I journal most days these days. It's become a very centering nearly daily ritual and is something i would recommend anyone.
I don't use any templates or set patterns, usually it's just a brain dump. At times a release, like a tap being opened, and other times it's the exact opposite, it's like banging your head against a wall.
One thing that i have noticed myself doing fairly often is using certain adjectives/similes/metaphors to describe my feelings. Especially if they're hard to resolve. A few excerpts from my notes over the last year:
This feels like a nugget, very dense, very hard exterior. Maybe I should back off of it for bit, give it room to breathe. I can try that, just requires patience.
It’s like a plugged heart, it doesn’t flow has richly as it should. Because when it flows I feel.
That’s one thought. It does seem to ease the knot a little bit.
I do not want to be spread too thin again
A definitely feeling of disconnect, also a small blockage, though it’s not nearly as dry as before
Being drunk on this emotion, should honesty be one of the highest-lights of the human experience. It probably is, but being drunk on this alone just seems so incomplete
I’m sad when I really want something but it doesn’t work out, I feel anxiety when I expect it to and it doesn’t. Sadness feels like a pure emotion, innocent. Sadness I can deal with. Anxiety is harsher, more mysterious, harder to befriend, harder to understand.
Writing this note. The voice in my head tells me it won’t be useful, but I’ve done this enough where I know I feel much more alive and myself when I do.Is it the prospect of self reflection, it feels like working against a rubber band as I type this
There are a few usual ones, using words like flowing, harsh, pure etc are definitely common ones. But often when i'm unable to really place something i end up having to work around it with a metaphor. This usually helps me circle in on what it might be behind the layers.
At different times i've used different ways to describe similar themes, easing knots, dense nuggets, i feel they allow me to form a representation of the unknown/unresolved feeling that i can examine further. It's a way to give myself a starting point to hone in on what it might be, and also allows me to ease my way in rather than try and break through with a battering ram by instantly labelling it. The latter approach almost always resulting in a mis-attribution of either cause or effect. I'm unsure of how to end this post. Will figure out later
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