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I’m a big believer of not forcing yourself to create when you’re not feeling it, but I also think it’s important to find time for yourself each day to focus on the positives and reflect, so I’m going to try and start daily journaling again from 1 July. To help support me with this, I’m embedding the work of Megan C. Hayes in the prompts for July’s #JournalInMyStyle challenge. Perhaps these ideas will help you too.
I’ve been a fan of Megan’s work since I first heard her on an episode of Hashtag Authentic nearly three years ago. At that stage, I was already a regular journaler but it was very much more of a brain dump/getting things off my chest kind of practice. Hearing her talk about positive journaling was something of a revelation.
Her first book, Write Yourself Happy: The Art of Positive Journaling, focuses on how we can use positive journaling to ‘find joy, serenity, contentment and much more‘. She details how we can use the science of happiness to literally write ourselves happier, focusing on eight key positive emotions:
1. Joy
2. Gratitude
3. Serenity
4. Interest
5. Hope
6. Pride
7. Awe
8. Love
Don’t worry if you think you tend to be more negative in your reflective journaling. You don’t have to write about how you feel – instead, try focusing on what you need. And be authentic. ‘Your journal can become a space in which to uncover and explore your most positive emotions, and enable you to thrive as a result… Positive psychology shows us that even the most seemingly simple changes in our lives can have a big impact, making us more resilient, creative and engaged in the face of life’s challenges. We can, in many ways, cultivate our own positivity.‘
Megan recently published a new book called The Joy of Writing Things Down: The Everyday Zen of Putting Pen to Paper. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I don’t just enjoy journaling; I’m a lover of all things pen and paper. I’m a list-maker, hand letterer, journaler, planner… And this year in particular I’ve been using my stationery addiction to improve my mental wellbeing.
Writing itself is therapeutic, offering a way to ‘gain greater self-understanding, calmness and happiness… Writing is an organizing tool, a communication tool and even a self-soothing tool‘.
Take list-making, for example: ‘The act of writing a list can instantly quell anxiety and help us to feel we have a handle on a muddle of material or accumulation of tasks… What if we used the list-writing habit to help us recall what’s most important to us too? If our lists also keep track of the things we really want to remember, such as who and what we love, why we’re grateful to be here at all an what it is that makes our lives worth living?‘
There are so many types of lists which you could include in your journal. I really liked the strengths list: ‘One list that might serve to motivate us more than any other is a list of our individual character strengths, also known by psychologists as our ‘values in action’… Researchers in the USA have found that acknowledging and applying our individual strengths in our lives serves to support us both in overcoming times of adversity as well as thriving in times of opportunity.’ It’s a little like the ‘pride’ prompt I featured in last month’s prompts but it’s something I’d like to explore further.
There’s also the to-not-do list: ‘The standard to do list can become clogged with the necessary administrative detritus of daily life… Our actual actions, rather than our ambitions often provide the most robust evidence of our true values.’ There’s so much I need to cut out of my life, like always apologising, and saying yes when I want to say no. What about you?
Megan talks about getting artsy and this part made me smile: ‘As a playful child, perhaps you were enamoured of the colourful cosmos of gel pens, bright pencil cases and glitter glue of the stationery shops. Treat that inner child to some special stationery and decorate with doodles, stickers or colourful washi tape… for no other reason than to let your guard down and play.‘ I don’t know about you but I never grew out of this!
She goes on to talk about creative journals, which can take many forms: ‘They might act as a kind of vision board, a scrapbook, a sketchbook, or even a place for poems and short stories, as well as life goals… They should be a place to revel in inefficiency. Many journaling methods revolve around productivity and efficiency, but creativity is inefficient by design. As soon as we are too prescriptive or regimented, we can stunt any real imagination and shut out possibility.’
My journaling practice has changed a lot over the last few years; it’s currently a mash-up of bullet journaling, diary, reflective space, and scrapbook. And I love it. How would you describe yours?
Her work provides so much food for thought for future prompts but I wanted to pick some highlights for the July challenge, even though some are quite similar to recent prompts. Last month I included a ‘mixed media’ prompt and I’m keen to recap the idea of vision boards: ‘Vision boards can be very meaningful, but they can also tend towards the materialistic… It might be a good idea to think not only about what our dreams might look like on a vision board, but also how we want them to feel.‘ I work in communications by day and something we keep coming back to is what we want our audience to think, feel, and do. This is something I think about when it comes to journaling too.
I often merge my journaling and lettering work by featuring a quote and I’m pleased that this is something Megan refers to: ‘The words of others can be supremely motivating… There is nothing quite like the motivating phrases said by others much wiser than we are… We are loveable, if sometimes misguided, human beings. Collecting up the quotations of others teaches that we still have things to learn; that we will, in fact, always have things to learn.’
Pre-ordering my copy of The Joy of Writing also gained me free access to Megan’s course ‘The Joyful Writing Habit: A Mini-Course for Journalers and Creative Writers‘. At its heart, it’s about exploring creative cycles and creating daily habits, something that I’m particularly keen to commit to for the second half of the year.
So, with the above in mind, let’s explore this month’s prompts:
- July cover page – a regular around these parts!
- List – any list will do, whether it’s a strengths list, a to-not-do list, or something different
- Letter to self – younger, present, or future
- Get artsy – show off your favourite tools and accessories
- Quote – could even be an affirmation, whatever floats your boat
- Positive emotions – whatever kind of spread or layout you like, featuring one or more of the positive emotions Megan refers to (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, awe, love)
- Vision board – you can scrapbook this, write a list of goals, or illustrate
Remember, anyone can take part. Just pop #JournalInMyStyle in your caption or comments and tag @ACornishGeekLetters and I’ll share your post/s to my Stories. You don’t need to post every day, just join in as and when you’d like. I’d love to see what you create 🙂