Five days of journaling: reflections
I recently committed to journaling in the morning for 5 consecutive days. This is based on the idea of Morning Pages by the wonderful author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. The practice sounds simple - put your pen on paper first thing in the morning, write down any thoughts and feelings that come up. Here are some reflections after these 5 days.
Showing up is the first and the hardest step
Three out of five mornings, I complained about how early the session was in my journal. Five out of five mornings, I snoozed my alarm in the morning for another 8 minutes of eyes closed before I peeled my body up from bed. It was torturous. Since I’ve adjusted my work schedule since a year ago, I only use the alarm to wake me up once or twice per week. These are days when I have a fixed time for meetings or appointments. On most days I let my body wake up by itself.
Side note, I don’t know if you noticed this, but being jolted out of sleep is a stressful experience to our nervous system. One study showed 74% of morning blood pressure surge when comparing forced awakening to natural awakening, and morning blood pressure surge is one of the risk factors for cardiovascular issues. This is just one study on 32 healthy Asian adults, although they are likely more studies conducted, I am not saying that this must be the absolute, universal truth. However, I know it for a fact that it is the absolute truth for my body. I worked in an extra stressful environment for around 2 years and most mornings when the alarm clock shocked me up, I fell into an existential crisis: “I hate that office, I hate that boss, I hate the pretence, so why the fuck do I have to be forced out of bed, dress up, commute, to be at somewhere that feels horrible? Why do I choose to live my everyday life this way?”. These thoughts definitely did not help me cope with the day ahead! I’m sure you’ve shared some of these feelings on some days. I’m also sure that you’ve experienced setting your favourite song as an alarm tune and then grew to hate that song more and more.
Alarm clocks are therefore slightly triggering for me, but mornings do not. Mornings are actually extra sacred to me. I feel regulated and comfortable early in the morning, I like to be up before things get chaotic and slowly see the world wakes up. I still remember the morning breeze at 6 am on my way to office in UWA, I loved that job and all the projects, I was joyous. So you see, it is not about how early it is, it is about what I am waking up for. On these 5 days, I actually was excited to wake up. Waking up using the alarm clock was unpleasant but once I started moving and preparing I felt better and better. It is a bit like going to the gym for a training class that you do enjoy, once you get your ass there, you are glad that you showed up.
My reflection here is that some determination is necessary to commit. If you know you tend to find lame excuses to flake out of commitment, find ways to hold yourself accountable. What I did was to invite people to journal with me. Despite my complaints, it was one of the best decisions I made :)
Self judgement kills possibilities
My second reflection is that we are constantly self-judging and constantly being held back by it.
“Am I doing it the right way?” was the question that came up again and again within me and among the participants. I asked this to myself when I couldn’t talk in full complete sentences when trying to explain what we do in these sessions to new comers. I asked this to myself when I posted about hosting this session and people showed no intention to commit. I asked this to myself when I pick out journal prompts and meditations based on my gut feelings and hunch. The doubt has always been loud. Similarly, the participants asked me this. How long or short should the free journaling be? What should I write? What if I have no time to move to the prompted journaling part? What if I feel nothing in the guided meditation? What does it mean to see this colour in my chest region?
Don’t get me wrong, questions are great, asking questions means we are first aware and secondly curious about something. This are the first two pre-requisites to be a scientist. What is not great is the stories we wrap around the questions, the conclusions we jump into, the equal sign that we immediately assign.
For example, I stuttered when attempting to explain to participants, the story I might assign to this is “see I am not good at this, I am not a natural at this, I am not built for this, why do I even start this, why didn’t I prepare a script, I am so unprepared and irresponsible, no one will trust me anymore”.
Another example, a participant felt nothing in the guided meditation, the story she might assign to this is “there is something wrong with my concentration or my body, I feel nothing and everyone feels something, does it mean I have ADHD, does it mean meditation can never help me, am I a gone case”.
“I don’t feel like journaling today“ was another thought that came up in my mind. And, as you’ve expected, I judged the hell out of myself because of that, “what do you mean that you started a journaling session and don’t feel like journaling, do you even practice what you preach, are you even authentic when you say things or you are only looking for approval, what a hypocrite”.
Can you feel how these narratives stop us right in our tracks? They are harsh. They do not consider what we observe about ourselves to be ok. Many of us operate on the habitual thought that something is wrong with us. This emotion is called shame, and shame is the equivalent of self hate. It is the feeling of looking in the mirror and feel “ughh”. Shame has deep roots, again, from our childhood programming. I will definitely touch on this subject more in the future.
We are not too different
Another feeling I get is that our needs are really not that different. Regardless of where we are from in the world and which stage in life we are in, we are troubled by similar issues and have similar needs. We want to feel accepted, we want to feel seen and heard, we want to matter. We also want to feel peace in the mind, we want some quiet time everyday, we want relief from stresses in life, we want to feel good.
It is absurd if you think about it. 8 billion people on a spinning ball wanting the same things, but struggle with loneliness, sense of separation, and extreme conflicts like wars. What happened in between the wanting and the manifestation?
Realising this motivates me to continue offering what I believe in to the world, because I am certain that what I feel, you’ve felt it; what I ponder upon, you’ve pondered before; what I treasure, you treasure too.
