Journaling can be an excellent form of self-care: you’re taking the time to slow down and focus on your internal experience, presumably. However, if you find yourself writing an extension of the cacophony in your head — worrying, analyzing, future-tripping, figuring out, planning, etc., it might be exacerbating your anxiety, shame, guilt and/or depression. I would never tell you to put down the pen and paper, but I gently invite you to try something different that might bring you greater clarity and calm. Taking a body-based approach to your internal experience might facilitate this process.
If it feels comfortable, close your eyes, and just notice whatever internal visceral sensations enter your awareness. Track them the way you might track an animal’s footsteps in the mud. This is sort of like tracking your breath in traditional meditation — in and out, in and out. But here we are tracking your emotions, precisely because emotions are biological phenomena that occur and unfold as viscerally felt experiences inside of you. Sometimes feelings don’t need words and just need to be felt. If you give this a try, let me know what how it was for you. And, of course, if you feel inspired to write about it, a valuable way we make sense and meaning out of our experiences, definitely do that!
