Stoic Journalling Progress

The title of this post has the word progress in it but really it’s probably a regression? Or adaptation. update? Can I just call it -gress? Hah

Ryan Holiday often says that journalling IS Stoicism. This daily practice more than any other is the philosophy in action. It reminds ourselves of our wisdoms that we have taught ourselves from our readings or thoughts from our experiences. We often find patterns in our writing, writing things over and over again noticing a trail of thought. The repetition of acknowledging our thought patterns and actions reminds ourselves of who we are.

Before starting to put up my thoughts online I have dabbled into journalling here and there. To be fair I have not done this a lot before, I often found myself sitting and staring blankly at an empty page for a long period of time and being lost with my thoughts.

Over the course of the last couple months I have been filling up my journal with my thoughts and feelings with no sense of direction or topics. At first it was cathartic and eye opening to see my thoughts and feelings on paper looking back as I reflected over what transpired each day. This journalling strategy is to destress and decouple my thoughts while noting the interesting events and my actions, thoughts and feelings that happened in my day.After a good first length of journalling I examined my past journals gaining insights of myself.

Since than I continued the same journalling approach.

For now during the time of self isolation, where everyday is much the same my journalling entries are not pretty much just as blended. So for now it feels as though journalling has not given me much value besides a hobby that I must keep.

So it seems that now I must look to changing up how I would journal to gain new benefits. I find myself feeling that I have had enough of the some monotone thoughts for the past weeks. Therefore I am not sure if journalling about my thoughts and feelings over the same daily events is effective anymore.

To be fair it speaks to the lack of varied activities I have throughout my days and weeks. So…. there is something else that can be addressed.

It is time for me to look into structuring my journalling sessions and forming intuitive questions and prompts to write about. Or perhaps I can change when I journal. Currently I write down everything at the end of my day as a means to settle down my thoughts, which helped with ending the day on a peaceful note.

Marcus Aurelius actually journaled in the morning despite having challenges arising early. This was his means to write down all his thoughts and feelings in order to face the day ahead.

This is an odd mental struggle that I am experiencing. It is still best to keep at journalling, in other words: JUST DO IT. The question that came after a long period of directionless journalling is: How can I make this better?

I am all about experimentation. For the next 30 days I will continue to journal in my evenings about my reactions to events that happened over the course of the day. It is still a great means to verbalize things out on paper that I won’t normally say. I want to add some interesting prompts and questions in my entries to extend out the mental conversations I have with myself.