8 Uncommon Journaling Techniques to Help You Get Your Words on the Page
You’ve know that journaling has great benefits. But how do you even start?
--
It might surprise you that as someone who teaches journaling and recommends it so frequently, the practice used to feel hard, confusing, painful, and weird to me. I was extremely resistant to it. I couldn’t see the use of journaling; my mind was already loud and chaotic and full of thoughts racing over one another and I didn’t get the point of writing them down on paper.
I think one reason I was resistant was that I just didn’t know how to start. It seemed overwhelming. I was just supposed to pick up a pen, stare down a blank page of paper and… begin? Huh? How was I supposed to know what to say? Part of this had to do with my perfectionism and another part had to do with not having instructions, templates, and prompts that would have helped me out.
So I thought I would share some of my favorite manners of journaling to help you get started. (I also have dozens of sets of journal prompts on my Instagram page.) What I offer below aren’t standard journaling practices or approaches, like gratitude journaling or Bullet Journaling (though those can be useful, too!). These are journaling approaches for personal transformation that I think are pretty unique and that I’ve used in my life with good success.
Morning Pages journaling
Now, yes, this famous journaling technique created by The Artist’s Way author Julia Cameron is the kind of journaling where you pick up the pen and start writing for 15 minutes on a blank piece of paper without any instructions or prompts. But you do this simply to clear your mind, not to saying anything deep or well-written. Think of it like bending down to pick up a penny and you see a trail of pennies just leading off into the distance; you’re willing to see where your mind takes you over the course of 15 minutes and just follow it. When I do Morning Pages, I start off by writing, “Good morning, Morning Pages, one thing I’m noticing right now is…” and go from there. Sometimes I start off by describing one thing I can see, or one way my body feels. Don’t reread anything, as that’s not the point. That’s kind of like examining the dust under the…
