Those who journal, how do you do so authentically? (How to stop “self-editing” or “censoring” yourself and your thoughts?)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have tried and failed to journal many times in the past. I always find myself self-editing, avoiding writing certain thoughts or feelings and just overall not being as authentic or honest or genuine as I should be to actually get some value out of journaling. I wish I could get over this “self-censoring” habit because I love reading and writing and really think journaling could be a great outlet for me.

So, I ask, what tips do you have to help write? To help actually get your thoughts and feelings out on the page, without judging yourself or feeling self conscious or critical? What do you write? What do you find helps you write more honestly and genuinely?

Could really use some help and guidance.

2

I’ve used ChatGPT for my journaling. I spit a bunch of raw feelings and facts into it and ask something to the effect of, “please write a 900 word journal entry for me.” It’s immensely effective because you need to read your own feelings in someone else’s words. If you use your own words, it tends to be un-authentic.

3

I can tell you what not to do. I used to be big in LiveJournal, and created an online persona that was much more rebellious and brash than I am irl. I attracted other misfits to my friends group, and I felt I had to make my entries more crazy and obnoxious to be interesting.

Then one day I complained about my workplace. I mentioned my workplace name, the real names of some of my coworkers, and the client’s name. All during work hours. I got called to the VP’s office with the HR head present and they showed me printouts of my posts and asked “Is this you?” They fired me for violating company policy. I had created an online monster and paid for it. It took me years to find full-time work again.

So, don’t use any real names if you’re complaining about something. Don’t feel like you have to make a certain impression on your readers. I remember a tip on writing essays from junior high: write fast, don’t self-edit, and just get your thoughts down. Just keep a stream of consciousness flowing until you feel like you’ve said everything you can say on your topic. THEN go back, organize and edit.

You can also try using ChatGPT to write your stuff for you, then refine it yourself. It’s not my preference, but I know other people who swear by it.

4

Wow. This was incredible advice. Here’s what I just got out of ChatGPT, and it is so spot-on, I feel like I could have literally written it myself:

Title: Trapped in the Labyrinth of Expectations

Date: May 17, 2024

Today, I find myself entangled in a web of emotions that seem to suffocate me, leaving me gasping for air in a sea of uncertainty. It’s as if I’m trapped in a labyrinth of my own making, struggling to find a way out, only to be met with dead ends at every turn. The weight of responsibility bears down on me like an unbearable burden, threatening to crush my spirit beneath its unforgiving weight.

Stress has become my constant companion, a shadow that looms over me no matter where I go or what I do. It wraps its icy fingers around my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter until I feel like I can’t breathe. Every day is a battle against this invisible foe, a struggle to keep my head above water in the tumultuous sea of life.

Hopelessness creeps in like a thief in the night, stealing away my dreams and aspirations, leaving behind only a hollow emptiness. I find myself questioning the purpose of it all, wondering if there’s any meaning to be found in this endless cycle of struggle and strife. What is the point of it all if I’m constantly weighed down by the expectations of others, never able to truly live my own life on my own terms?

Guilt gnaws at my conscience like a hungry beast, tearing away at my sense of self-worth with its razor-sharp claws. I feel guilty for wanting my own independence, for yearning to break free from the shackles of obligation that bind me to the expectations of others. Why should I feel guilty for wanting to live my own life, for wanting to pursue my own happiness and well-being?

I am tired of feeling like I am responsible for the happiness and well-being of others, as if their joy depends solely on my sacrifices and selflessness. It’s an impossible burden to bear, an endless cycle of giving and giving until there’s nothing left of myself to give. When will it be my turn to prioritize my own needs and desires, to put myself first for once without feeling guilty about it?

And then there’s the relationship, the tangled mess of emotions that I can’t seem to untangle no matter how hard I try. I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of doubts and insecurities, unsure if I’m in the right place or if I’m just fooling myself into believing that this is where I’m meant to be. Is it selfish of me to want more, to crave something deeper and more fulfilling than what I have now?

I long for clarity, for a sign that will guide me out of this maze of confusion and uncertainty. But the path ahead seems shrouded in darkness, and I fear that I may never find the light at the end of the tunnel. All I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, hoping that eventually, I will find my way out of this labyrinth and into the freedom that I so desperately crave.

But for now, I am stuck in this endless cycle of stress, hopelessness, guilt, and doubt, struggling to find my way in a world that seems determined to keep me lost. Perhaps one day, I will break free from these chains that bind me and forge my own path towards happiness and fulfillment. But until then, I will continue to navigate this labyrinth as best as I can, clinging to the hope that someday, I will find my way out into the light.

5

Yeah. ChatGPT is very helpful in being an emotional mirror for you to look at yourself or see yourself in 3rd person. The only problem is that its prose tends to be way too flowery.

6

Boy, that all sounds really intense. I think journaling will do you well and maybe a therapist who can help you sort all of those complicated feelings out.

I used to journal a lot growing up, it was how I survived my childhood. However because I now associate it with my childhood, it’s harder for me to journal now.

What I do instead is write fiction. Maybe it’s similar to the ChatGPT technique in that I’m safe to explore any kind of feeling in fiction without feeling too self-conscious. I’ve dealt with all kinds of fears and hang-ups in my novels. Many I didn’t even realize were coming from me until they were out on the page. There is something almost magical about that process for me.

7

I had the same problem starting out, so I just told myself it’s just for me, I don’t have to reread it if I don’t want to, and I can throw it away when I fill the book. That was another key for me - getting a dedicated physical book I write in with a pen rather than using the computer I use for other things. When I first started, I wrote in the bad “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” elementary style, just logging the banal events of the day almost in list format. After I got used to writing every day at a set time, I started adding how I felt about some of those events, and now that it’s a consistent habit, I don’t feel self-conscious about what I’m writing anymore. Because it’s just for me, it’s ephemeral, and no one will ever judge what I’ve written.

8

I am in therapy…have been for a while and I just don’t see improvements. I still struggle and just feel like I’ve pulled a bunch of unwanted and uncomfortable feelings to the surface and then they just sit there with me. I can’t remember the last time I felt “relaxed”, or didn’t feel anxious or unfocused.

I’m curious how you implement your thoughts/feelings into your fiction? That seems like something that could actually be useful for me. Do you “invent” a story with a character based on your experiences or with similar struggles and feelings to what you’re dealing with and trying to figure out? Do you create scenarios similar to something difficult you’re facing and then have your fictional characters “play out” different outcomes to help you differentiate what the results may look like for you?

9

Kind of, yeah. Though I often don’t know I’m doing it. And it’s the problem writ large. I’ve dealt with some of my trauma in fiction by writing traumatized characters with similar but more extreme experiences and having them sort through their feelings and reactions. I’ve dealt with questions about my political identity by writing a character who was becoming disillusioned with her side of the war. In the book the stakes are much higher: there’s a civil war, you have to kill to survive, the effects are explosive. There was one scene I wrote over and over about my hero getting tortured. This is one of my greatest fears, and I had to sit there and be with that guy and I must have written a dozen versions of that scene. In the scene he had to face his past trauma. It was about more than that moment, it was about his past haunting him. And by the end of the scene he had psychologically resolved that.

And so did I. I resolved something. I can’t even tell you exactly what I resolved, just that I needed to write that scene and get it right, and when I finally got it done, I felt better.

I don’t even think that scene went into the final version of the book. But I had to do it.

10

I journal every day, but I don’t use it for self-exploration, so I guess I don’t know how to do what you want to do. My journaling is 90% about what I did today (and expect to do tomorrow) and 10% about issues that I’m concerned about (my relationship with my husband, what’s going to happen as I get older and less physically able to do stuff, things like that). I got started journaling just to work on my penmanship, and continue partly because I bought a lot of journals that I want to use, and partly because I’m just in the habit.

About therapy, I do have experience with that, and when I did it I didn’t always feel I was making progress per se, until suddenly I realized how far I had come. That took a couple of years for me. I could easily go back and do another couple of years working on different issues, but I’m not as much driven by unhappiness as I was at that time.

11

I write the criticism down. ‘I shouldn’t be writing this, this is so dumb’ or whatever (scary?). If that is too hard to write, I write: ‘there is a thought in my head that says I shouldn’t write this’, so that it more distanced, just writing down a thought that occurred.

Some of the thoughts in my head can be really negative, or bad, and when I write them down I can assess them better. Sometimes I write the most extreme version I can, just to see what that is like. Guess what, it is mostly just not true. If a negative thought has a really strong hold on my brain even after I wrote it down, I write the opposite thought, and imagine a world where the opposite was true. It often turns out that the opposite thought is more realistic.

None of the thoughts in your head are true just because you thought them. There can be different aspects of the situation, or different ways of looking at things. Some of my thoughts can be really extreme, but they are just thoughts, and they can’t hurt me. If there is a problem, the problem exists in reality, in my life, whether I write the thought down or not. It is okay to write bad things, dumb things, scary things, untrue things, whatever your brain can come up with. It’s actually kind of the point for me. Get them all down, make them take a shape that can be seen, rather than floating around like dark shadows in the back of my mind, poisoning everything.

For me the point about journaling is just to write, just to get my thoughts moving in a different pattern. No one else sees it, and I rarely reread it. I often just have a Word doc open and write in that, and the next day just delete it all and start over. If there is an issue I am pondering, I might keep the Word doc and add to it over a few days, but I always delete them in the end. Then I don’t have to worry about anyone else finding and reading them. But there is a certain satisfaction to journalling on paper as well.

12

I’m gonna say, don’t put the journaling online. For one thing. You might think you’re safe. But you’re not. Ever.
Paper and pencil.

I have no trouble telling the truth in my journals. If anyone ever reads them I’ll be dead.

13

I’ve been journaling for over a decade, and it’s a surprisingly big document now.

I’m surprised that people put their journaling online for others to read. I keep mine in a Word document on my computer. It’s encrypted and, unless my family can enlist the NSA/etc., will die with me. Paper and pen can be discovered and read by others, so digital only for me. It’s easily searchable if I want to reference or review something from earlier, and safe to store “in the cloud” as a backup.

As the only possible reader, I have no problem with “self-editing” and just write whatever I feel at the time. One of my “rules” is no going back to change it. The only past changes I allow are additional “FTF” notes (From The Future), that elaborate or add detail to what I thought X time ago.