Journaling - The Write Stuff For You?

@hopeful33250 We have a small public library here that is open a total of 10 hours a week on three different days. I think I will ask our amazing librarian if we can have a writing group meet there.
Ginger

Wish I lived in your community. There is a small library here but nothing is offered for the public! Third world scenario!

Been searching for so long for new people that get to know that I can trust. Living in a family town full of refugees and so many single ladies over eighty .. have made me feel like a total misfit at 55... I keep looking but see the same few people each time and I don't think any of them really get me or know me... Just so unrelatable for me... Never know where to search.
My heart longs for one companion ..wish it was a man but there are none... Besides that I wish I had some kind of monetising job but day after day I hit brick walls ... Had to accept I may never work again... Grueling prospect timewise, financially and personally.
Xxx another long long day ahead.... At my complex people start leaving for work as early as 4.30am. I hear the gate open each day and always wonder if they realize how blessed they are!

Journaling has helped me a great deal. I actually journal on an AI platform called Perplexity. The nice part about journaling with an AI is you get immediate feedback?

It’s great when talking to my therapist dramatically enhancing meta cognition.

You should try it. It’s free.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm new to journaling. I've have tried to keep a diary many times I would start in the first of the year and by mid January I stopped writing. I have lots of reasons for that. The main reason was dyslexia. I have dyslexia. It's a pretty classic case - seeing worlds my mind reads differently (miss read) and horrible ability to spell correctly. I read and I absorb in formation fast, but I read slower than most people. I read well enough to earn a master's in public administration. The spelling is where dyslexia becomes obvious. In one paragraph I can spell the same word correctly and then completely incorrectly. As a kid the inability to be able to spell made keeping a diary a chore.

3 years ago I started working with a therapist for anxiety. I started writing my thoughts on paper. Often those thoughts were telling my story. I was using writing to process the things from long ago. It turns out I love putting my thoughts on paper. I love reading and rereading what I wrote.

At first I wrote in long hand. The process of thinking then seeing it on paper was therapeutic. In January 2024 I graduated from therapy and I shredded all the words I wrote over the previous 1 1/2. I had written about things and people in a way I would never want shared outside the therapy office.

I July 2024 I was diagnosed with cancer. I went back into therapy and started writing again. This time most of what I write is on forums like this one. This time around I'm mostly writing electronically and from my phone. While there still are misspelled words, wrong word and missed words the result is the same. I'm telling my story to help me process this part of my life. This time I'm keeping an electronic copy of what I wrote and I intend to keep them and I've begun to share them with a few select people outside of the forums. For example. I had written My Crohn's Story shortly after my diagnosis in 2022 and a gave a copy to the GI Nurse Practitioner because she's taken a special interest in caring for me as a GI patient who was diagnosed with cancer.

I find writing to therapeutic. I find the feed back I received in the forums to be very helpful for looking at my story with different perspectives.

Essentially what I'm doing is writing a memoir.

Denise

@denisestlouie Yeah! You've found a journaling method that works for you! Many of us have different approaches to it all, and believe me, there is no one "right" way".

Having dyslexia must be a real challenge, and it sounds like you took that on and have done a lot to help yourself. All I want to say is, "there are no journaling police!" Incorrect grammar, misspelled or misplaced words, it hopefully won't stand in anyone's way to get ideas and thoughts out onto paper [the real stuff or electronic!] And pictures can be used, collages, or drawing out in pen/colored pencil.

They say there seems to be a different response internally when we write out in longhand versus using an electronic means. What has been your experience in this, I am curious? For myself, I use longhand, as it is much more portable.
Ginger

I think that writing from my phone on a small screen works best for me. It's the same for reading. The fewer words and sentences I see at once the less my eyes jump around the page.

However when I writing about things that happened long ago and I'm processing how it impacted the way I am or behave long hand writing seems to be my preferred way to write. It probably because handwriting is slower that typing or swiping. I assume that it gives me more time to think through the memory.

Don't give up hope, Sweety!

You're still so young!

I've journaled for most of my 70 years. Now I can't even accomplish that. I always found writing a way to put into words what I dare not say. I've asked a friend to burn my journals when I die. There are things written that should not be read, we're never meant to be read. I also wrote short stories. That has also ended. So now I write to you. If you write don't stop, keep writing, no matter what you tell your journistic is what you need to truly say.

Sounds as though journaling has been an important part of your life. I came across Julia Cameron's* "The Artist's Way," through a friend, and found journaling useful when I just wanted to look back to see how I handled a situation or in times of crises. No judgements, just writing it all down. Perhaps you'd find it useful to get a copy of Cameron's book and do the workshop and see if it offers any assistance. Or perhaps you're already familiar with it.

*Cameron was married to Martin Scorsese in 1976, and her husband left her for Liza Minelli, then appearing with them in 'New York, New York.' " Cameron teaches courses on film making (at Northwestern University in Evanston) and workshops around the country.