Why are you still lying to yourself in your journal?
The cursor has blinked roughly 100 times before I’ve felt brave enough to begin typing this entry.
“Just fucking start clicky-clacking! This happens every single time you write. You say you don’t know what to write, you begin censoring yourself, you begin discrediting anything that flows to you because you override it by asking, “But what value is this for the reader?” instead of why you originally began writing. To feel. To express, to play and to discover. Just start dancing your fingertips over the black keyboard and allow yourself to let go and see.”
That’s my inner monologue. Yeah. It’s me v me again. Good morning!
And she’s right. Starting the entry always feels the hardest for those reasons. I have never sat down at the blank page and already known what I’m going to write about or what message comes through, or what story feels the need to be shared. I just start. So here goes.
At 4am every morning, I snooze my alarm three times before I peel myself regretfully out of my warm bed. My daughters little toes pressed up against the left side of my ribcage remind me instantly that I have responsibilities that are much larger than my immediate desires to curl under the covers and ignore the world.
I silently sneak out of our bedroom after wrapping myself tightly in my white bathrobe and sliding on my soft beige slippers my grandmother gifted me for Mother’s Day. The boiling of the kettle takes roughly 90 seconds. I’m yawning, putting my hair in a messy bun on top of my head while I mentally coach myself for the day ahead of me. “What’s on the schedule? What content am I teaching the class today? Was there any admin I missed? Is today Library Day? Did I re-freeze her lunchbox ice pack? I need to book a car service. Don’t forget to reply to so and so. This afternoon I need to put a load of washing in for uniforms. What’s the deposit for the birthday cake again? Ah! Stop. Breathe. I have time. Today is a new day - I can do one thing at a time.” And then as the kettle beeps to let me know it’s finished, I’m sucked back into the present. All I need to do right now is pour hot water into my coffee, grab my journal and pen and connect with myself before the sun comes up, and before the world demands me.
I sit down at my coffee table, legs crossed underneath the cold marble top. I begin with writing the date on the top right hand side and then I write my stream of consciousness verbatim. The point is to filter out the noise like what I have while making a coffee so I can eventually get to my subconscious and really find out what’s happening with Chenise.
When people ask me, “How do you journal? How do you know what to write?” - the answer is simple. You write every word that comes into your mind, you don’t censor yourself there. It does not need to make sense. You do not need to be grammatically correct. You don’t need to have neat handwriting. You don’t have to ‘have a message or a point’. The point of journalling, is to connect with yourself. You need to write three pages minimum before you can get closer to yourself. My journal is chaos. It’s raw, ugly, unfiltered, messy. Because that’s how my brain is before I give it the space to work itself out.
I see online that people are lying to themselves in their journals and I get that. But if you’re performing for a fake audience you will never shift your identity nor ever really get to know yourself. There have been MANY times my mind is thinking something and my body feeling, and my hand pauses on the page because I go, “No. There’s no fucking way I’m writing that. That needs to stay inside.” but I force myself to write it anyway. And you would be surprised how freeing it is. To write it down. Get it out. Burn it after. Rip it up and throw it away. Run it under water so the ink bleeds away if you need to get rid of the evidence but you must write it down.
It has to come out of your body.
When a thought stays in your mind, either consciously or subconsciously, your nervous system still holds onto it. Your brain can’t fully process something it’s still carrying. Writing it out forces the thought to travel from the body, down your arm, through your hand, onto the page. That physical act of externalising it is what allows your brain to finally file it rather than keep recycling it in the background.
Theres something called the ‘zeigarnik effect’ which is where the brain obsessively replays unfinished things. Writing a thought down tells your brain, ‘this has been recorded. You can let it go.’
And when you write without censoring (the messy, ugly, unspeakable shit) you’re working with your prefrontal cortex and your limbic system at the same time. You are literally giving language to feelings that otherwise live in your body as tension, anxiety, or just that annoying low hum of unease you can’t explain. Naming it moves it.
Typing doesn’t do it the same way by the way. You have to handwrite for it to work. Typing is processed in the language centre whereas handwriting activates more of the brain. It’s slower, more deliberate and more embodied.
The resistance you feel before writing the hard thing? That’s your nervous system knowing its about to release something.
Now. Go grab your pen and paper and start fucking writing.
Most ardently,
Chenise Sinclaire.
