"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." - William Wordsworth
on new journals and 31 different ways to use them
I was at Target the other day picking up some sketch pads for my children and being in the section where crafts and calendars corral anyway, it was inevitable it would happen…that undeniable pull…a force that beckons me, seemingly every time, to draw near toward shelves of those forward-facing, hard bound beauties in all their glory, whose bright and beautiful covers or simple and clean lines speak possibilities to me - oh the possibilities…
yes, I’m talking about the journal section.
My eyes quick-scanned the shelves and then I heard my mind speak, ‘Ooh, that one’s pretty; but I don’t need another journal - I still have a new one I haven’t finished using yet’….‘Oh that one’s cute, too’…. and well, it continues until I’m scanning the barcode at self check out and walking to the car, embracing all of the possibilities.
(If you know, then you know)
And so, here I am again, at home with another journal a new book of possibilities in hand. It was so darling (the Eastern Bluebird hooked me immediately), I couldn’t help it. I promised myself I’d do something special with it. I refused to be paralyzed by ‘new journal syndrome’ - when my fear of having the most perfect purpose for my new journal or the prettiest manner of using it completely blocks me from actually using it. Which, by the way, at the bottom of my list, I’ll address a few tips that helped me overcome this challenge.
Suffering from new journal syndrome is a common, but unfortunate struggle. The very thing that can bring so much joy and healing, causing you to feel blocked seems like such a tragedy. The struggle is real, friends.
In my search for how best to use my new daily chirps journal, I found some great ideas and decided to compile this list here to offer suggestions on how to use your new journal and how to overcome fears associated with new journal syndrome.
What does your journal mean to you?
Before we begin, it’s helpful to take a few moments to think about what your journal means to you? That might be the first step in helping determine how to use it.
I’ll pause a moment and throw in a few journal swoon-worthy photos while you think about that…
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” — Maya Angelou
For me, my journal represents
~ possibilities for healing: I can write through my grief, my trauma, my pain, as well as document and remember my joy, triumph, and sweetness
~ an invitation to dream because truly, where else do I do this other than sharing my thoughts with my husband or closest friends?
~ a space to foster creativity - with words, stories, thoughts, poems and quotes; a place to generate ideas
~ a safe place to dump the thoughts I don’t want to come out of my mouth; a place to free up brain space by doing so
~ fresh pages always mean fresh starts - Well, I didn’t follow through with that last journal but now I can with this one - and anytime a fresh start is available, I’ll take it. Fresh starts work wonders for your mental health.
~ an Ebenezer - a place to give thanks and remember how good the Lord has been to me and my family; a sacred place for holy praise and worship and prayer; a place to record truth and scripture
~ bearing that untold story inside of me
I could keep going, but my point is, journals are good. Any way you use them, anything you put in them, they are good.
I am sensitive to this culture that we are living in where nothing seems sacred to most people anymore, and I wrestle with what I see and hear but don’t always want to share my thoughts aloud. My journal serves me by being a safe, sacred ground where my inmost thoughts, fears, prayers and dreams have a space to breathe, rest, and cultivate. And that is good.
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” — William Wordsworth
30 Ways to Use Your New Journal
1. Gratitude list journal
You can format this any way you prefer, but the idea is that you capture a few things each day for which you are grateful. You could also invite your family in on this and keep the journal at the dinner table and have each member of the family share what they are grateful for and record it.
We did this one year and it was such a delight to look back through it and remember some of the things we had listed.
2. Ann Voskamp’s ‘Joy Dare’
If you like the idea of a gratitude list but need something more structured, you could take a look at Ann Voskamp’s Joy Dare. For each day of the month, she gives you a prompt to consider and it’s your turn to seek them out. I love this idea because it keeps your eyes focused on searching for God’s goodness throughout your day.
“It’s habits that can imprison you and it’s habits that can free you. But when thanks to God becomes a habit — so joy in God becomes your life.” - Ann Voskamp
3. Your personal commonplace book
A personal commonplace book is where you record your thoughts, dreams, ideas, good quotes you hear or find, quotes your children or parents say, books you’ve read and your thoughts about them, podcast notes, conversations you’ve had, your interests, quick sketches - basically anything you want to remember or record.
This is the most common journal I have kept for myself and the one that goes with me everywhere.
4. A literature-based commonplace book -
Another type of commonplace book is one that is kept to record interesting passages that stand out to you or that you don’t want to forget from any books you are reading; you can also include your thoughts as it pertains to the passage.
Homeschooling pioneer, Charlotte Mason, said this of the commonplace book:
“It is very helpful to read with a commonplace book or reading-diary, in which to put down any striking thought in your author, or your own impression of the work, or of any part of it; but not summaries of facts. Such a diary, carefully kept through life, should be exceedingly interesting as containing the intellectual history of the writer; besides, we never forget the book that we have made extracts from, and of which we have taken the trouble to write a short review.”
5. Back-and-forth love letters
The idea with a back and forth love letter journal is that you write a love letter to someone, they read it, they write one back, and so on. It can be done by mom or by dad to their children (and then vice versa); with your spouse; with God; or even with yourself…of course, there wouldn’t be much back and forth-just love letters to yourself. I think this sounds like a lovely way to use a journal for those of us who have been married for many years; it’s kind of like dating one other again.
6. Julia Cameron’s ‘morning pages’
Julia introduced her idea of writing morning pages in her book, The Artist’s Way, a self-paced course in discovering and rediscovering your creative self. The book has sold millions of copies and remains a creative’s staple in their home libraries.
“In order to retrieve your creativity, you need to find it. I ask you to do this by an apparently pointless process I call the morning pages. You will do the pages daily through all the weeks of the course and, I hope, much longer. I have been doing them for a decade now. I have students who have worked with them nearly that long and who would no more abandon them than breathing.”
Morning pages are “three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness… They might also, more ingloriously, be called brain drain, since that is one of their main functions.”
I will add that I have successfully filled a journal with morning pages. It’s easy to do when you’re recording stream of conscious thoughts on smaller, journal-sized pages. I found it very therapeutic to engage in this ‘brain dump’ and might consider starting them up again.
Anyone here do morning pages?
“Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche” — Julia Cameron
7. A daily calendar/diary
A daily calendar would consist of jotting down a few things that were significant to you - what you did, who you saw, a conversation you had, what you learned - for each day of the year. It’s not meant to be full pages worth of writing, just simple jottings to help remember the day.
“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” —Ray Bradbury
8. Pillow thoughts journal
Another type of journal is one that is kept on your bedside table and only used while you are in bed, either to jot thoughts down first thing in the morning or right before going to sleep. It can be in any format you like. This is also a great place to record dreams when you first wake up so as not to forget them later. And, it’s a great place to record thoughts you want to capture for your ‘to do’ list for the next day so you don’t have to reach for your phone and contend with its blue-light, sleep-disrupting allure (to do more than simply jot that note down). Some experts believe, writing ‘to do’ thoughts down before bed has been proven to help you sleep better because it’s said to help you ‘let go’ of holding on to the thought which can keep you awake and bothered trying to remember it for the next day. However, experts also agree that writing an emotional journal entry before bed is not advised as the stirring of emotions can disrupt sleep.
9. Lists journal
I find making lists relaxing, therapeutic and downright fun. Apparently, I’m not the only one as there is a whole market for books on just jotting down your thoughts to the list prompts provided. The 52 Lists Project has an entire line of list-making books, including lists for happiness, lists for calm, lists for bravery and so on. Check them out if you would enjoy prompts for your list-making:
If you enjoy coming up with your own themes, use your journal to make your own lists. Some ideas might include:
Books I’ve Read / Books our family has read aloud
Best lyrics from songs (I have a current copy of this list hanging in my art studio)
Ways I like to spend my free time
Ways to serve others
Ministry opportunities
Hobbies I enjoy
Good advice you’ve been given
Quotes from your children, parents, friends or coworkers
Bucket list
Restaurants you love in the area
Meals you enjoy cooking
Sermons that most stood out to you
Don’t forget your favorites:
The other day while driving together, my son asked me what my favorite song was. I always have a really hard time with questions like that. I need more time to figure it out. You might want to finally take the time to come up with your top 5 or 10 favorites in areas such as songs/bands, or go into more specifics with genre, like top 5 jazz, top 5 classic rock; favorite cities to visit; favorite childhood games; favorite books, etc.
10. Six word stories journal
It’s unclear who originally began the six word story but many claim it to be Ernest Hemingway when he was given the challenge to write a story using only six words. Always up for a literary challenge, he managed to produce a story both compelling and heartbreaking: “For Sale: baby shoes; never worn.”
I have filled many pages of journals with six word stories as I turn to them often when I need a little burst of creativity. Lately, I’ve been enjoying using old photos on my phone or quick glances of something I pass by from the passenger seat of the car while my husband is driving.
One night, I saw a racoon on top of a dumpster in a parking lot of a strip mall. I was inspired to write:
Dinner’s from the dumpster again tonight.
Other examples I’ve written lately:
But you look fine to me.
She slurped coffee; he fell deep.
That night, trembling, I met Jesus.
His drawings speak a thousand words.
She’s never alone in the graveyard.
11. Tracker {for health / mood / habits / healing / food} journal
If you are on a journey to heal, get healthy, overcome some sickness, improve in habits, or if you have any goal to make improvements with yourself or even if you need a tool to help you identify health-related patterns in your life, you could track your progress in your journal.
We had to keep a food journal for one of our children to help identify what might be causing flares. It was a very helpful tool (when we actually kept up with it 😌). Another time, my doctor wanted me to keep a health journal as I was adding new medication to my protocol (for Lyme and mold sickness1 ); she wanted me to track symptoms, mood changes, and physiological changes. It also proved to be a very helpful tool for addressing my symptoms and it helped me identify a very consistent and cyclical pattern with my mood and ‘time of the month’.
Yes, there are apps for this but some folks still prefer manual entries and pen and paper. 🙋♀️
12. Bullet journal
I think I tried to bullet journal one time and felt like I had failed miserably at it so I never tried again. I like the idea of it, but it proved to be too time consuming with it needing to be ‘perfect’ with all of those straight lines and fancy writing (you know, the ones I put pressure on myself to create even though I didn’t need to do any of that to successfully use a bullet journal - at all). But, I know many people love it and get many benefits from using one.
For more information on bullet journaling, it’s best to point you to the experts, here.
13. Memory journal
What about dedicating an entire journal for recording memories? It will be a living list, so when memories pop up in your mind, you have a place to jot them all down and keep them corralled. This will also serve as a wonderful tool if you are a writer and need ideas for your next piece. I have found that writing out my memories helps me to relive the memory and recall details that I otherwise would not have remembered if I were to have only said it aloud or even just let the memory pass by in a thought. Leslie Marmon Silko says of the process, “I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.”
“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.” — Louisa May Alcott
14. Sketch journal (inspired by one of my favorite books, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See by Frank Harmon)
I am an artist, an artist who enjoys sketching, so I have plenty of sketch books but many of them are filled with doodles and attempts at sketching some random object, like a colander (that’s my most recent random object sketch). That’s not the type of sketch book I’m suggesting here. My inspiration for this suggestion is exclusively inspired from the book Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See by Frank Harmon.
Mr. Harmon’s sketches are fabulous - simple, few watercolors used, and a little rustic - just my style! He sketched places he’s familiar with or had visited that had left some sort of an impression on him and wrote a little story about the place to accompany a sketch. It’s one of my favorite creative books. If I make a list of creative books that I love, it will be on it.
While typing this article, I discovered he has a website for this book and I enjoyed watching the 6 minute video about him and his inspiration. Ya’ll this little video is such an inspiration - from his home, to his journal (he even chats briefly about a horse turd that he sketched because he found it interesting that so many butterflies had landed on it because of the lack of moisture in the dessert), to his wisdom…
“Being curious about the world is an elemental human quality. We live in a world that makes it hard to pay attention, our minds are ever thinking about what we need to do at 4 o’clock or something I said that she might not like or where I’m going on vacation, it’s very hard to be in the present, in the moment. Drawing is a way to really see whatever it is that you’re in the presence of. A landscape, a building, a crowd, a lover, a pineapple…You really can focus on that and in focusing on that you actually lose yourself. You become totally absorbed in what you’re doing, you’re in the moment and those are, in my opinion, the most valuable times in life.”
What makes this different from a straight-forward sketch book, is that you are attaching some memory or moment to the sketch that you want to record and remember. Here is a recent one I sketched for my sketch journal while visiting my mom and dad. It inspired a story about my son’s relationship with our dog and how I don’t want to forget how he always creates moments like these with Louis Armstrong.
15. Prayer journal
This is pretty self explanatory - use your journal as a place to write out your prayers. Prayer journals are wonderful for so many reasons but for me, I have found writing out my prayers and being in this posture of surrender, prayer and praise has lead to hearing God speak gently into my heart, addressing the very things I’m penning. It’s also so wonderful to look back over past entries and realize how God answered many of those prayers or to see how God didn’t answer the prayers I had written out, but I could see why he didn’t and often it was because he had something better in mind for me.
"I have found it a great blessing to treasure up in the memory, the answers God graciously gives me in answer to prayer. I have always kept a record to strengthen the memory. I advise the keeping of a little memorandum book. On one side – say the left-hand side – put down the petition, and the date when you began to offer it. Let the opposite page be left blank to put down the answer in each case, and you will soon find how many answers you get, and thus you will be encouraged more and more, your faith will be strengthened; and especially you will see what a lovely, bountiful and gracious Being God is; your heart will go out more and more in love to God, and you will say – it is my Heavenly Father Who has been so kind, I will trust in Him, I will confide in Him through His Son." - George Muller
16. Bible study / Sermon notes / Christian book studies
Also self explanatory, but a journal is a great place to keep all of your sermon, bible study and book study notes. I have all three of these in one journal and I am always amazed how the Lord will orchestrate them all coming together - that a message I’m hearing at church is relevant to the book I’m studying or the passage of scripture I’m in. That’s why I like keeping them all in the same place instead of separate journals. I love to see him show up in this personal way for me.
17. Creative Collage with words/quotes/poetry
I wrote about this little creative practice here. It has been so rewarding for me to take a few minutes to create a simple, yet complete piece of art (when I haven’t had the time to invest in a large work) by gluing down a few paper collage pieces, adding a sketch, word, quote, or small poem, and watching as my book fills up. I love quotes and poetry and this is a great way to incorporate them all in one place. Here are a couple recent entries:
18. Lists of 100
In Kathleen Adam’s book, Journal to the Self: 22 Paths to Personal Growth, she introduces the list of 100 as a way to solve problems, gain insight, learn more about yourself and motivate yourself. The idea is that you have your topic/theme (for instance, 100 things to forgive myself for, 100 ways to nurture myself, 100 ways to be more creative, 100 things I need to let go, etc.), complete the list in one setting, and as you list, the first 30 or so will come out easily - they are from top of mind, your conscious, logical mind. The next 40 are the hardest to come up with, but they are also where you start to notice patterns emerging. The last 30 are supposed to be where the ‘gems’ are. You’ve already exhausted your logical ideas so here is where your subconscious kicks in and some ideas may even be silly and illogical but you record them anyway.
I found an interesting interview with Kathleen by the folks at Psychology Today here about her life work as a journal therapist and the healing powers of personal writing, if you’re interested.
I think I’m going to put this one on my ‘to read’ list. I need to learn a little more about it, first. Anyone read this one?
19. Nature journal
As a nature journaler, I have discovered many benefits from it, including, much like what Frank Harmon said in the quote above, it invites you to be present, mindful in what you are observing, sketching, and wondering about. I find it incredibly peaceful and therapeutic, I love that my nature journal is a place where I can record my questions, as well as my observations, and I don’t have to find the answers if I don’t want to. I love that it includes two of my favorite things: nature and art. I love that there are no rules and my nature journal can look any way I’d like for it to: I can watercolor, sketch with ink or pencil, use colored pencils, have no art at all and only observations written on the page, I can get creative with my layout, or keep it super simple. And I have done all of these things, in one journal.
I have promised to write a post on nature journaling, and it will come. But in the meantime, a wonderful resource online and through his books is Jack Muir Laws (his name is John but he goes by Jack). If you are interested in beginning this wonderful hobby, feel free to reach out anytime!
“Part of the lure of keeping a journal is the world you enter when you open it. Working in it sets up an island of quiet and deliberateness to which you will long to return.”—Hannah Hinchman
20. A collection of recipes
Do you have recipes that have been handed down to you, perhaps a great grandmother’s Waldensian poundcake2, or a mother-in-law’s buttermilk cornbread? These special recipes will be lost forever if we do not take the time to preserve them, and perhaps, continue passing them along to our children.
With recipes so easily summoned at the quick click of a link online, there is something very special about flipping through pages to locate the one you need. I have a friend who crafted a recipe book from a regular journal, where she wrote out the recipe on a blank index card (in beautiful handwriting, I should add) and she created little open, pocket envelopes in her journal that she had glued to the pages so the card could slip into it. It was gorgeous and felt like a truly special keepsake. I wish I had snapped a picture of it when I saw it.
21. Travel / missions journal
Traveling always inspires me. There’s something about the change of scenery that gives such fresh perspective and I always have ideas bounding around my head on my travels, or I try to record them all right when I come home before I lose the feelings and ideas.
When you travel, for pleasure, work, necessity, or mission work, there will always be something interesting or unforgettable that you’ll have seen or done or thought that you will be thankful you recorded years down the road. There is no shortage of ideas online for what to include or how to format your travel journal. The point is, just make one and use it.
“Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter. And lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.” — Jack London
22. Creative writing journal
Sometimes you just need a space to get creative with your words. You can dedicate an entire journal for creative writing exercises, which you can find prompts aplenty online.
A couple of years ago, a friend turned me on to the book The Creativity Project: An Awesome Story Collection by Colby Sharp. I bought it for my daughter because she had shown interest in creative writing at the time but I ended up reading and becoming more inspired by it than she. In the book, this team of editors invited their favorite book creators to come up with prompts, and invite other creators to complete them. For instance, the very first one in the book is a prompt that Kate DiCamillo created for Lemony Snicket to complete. The book is a lot of fun and I spent some time writing out my own favorite creative prompts and thoughts inspired by it.
23. Therapy notes
As a visual learner, I take notes on everything. Everything. I won’t remember it if I don’t and by writing something out, it helps to embed that something into my mind. This is true when I’m on the phone talking with someone telling me something important, when I’m in church, and when I’m in a therapy appointment. I used to take therapy notes on any old piece of paper nearby or in my phone and then realized I would lose them or would become frustrated trying to find them in my phone’s notes. Finally, I decided to keep them all together in a journal.
“As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.” — William Makepeace Thackeray
24. Pen pal journal (your friend can be your pen pal)
Do you remember pen pals? When I was in third grade in Virginia, our teacher assigned us a pen pal from another third grade class in Hawaii. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I remember her name, Melissa, and she told me about what she enjoyed doing, what things her family did together, her pet, even some of the plant life where she lived. I will never forget the feeling I had when her letters would come in the mail - it was such a thrill!
A pen pal journal is a way to stay connected with a friend, perhaps a friend who, like you, appreciates manual paper and pens and snail mail as much as you do, in a good ‘ole fashioned manner - writing letters back and forth and mailing them, only this method involves mailing your journal back and forth to each other. Bonus points if each time you mail yours off, you include stickers, pictures, quotes, pressed flowers, post cards or other goodies for your friend. I bet they’ll return the favor!
25. 365 days of learning something new
Interested in expanding your mind by learning new things? 🙋♀️ That is one of our family values - to be lifelong learners. Why not dedicate a journal to your newly-gained knowledge and dedicate one page per new thing learned? You learn it, you document it…Imagine how fun that would be at the end of the journal or 365 days to look how far you’ve come, what all you learned, what themes emerge, and how many more brain cells you’ve stimulated in the process. We are never to old to keep learning!
26. Gardening journal
Do you have a garden? If you do, you know there is a lot of trial, error, and learning that comes from keeping one. Whether you have a vegetable, herb, flower, or any other garden, your gardening journal is a great place to keep all of your notes and thoughts together.
When we had a garden at our old house, I kept seed packets and frost, plant and bloom calendars, notes on when to stake, when to harvest, and how to properly prune. Your gardening journal will become a valuable resource for you as you, and your garden, grow and change over the years.
If you don’t have a garden, you could consider keeping a journal about the flora and fauna in your own backyard or neighborhood; document how the flora changes through the seasons, when it first blooms, how you’ve cared for it, what you learned about it, what visits your yard - bird, animal, insect, even child.
27. “Use the stickers” and other art-bits journal
When I was a little girl, I collected stickers. Oh how excited I would get when my parents would agree to giving me a few coins to use in the machine that looked like a bubble gum dispenser, so that I could spend five minutes struggling with getting the lid on the small plastic container off that beheld my treasure - a shiny, bright and holographic knock-off Lisa Frank sticker. And when I finally got the sticker out and after several minutes of enjoying looking at, I’d put it in a shoe box, with all the others, only to never be used again. I was always afraid of using them because then they’d be used.
Over time, I overcame my sticker saving dilemma and have learned to use the things I love - the stickers, the washi tape, the little stickers with quotes on them, the stamps (you can always get more), and a journal dedicated for just that is a perfect place for them!
28. ‘All about me’ journal
This type of journal is a bit of an investment - an investment in yourself and an investment in your children or family and legacy. The heart behind this journal is that you are creating a keepsake for future generations filled with stories about you, or perhaps you and your spouse, so they will behold a piece of you forever.
I’ve known people to create something like this on the heels of a dire diagnosis with the goal of their children having stories about their parent that will live on in their hearts well after the parent has passed. What a precious gift that would be for a child. It might be the only thing, besides material objects, that will connect that child with their parent later in life.
Of course, you can structure this journal any way you wish, and if you need help, there are plenty of resources online. You could look up ‘25 (or 50) questions to ask your mom/dad’ and start there by answering them. You could share significant milestones, or you could structure it in a letter style, where you are simply writing them a letter with the information you wish to share.
29. Affirmation / declaration journal
If you struggle with an inner narrative filled with negative self-talk, are in a particularly hard season of life, are currently trying to overcome trauma or loss or are grieving, or perhaps anxiety competes to get the best of you most days, or if you’re simply on a journey to improve your mind, heart and soul, an affirmation journal might be a powerful tool to help you on your healing and emotional wellness journey. The idea is that you dedicate this journal to writing only positive and affirming statements about yourself and your life. When you’re focusing on and making room for the positive, it’s hard for the negative to take up space. You may want to incorporate truth from scripture in doing this and thus, you would be using biblical declarations.
Biblical Declarations are statements with powerful biblical truths backing them to renew your mind and transform your life. They are sometimes known as faith affirmations, prophetic proclamations or personal confessions you speak over yourself for personal benefits3.
Like most of these ideas, there are plenty of resources online for how to format an affirmation or declaration journal. Below is an image I found on Pinterest but the creator wasn’t identified. One idea would be to use one declaration per day and write about how it is applicable in your current circumstances.
30. A devotional for yourself
If your book shelves are like mine, you have read and lingered in your fair share of devotional books written by popular Christian authors. But have you ever thought about writing one for yourself?
You could decide a theme, such as ‘a season of long-suffering’, ‘seeking holy in a chaotic world’, or ‘God’s perfect timing’, or choose no theme at all. Then, use a scripture as your foundation for each day’s devotion. Write about what that scripture means to you, how it helps you with your ‘theme’ or how it’s helped you in the past and here you can incorporate a bit of personal story-telling, where you’ll include how this scripture relates to a particular time in your life and how it helped you then. Challenge your future self when you read through your devotional journal by writing thoughtful questions and journal prompts, like many devotional books do. Who knows, you may end up writing a devotional book the world also needs.
“There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people’s books and write your own.” — Albert Einstein
31. Creative journal
I had only planned to include 30 ideas for journal keeping, but I realized I hadn’t included the beloved creative journal, and this I would not be OK with. So, consider it a bonus.
I used to teach a class on creative journaling and it was by far my favorite class to teach, for kids and adults. There are a million ways to keep a creative / art journal, and you can easily find enough ideas to fill a full journal online.
I always like using books for ideas for my creative journal and my all-time favorite is Emily Neuberger’s Journal Sparks. It’s loaded with fun and whimsical creative ideas and all ages truly enjoy doing the exercises she presents. Here is a photo my son did in his creative journal when he was 6, inspired by Emily’s book:
Some final thoughts on overcoming ‘new journal syndrome’
Your journal is for you
Although I made up the condition ‘new journal syndrome’, I know that there are many of us who suffer from it - that feeling we get with a new journal that seems to eventually trump all of the other feelings about possibilities with our new journal when we feel we can’t begin, we’re stuck, we don’t want to mess it up, or we’re afraid it won’t look pretty or nice enough, so it just sits there. Or we begin one and don’t stay with that format and it becomes just another 1/3 used journal on the shelf.
For me, and I’m sharing in case it’s helpful for others, the most important thing to remember is that our journals are for us; they are our friends. They are safe places, and they always meet us where we are. We don’t need to approach the page with perfection, or be in a certain mood, or use a certain pen color, or handwriting.
If you need to, simply give yourself permission to just show up as you are using what you’ve got in whatever mood you’re in and I promise you, your journal will welcome it all.
Because your journal is for you, if ruler-straightened lines and pretty colorful coordinated pens stress you out - forget them.
If ruler lines and color-coded pens bring you joy - bring it on.
If not starting on the first page is a habit you don’t feel comfortable breaking - then don’t. Honor that need and move on.
Use it whenever you want
If it’s been six months since you’ve pow wowed with your journal and you feel bad and hate that gap in dated entries, go ahead and give yourself permission to use your journal whenever you want. Just say it out loud, “I can use you whenever I want. I make the rules for how I use my journal.”
Use the old ones, too
Another great technique to help overcome new journal syndrome is to simply pick up one of the unfinished ones you have lying around, and begin using it again. Like I mentioned above, you don’t owe anyone any explanations for the break, even if the last entry was 2009.
Now, it’s your turn
Where are you preserving the breathings of your heart? How are you using journals?
If you have ideas I haven’t included on this list, I’d love to hear them!
Happy journaling, friends!
“We can only open our hearts to those we utterly trust, such as the accepting page” – Gillie Bolton
Affiliate links were used in this post. You know how that works 😉
Refer to notes to read about my history with becoming sick and being diagnosed with mold sickness and Lyme disease.
Mama Mary’s Waldensian Poundcake
1/2 pound butter
1 and 2/3 cup sugar
5 eggs
2 cups cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preaheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together and beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat well. Add flour and salt. Stir in vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly and pour into greased and floured tube pan. Bake 1 and 1/2 hours.
Oh this makes me want to buy 5 new journals! I keep so many notes on my phone but I'd love to get into the habit of writing it down!
PS: that SKETCH of your son with Louis Armstrong!! No words. 💖🥹