Creative Ways to Journal (When You Hate Journaling)
It’s happened again. You go to a therapy session, and your therapist suggests, albeit meekly, “Maybe journaling would be a good idea for homework?” You sigh, you roll your eyes. “Here we go again,” you think, “How am I supposed to journal?”
Many of us may have a lot of preconceived notions when it comes to journaling. Some may view it as a thing you do in childhood, others, something a teacher made you do in class. Some may love it and have journaled their whole life. Others may be intimidated by an empty notebook, college-ruled lines, that seem to shout “obligation!”
So, what IS journaling exactly?
Journaling is a form of externalizing your thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Journaling, like therapy, can be a good way of getting things out on paper, or just out in general, to look at it with more distance, and explore your experience. Exploring your experience then helps you process and make intentional choices toward your needs and goals.
We aren’t going to further address the benefits of journaling in this article, because there are plenty of articles written exploring the benefits. We are going to focus more on challenging the preconceived notion that journaling needs to look uniform and provide you with some ideas to give you more options to engaging this coping tool.
The most typical preconceived notion is that journaling needs to be pen and paper. But not everyone explores best verbally, and, even if they do, may not know how to approach it. So, what are some options? Below, I’ll list some ideas to accommodate those with a diversity of strengths (after all—we are all so different and that is not bad or wrong!) These are just suggestions to explore—take what is good and please do leave the rest.
Ideas
Visual Journaling Ideas
Art Journaling: For more visual folks, a good alternative to written journaling could be art journaling. Some ideas of engaging an art journal include:
Can abstract image of what you are experiencing or feeling. This could look like doing a paint splatter (think Jackson Pollock) or even scribbling back and forth. All that anger felt like red? Scribble some furious red out on the page.
Creating an image of an object and coloring it in. It could be anything that you feel captures or sums up your experience. Life threw you a lemon that day? Draw a lemon!
Finding an image online from a music video, movie, etc. that matches your experience and attaching it to a page physically or digitally. Sometimes our emotions and experiences are big, and finding one image and putting it down may feel satisfying enough to help you begin to express and process the experience.
Collaging with several images that you feel represent your experience.
Remember, this is your journal, not fine art, so you do not have to show this to anyone, unless you want to. You do not need to be concerned with the outcome. The aim is just to work through your emotions and thoughts on the page in a way that works for you.
Vision board: Another popular form of setting goals for visual folks is creating a vision board. You can do this on a physical bulletin board or you can create a digital document, as mentioned in the other options above.
Like collaging, you can collect objects or images and include them on your board to create a cohesive image of your goals, hopes or dreams. A quick Google search will give you plenty of prompts and ideas for vision boarding if you get stuck!
Audio Journaling Ideas
Voice recording: For folks who like to externally process using spoken word, voice recordings could be a great way of journaling between sessions or when your support system is not immediately available.
Voice recordings could look just like venting a situation out to your friend or therapist, but with an audio recording app or program on a digital device.
For added fun, you could also thrift an old cassette player and cassettes if you want to create a physical library for your audio journal!
Music journaling: For musical folks, journaling can include incorporating music. Spending time picking the right song can help you process through the experience and then express it by cranking up the volume!
Identifying a song that helps encompass how you feel and playing it.
It can also look like creating a personalized playlist or
Writing the name of the track down in a journal.
If you play a musical instrument, you can also find a song and the associated sheet music and work through learning the piece. This could potentially give you plenty of time to slow down with the experience and work through it in the language that works best for you!
Combination Ideas
Video journaling: Some other fun ideas for journaling could be video journaling. This would combine both the visual and audio aspects of the journaling methods listed above. This may feel weird for some folks, but it can be really satisfying to talk the situation out and externally process a situation in a similar fashion as you would with your support system if you have a few days before your next therapy session or a chat day with friends.
Venting out your experience or talking through an experience with yourself using a video recording device or platform. You can set up your space like you would when having a conversation with a support, or find a comfy space to record.
Written Journaling Ideas
“But wait!” some may be saying, “I really DO love writing but what do I write?” Never fear, here are a few options for those who do find their strengths in the written word:
Written Journaling: Just like the name suggests, this could be freeform journaling about whatever pops into your mind.
You can talk about an experience, a feeling, or anything interesting.
You can search for journal prompts to assist you if freeform journaling is unappealing or difficult. A quick Google search can yield plenty of journal prompts for various topics you may be interested in. Feeling your self-esteem took a hit? Try searching for prompts about self-esteem. Feeling you want to explore your identity? Someone may already have a prompt set, with questions, for you to explore.
You can also find prompt-specific or topic-specific journals in stores with various topics of interest.
Using stories or poetry: If writing it out directly feels unhelpful, creating an expressive writing work can help you create some distance from the situation further and process the experience.
Conclusion
Feel free to get creative with this! Journaling does not have to be one way, or suit one type of person. If you want to play some music and create a visual piece, go for it! Notice how you feel in your body as you try different methods and go with the one(s) that feel right for you. There’s no right or wrong in journaling, and anything that helps you process a situation or helps you express what you need is good enough! Use your unique strengths and interests to personalize it to an experience you find is kind, supportive, and meets your needs. Happy journaling!
