JoeyJoelle

I’ve had quite a few people ask me about journaling. How do I journal? What do I write about? How do you even get started when you’re staring at a blank page and have absolutely no idea what to say?

And the funny thing is, journaling has been such a normal part of my life for so long that I sometimes forget it isn’t that simple for everyone.

So instead of telling you how you should journal, I thought I’d share how I do it.

This isn’t a set of rules. It’s simply the routine I’ve built over the years, and maybe there are parts of it that you can take and make your own.

Why I journal

I started writing at a very young age to give my younger self a safe space to speak. A place where I could say whatever was on my mind, without a filter. Without being judged. Or without being told to shut up.

Journaling gave younger me the space to be heard. Somewhere to vent.

And I never really stopped.

Over the years, journaling has changed with me. Sometimes it’s where I process things. Sometimes it’s where I dream. Sometimes I’m trying to understand myself, and other times I’m simply documenting whatever is happening inside my head.

My routine has evolved too. What I do now definitely isn’t what I was doing at ten years old, but this is what my journaling practice looks like today.

1. Preparation: finding a journal that feels like me.

I’m a physical journal girl.

I love putting an actual pen to actual paper, and even choosing the journal itself is part of the experience for me. I usually choose mine completely based on intuition. I’ll go into a store, look around, touch them, flip through them and basically wait until one feels like mine.

That doesn’t mean you need a physical journal to journal, though.

Maybe writing on your phone feels more natural. Maybe you prefer your laptop or a digital journaling app. I think one of the first things to figure out is simply which method makes you actually want to write.

The best journaling method is the one you’ll return to.

2. Set the vibe

I journal in the morning because I like starting my day with a moment that belongs completely to me before I start giving my attention and energy to everybody and everything else.

So I make it feel like a moment.

I usually keep the lights off. I might light some palo santo or sage because I love the smell, and sometimes I’ll put on quiet background music.

Nothing extravagant needs to happen. I’m simply creating an environment that makes my body recognize: this is my time.

3. DND

This one is important for me because once I start journaling, I want to stay in the flow.

Our phones give us a million tiny opportunities to leave the moment. One notification pops up, you check it, then suddenly you’re somewhere completely different mentally.

So when I journal, my phone goes on Do Not Disturb.

Especially if you prefer digital journaling, I think protecting yourself from notifications can make a huge difference. For me, journaling works best when I can follow one thought into another without constantly being pulled back into the outside world.

4. I meditate

Before I start writing, I meditate.

Meditation has become an important part of my journaling routine because this is often where I receive my downloads.

During meditation, certain insights, realizations or messages can come through that feel like exactly what I need at that moment. Sometimes something suddenly makes sense or I’m able to notice a feeling I hadn’t been paying attention to. Sometimes a thought comes through so clearly that I know immediately: “I need to write about this.”

These downloads often become my journal prompt for the morning.

Meditation also helps me get out of my head. Before meditating, my mind can be busy with everything I need to do, what happened yesterday, what might happen later, work, life, responsibilities. Afterward, I feel much more connected to my body, my spirit and my intuition.

And that makes writing easier.

If you’re entirely new to meditation, guided meditations can be a beautiful place to start. I personally recommend Insight Timer because there are guided meditations that actually walk you through the process.

And even if you meditate and feel like absolutely nothing happened?

Write about that.

There are no rules here.

5. Letting the words flow.

Once my meditation ends, I write.Immediately.

I don’t give myself much time to get back into my head and start analyzing everything. I put my pen on the paper and let whatever wants to come out, come out.

I try not to put a maximum amount of time on journaling. However, because I journal in the morning and eventually have to get ready for work, I do give myself a maximum of ten minutes. But during those ten minutes, I write. I don’t stop before those ten minutes are over.

I let my hand do the work instead of trying to construct the perfect journal entry in my head first. I allow my body to take over. My spirit to take over. I follow the thought wherever it wants to go.

That’s another reason meditation comes before journaling for me. I’ve already quieted some of that mental noise, so instead of trying to think my way through the journal entry, I can simply flow.

It doesn’t have to sound intelligent. It doesn’t need beautiful grammar. Nobody is grading it. It just needs to be honest.

On my days off, I do it a little different. Instead of a maximum of ten minutes, I give myself a minimum of ten minitus.

I’m finished after ten minutes, I’m finished. If ten minutes turns into twenty because I’m deep in something, I keep going till my spirit says we’re done.

6. Close the journal and go live my life

After all that?

I close it.

That’s literally it.

I don’t immediately read everything back. I don’t correct my sentences. I don’t check my spelling or decide whether what I wrote made sense.

None of that.

I close the journal and go about my day.

Whatever needed somewhere to go now has somewhere to go. The insight came through and has been put onto paper.

And then I move on.

Your journaling routine doesn’t have to look like mine

I’ve been journaling for most of my life, so the routine I have now developed slowly over years of figuring out what works for me.

Yours might look completely different.

Maybe you journal at night. Maybe meditation isn’t your thing. Maybe you type instead of write. Maybe you need prompts every day, while someone else can fill five pages from one thought.

That’s the beauty of it.

There isn’t one correct way to journal.

But if you’ve been wanting to start and the blank page is the thing stopping you, I created my 100-Day Journal to give you somewhere to begin. It gives you a prompt for each day, so instead of wondering “Okay… but what am I supposed to write?” you already have a place to start.

You can use the prompts exactly as they are, use them as a jumping-off point and wander somewhere completely different, or slowly build your own journaling routine around them.

Because eventually, the goal isn’t to journal the way I do.

It’s to discover how you journal.