practice of journaling sooner than I did, but I certainly don’t regret starting it (and now I already have ten years in). So if you don’t keep a daily journal, start now. At the very least, on each calendar page, jot a couple of happenings and draw an emoji for how you feel. A journal helps you to create intimacy with yourself. It helps you to feel understood by yourself. There is no relationship in this world, more important than the one which you have with yourself. Give yourself this gift of journaling. You won’t regret it. You will get to know an interesting, brave, genuine, vulnerable, honest, hopeful, resilient human being living an ordinary life (that will sometimes show some real extraordinary glimpses of life), like you never have before.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.