The Diary of Some Strange Person, Certainly Not Me

 Hello! It's been nutty but I wanted to give you guys some things to think about as we move into both the most wonderful time of the year, Thanksgiving and Christmas time, and also the most hectic and stressful time of the
year. As we move forward it can feel like you have no time to give to yourself, an important thing to do in an often busy time of year. One of the greatest ways you can give back to yourself is through journaling. This allows you to vent, drain yourself of negative emotions, and create a keepsake that you will hopefully have for years to come. I still have a collection of all my old journals and diaries and it can be fascinating to read them and see how I've changed over the years. 

Sometimes it feels hard to start or journaling is just too frustrating a process to keep up with. If any of you are struggling with a hard time journaling, I wanted to offer you a tactic that has worked for me over the past few years. I call is story journaling. This tactic is both fun, and enjoyable, and gives you an outlet for your creative writing brain as well. Story Journaling is just like regular journaling. You are still writing about your day. You are still venting your frustrations. The difference is instead of writing in the first person, you are writing a story about someone else who just happens to live day-to-day exactly like you. To give you a better example, I thought I'd copy an old page of my story journal for you to get an idea of what I'm saying. 

"Thursday, February 24, 2022

This morning Rebekah was lucky enough to wake up too late to lightbox to her mother's great frustration. Instead, she slipped into her checkered skirt and practical black shirt, slipping on a pair of heels as she left her room. She glanced in the mirror, frustrated at the lack of color in her face, s
wiped some makeup on, ran a brush through her hair, and left for mass with her mother and little brother, Maximus. 

Mass, unfortunately, did not go as planned though. It wasn't exactly the mass's fault, but hers. Her throat was on fire and her breathing became labored as she struggled for air. Her eyes watered as she started to panic. She quickly left the church to get some air but every time she attempted to step back inside, her body was once again consumed with panic and fear as she struggled to catch her breath. In the end, she spent more time outside the church them in the pew. 

Once she returned home, feeling calm again, she started a pot of jasmine rice and heated some chili which pretty much was her regular breakfast on these kinds of chilly mornings. She sipped on some tea to soothe the chill in her bones as she worked through her homework... etc."

Hopefully, that helps give you an idea of what I mean. It can be a really interesting way to journal. You can be as dramatic or realistic as you like with it. You can keep the names the same or different. You could even put your life into a fantasy. It's just a great way to break through journaling worries and stress. Let me know if you try this idea out and if it works as well for you as it has for me.

As always thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any comments, thoughts, or ideas!