THE ART OF JOURNALING

An Article by Sophie Gregory

There are a multitude of scientific advantages to keeping a journal – the stress

reduction, the self-discipline and the improvement to your memory. However,

keeping a journal is a lot more than health benefits. In fact, I would argue that it’s

an art.

The pages of your journal, whether you’ve gone for lined, plain or even dotted,

are yours and they are blank. You can do with them whatever you choose to do

with them. Art has always been one of those subjects at school that you’re either

good at or you’re not and this is why journals are so important. There is no way

to be ‘good’ at journaling; it is an intensely personal thing. In this way, it is an

unrestricted art that can’t be subjected to criticism and that makes it liberating,

especially for those of us who feel we can’t be creative as we can only draw stick

men.

Like more traditional arts, journaling requires discipline, it requires basic

materials and it requires the motivation to write (or list, or doodle); but once

these things are in place, it is incredibly rewarding. What you create is something

absolutely unique. The way you have chosen to fill those pages is down to you

alone – it is a reflection of yourself. This is why I journal and it’s become so much

more popular in a world where we have no time to stop and evaluate our

feelings.

For me, journaling is a means of reflecting on my day, of holding myself to

account and of maintaining some creativity in amongst the daily grind. Not only

do I get to work through my emotions on paper, rather than becoming

overwhelmed by things I simply haven’t had time to address, I also get to do it in

a way that’s best for me. My journals are, at best, inconsistent. They contain

receipts, writing, petals, drawings and photographs. Anything I can stick in the

journal, goes in the journal. These little things get stuck down and act as ways to

trigger my memories, to bring back details of days that I had forgotten. It can be

good and it can be really bad but I’m glad I’ve written it down so I can look back

at it and assess how far I’ve come (and how far I have to go).

Maybe it’s because it’s because we are all a little self-obsessed, but journaling is

fulfilling because it helps you to understand your own feelings and then to

understand others’. It’s a way of capturing yourself in that very moment, on that

day.

Of course, journaling doesn’t have to be serious (I mainly use mine to write down

bitchy things I can’t say in person) but it can be and that’s the great thing about

it. You define it, you create it, you choose it – it’s your art.