[HN Gopher] Self-Dialogue as a Journaling Strategy
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Self-Dialogue as a Journaling Strategy
Author : gala8y
Score : 84 points
Date : 2022-07-26 12:10 UTC (10 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (sadgrl.online)
| chrsig wrote:
| > I must acknowledge my internal dialogue - more than one voice
| with differing perspectives that both reside inside of me. This
| means making my entry more of a dialogue, one that explores many
| avenues and looks at things from all sides.
|
| I once took the approach of journaling in a spreadsheet to
| address this. It was actually pretty useful.
|
| I took two approaches:
|
| - A column per "aspect", and row per topic. I factored time out
| of the equation, and let each cell mature and become more well
| articulated. Not every aspect had something to say about every
| topic.
|
| - A column per "aspect" and a row per day, allowing variance in
| the topic. Each cell becomes what that voice is saying at the
| given time.
|
| This let me see both evolution of thought and accumulation of
| thought. It lead to me having a very full and rich understanding
| of myself at the time and what I thought and felt.
|
| Ultimately, it did quite well at getting me through a tough time
| and helping me make decisions on very difficult topics.
| I_complete_me wrote:
| I was introduced to journalling by the book "The Intensive
| Journal" written by Ira Progroff. It was mesmerizing at the time
| (me being young and all). I abandoned it because it was too much
| "quantified self" long before that term became popular. I checked
| and now there is some website associated with it promising the
| sun, moon and stars. Suitable if astronomy is your bag I'd say -
| caveat emptor is all I am saying.
|
| However, I think that the practice of keeping a journal is
| generally a good thing if it's not done exclusively for navel
| gazing. One great benefit I find is that it proves we are all
| "fools unto ourselves if watched".
| parentheses wrote:
| I have found this type of "self examination journaling" to be
| very valuable. Rather than spilling random thoughts on paper, I
| try to study myself like a subject and ask myself things. I
| interview myself on paper and uncover some great insights about
| who I am and why I do things. I've never been on top of it as
| much as I should, but what little I have done has helped me
| overcome some big personal obstacles.
|
| My variation:
|
| - through therapy and random thoughts, collect questions for
| oneself (see below)
|
| - when you journal, pick a question based on feeling, aim to
| spend all the time writing and go!
|
| I like to meditate afterwords because it puts me in a very open
| and receptive place when I journal.
|
| Questions I've found effective:
|
| Why do I do X? instead of Y? when faced with Z? What should I do?
|
| What are my motivations? Inspirations? Fears? Where do they come
| from? Which ones are healthy? Which ones are winning? How do I
| make them converge?
|
| How do I identify my inner child's desires? Which ones are
| important? Which ones are not? How do I make myself happy while
| still being responsible?
| kradeelav wrote:
| Thank you for posting these lovely, thoughtful prompts. just
| added them to my list of own prompts in the journal. :)
| karencarits wrote:
| The poem _Unfinished duet_ by Richard Siken is an absorbing
| example of what I interpret as a self-dialogue
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/crushedfingers.tumblr.com/post/...
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| Reading all these journaling posts on HN with interest but
| struggle to get into it myself. I find it just ends up my going
| around in circles or getting frustrated, but I think that's just
| me, whenever i sit down to think about anything and try and make
| sense of anything in my life, I really struggle, sometimes if i'm
| able to think clearly I feel good about half way through but when
| I try and bring it all together i'm just overwhelmed.
|
| Not being able to see the direct benefit, i'm not sure if there
| is any overall law or else it's just a big time wasting exercise.
| It's also hard to do at the end of the day due to low energy.
|
| The trouble is there are so many things I can do for my mental
| health and improve myself, perhaps all help, but there is just no
| time. Meditation can be great, but it's a huge time suck, taking
| a walk out in nature, nice but takes more time, exercise has the
| biggest benefit for me but takes a lot of time and energy, but
| when am i meant to get anything done after i finish work if I do
| all of these? Then to fit journaling in, I have to stop working
| earlier to sit down and just write my thoughts?
| GrahamL wrote:
| I've been journaling for over 10 years, and I can empathize
| with everything you're saying here. I wrote a short guide for
| effective journaling here[1], and plan on writing a lot more on
| the topic soon. I do have some thoughts about what you've
| written specifically though--I hope it's helpful.
|
| _> I find it just ends up my going around in circles or
| getting frustrated, but I think that 's just me_
|
| It's not just you. Circular thinking or rumination is very
| common. I find journaling helpful in these instances because it
| is a lot easier for me to recognize that I'm ruminating when I
| write my thoughts down. When they're physically in front of me,
| you can see the looping. When it's ephemeral thoughtstuff in
| your head, it can be a lot harder to recognize.
|
| The trick (for me) is finding a way to escape that loop once
| I've recognized it. That's why I edit all my journal entries
| after an initial stream-of-consciousness braindump.
|
| There are a number of techniques you can play with to broaden
| your viewpoint--write down an interpretation of events that is
| the opposite of what you think, imagine the situation from a
| caring friend's perspective, etc.
|
| It's helpful to think of this as play, which brings me to my
| next thought.
|
| _> whenever i sit down to think about anything and try and
| make sense of anything in my life, I really struggle ... i 'm
| just overwhelmed._
|
| _> It 's also hard to do at the end of the day due to low
| energy._
|
| It is possible you have set too-high expectations for your
| journal entries. You will look at a majority of entries,
| immediately after writing them, and think, "What trash, I will
| never want to read this again."
|
| That's fine. You might be right--maybe it's worthless. But
| you'll be surprised at how frequently, a year later, you find
| that you were wrong. It is interesting to read those honest
| entries that are twisted and convoluted and just messed up.
|
| And you will make progress over time, if you're flexible with
| your mindset and open to change. Most entries will be ugly and
| definitely not revelatory. That's fine--it's the accumulation
| of observations that leads to breakthroughs. Putting too much
| pressure on the individual entries themselves can actually be
| counterproductive.
|
| _> The trouble is there are so many things I can do for my
| mental health and improve myself ... when am i meant to get
| anything done after i finish work if I do all of these?_
|
| This is a real problem. I don't love the narrative around
| "self-care" I'm frequently exposed to. Industry has a vested
| interest in making you feel like their solution is one you
| absolutely need to incorporate, to the point that self-care
| becomes yet another external imposition for many people.
|
| To be sure, all these things you list can be helpful, but
| getting in touch with yourself and deciding what you need and
| when you need it is most important.
|
| [1] https://www.indelibleapp.com/effective-journaling
| ALittleLight wrote:
| One of the biggest benefits I find with journaling is that I
| will often solve problems for myself. I'll write about a
| problem and then find myself typing out "I should do..." and
| when I read that I know what I should do.
|
| There is a story about an old man going to watch the ancient
| Olympics. The place is packed and he can't find a seat until he
| arrives at the Spartan's section where the Spartans all leap to
| their feet to offer the old man their seats. The crowd of
| Greeks all cheer and the story's narrator observes sadly "All
| the Greeks know what is right but only the Spartans do what is
| right."
|
| I think there is a similar disconnect in my brain. Sometimes it
| is very easy to know what is right and harder to actually do
| what is right. When you're writing though you can easily
| leverage the "know what is right" part of your brain and when
| you see what you should do typed out in front of you, it's
| easier to engage the "do" part of the brain. You force yourself
| to confront the discrepancy between what you know you should do
| and what you are actually doing.
|
| I have benefited from this in everything from arguing with my
| wife ("I should apologize") to debugging ("I should make sure
| function X does what I think it does"). I have a standing order
| to myself to do what I think I should be doing.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| To paraphrase Feynman, writing isn't a record of one's
| thinking, it IS the thinking.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| From Ted Chiang's truly wonderful "The Truth of Fact, The
| Truth of Feeling":
|
| > As he practiced his writing, Jijingi came to understand
| what Moseby had meant; writing was not just a way to record
| what someone said; it could help you decide what you would
| say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces
| of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you
| wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks
| in your hands and push them into different arrangements.
| Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn't
| if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could
| improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Yes, this, exactly. Beautifully expressed!
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| You are not alone. I don't journal, but I've tried on & off
| over the years. I find I had more 'fun' building the framework*
| to start journaling then actually doing it.
|
| IMHO Journals work good for those who are not introspective.
| It's a way to "discover" how you really feel about a
| topic/day/week/trend and to extrapolate from there.
|
| I already know the dozen or so reasons "why" I am unhappy, but
| I also recognize the choices that I made to get to this
| position and it's better then the alternative.
|
| * from VIM keybindings, to EMACS, to a web-diary, to some other
| variations I've discovered that my roadblock to writing it down
| isn't my hesitancy to write it, but to face the truth of what I
| have to write.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| This is a good point.
|
| I think the way my mind works, is it's always thinking about
| this kinda stuff, it's always being introspective. All I need
| to do is not be super busy or have something taking up my
| attention and i'm doing it automatically anyway.
|
| Cooking, cleaning, showing, even while I browse online, i'm
| constantly looking for things and data to match what i'm
| introspecting about.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| I used to worry about this, and then I realized I have years of
| internet comments that may as well be my journal. Going back to
| any of them will remind me of what I was thinking around that
| time. Same happens to me with screenshots, like was mentioned
| in that post yesterday titled "take more screenshots."
| dizzant wrote:
| As with most things related to the interior life, what works
| best for you is intensely personal. For myself, I have
| journaled sporadically for the last decade, as the occasion
| presented itself.
|
| At first, I bought the notebook to catalogue a trip to Europe.
| The first pages contain detailed daily logs of about 2 months
| of my life while I was there. At the time, I recall feeling
| like I was wasting valuable time that I could spend having more
| experiences, and there are many missing days as a result. But
| now 10 years later those pages contain stories I have failed to
| retain in my memory, and help me to reconstruct the days I
| didn't record. People and interactions I would have forgotten,
| short-lived but vivid crushes, a tomato sauce recipe
| transcribed poorly via a picture dictionary from a retired
| Italian grandmother at a hostel in Lourdes.
|
| Other times, I've used the journal to clear my head during
| times of turmoil. Weak and unfinished thoughts on difficult
| circumstances, poetic images of my emotions, scribbled bullet
| lists of what happened and in what order as I tried to piece
| things together.
|
| For a spell, the same journal was where I kept daily todo
| lists. Today, I'm using it as an outlet for my personal
| thoughts and goals, to keep them distinct from research notes
| and work notes. I find that writing them down helps me to
| clarify what I want and to move in a consistent direction over
| longer periods than focus and determination alone would allow.
|
| The only consistent format for my journal is putting a date at
| the top of each entry and writing in pen so I can't erase it.
|
| Every time I look back over what I've written, I take something
| different away; Rarely do I read what's there and count the act
| of writing it as a waste of time. It's a window into the past.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| It takes a bit of motivation to get me there, but once a month
| usually works out for the most part. I summarize my thoughts on
| stuff going on in the world and with my life.
|
| I don't use any fancy software. Just some markdown files in a
| private git repo.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I also had a hard time ever keeping a journal until I sat down
| one day and started working through The Artist's Way [1], which
| my partner had on her shelf. There are parts of it that don't
| really work for me, maybe a little too self-help-y, but the
| main practice of what the author calls "morning pages" ended up
| getting me going.
|
| It's very similar to what the article's author ended up hitting
| upon -- just sit and write out the internal monologue. Let it
| go freely and don't worry about it making sense or having
| direction. Don't think about it too much and don't be precious
| about it. If there's a thing that comes up and you want to work
| it out, that's fine, start unpacking it. If it's just "man I
| really feel tired today" and other things that feel like
| nonsense, that's fine too.
|
| Personally, I went from never keeping a journal to having a
| daily journaling practice for maybe 5 years after following The
| Artist's Way for the 12 weeks of prompts it gives you. Now I'm
| only doing it a few times a week, but that's because I'm
| working on other things that the journaling brought me to.
|
| [1] https://www.theartistswaybook.com/
| gala8y wrote:
| I think when one starts writing all the messiness of one's life
| / thinking shows up even stronger and makes 'writing' to feel
| like a wall. I have tons of notes from all over the years, but
| only now, gradually, I tend to treat it more and more as a
| perfect way to make things clear and have fun doing it. I see
| it (looking from the practice) as a self-enforcing process,
| when it is kept alive it starts to bring flowers.
|
| So I would rather talk about simply 'writing' and even finding
| different modes of writing - themes, journal, goal oriented,
| mumbling, notes, thought,...
|
| As someone put it (I cant credit properly): Writing is nature's
| way of telling you how sloppy your thinking is. ;)
|
| What is proposed in the article is even stronger, it is to talk
| with oneself using writing, dialoging as in... I ask X, is
| anoyone (inside) who would like to answer? ... and so on...
| Strong stuff. :)
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| I never thought I would be a journaler, but got into it by
| accident.
|
| I read self improvement books regularly, and I started keeping
| a journal of what I was reading. I try to read 10 pages each
| day, and at the end of my section I just write a paragraph
| summarizing what I had read.
|
| After awhile the summaries started naturally including examples
| from my life so that I could remember the points better. And my
| own personal goals and aspirations. Once I was there it isn't
| that different from a standard "life" journal, but having the
| book you are reading really gives you a crutch to lean into and
| grow off of.
| egypturnash wrote:
| There's only so much time in a day. Try one for a few months.
| Did it help? Maybe keep doing it then. Definitely try something
| else if it didn't. Maybe keep a simple log of it - just a date,
| the fact that you did it, and if anything interesting happened
| maybe write that down too. Maybe don't if that gets in the way
| of you just sitting down and doing the thing.
|
| How can you carve your time up differently? What would your
| life look like if you replaced that "I need a break, I'm gonna
| look at HN/Tiktok/Twitter/etc" reflex with "I need a break, I'm
| gonna meditate for a few minutes" or "I need a break, I'm gonna
| get up and dance to this bangin' tune that just came on"?
|
| ("Walking meditation" is a thing too, and a walk out in nature
| is a great place to do it!)
|
| And: how can you bend your life so that your job is enjoyable;
| how can you bend your life so that the time you spend "at work"
| is well-spent, and that you don't have to waste extra hours in
| the parts that help?
| throwanem wrote:
| > whenever i sit down to think about anything and try and make
| sense of anything in my life, I really struggle
|
| I used to feel much the same, but also found after I started
| keeping a diary in early 2018 that this got a _lot_ easier.
| Being able to refer back to my earlier thoughts and
| considerations, as I wrote them down and thought through them
| in the moment, saved a lot of time in "getting up to speed" on
| prior context, and also enabled me to test my hypotheses for
| why I felt a way or what might help me feel differently.
|
| It's made a huge difference, despite that I didn't start with
| that expectation, or really _any_ expectation - I had a flu and
| a 102deg fever for most of that week and the next, I didn 't go
| into it expecting anything to make much sense at all! I just
| started, and stuck with it, and that seems to have been the
| thing that counted.
|
| For you it might be worth a try, or it might not. That's true
| of anything, and I think it may be worth considering that it's
| not necessarily possible to know going in what's really going
| to help and what isn't. More important, I think, is to be
| willing to give things a try, in order to find out whether they
| really _are_ useful. If that means working a little less to
| make space, then sure, to some extent there 's a tradeoff
| there. But on the other hand, if you don't put the work in on
| yourself, who else is going to be able to?
| dbtc wrote:
| Zen saying: "You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day.
| Unless you're too busy, then you should sit for an hour."
|
| Gandhi: "I have so much to accomplish today that I must
| meditate for two hours instead of one."
|
| Meditation is like a time-doubler for me. Something like 1 hour
| of meditation makes me able to do 4 hours worth of productive
| stuff in the next 2 hours. But the hard part is the initial
| investment of time. You have to spend time to make time?
|
| I really like vipassana, but journaling is also a meditation.
| raintrees wrote:
| after I get done with a bicycle rise (I do push while I ride,
| like pulling on my cleats/toe clips, not just pushing - And I
| rarely coast) so a shower is usually recommended for me after
| (to give anyone a sense of my exertion).
|
| And during the last part of the ride and the time thereafter,
| ideas frequently start flowing, I see solutions to problems
| that now appear obvious, where before I felt stymied.
|
| And that is what I hope to get out of journaling...
|
| ymmv, of course :)
| raintrees wrote:
| This clicks for me. I have numerous barely started journals,
| along with varying levels of guilt about not writing every day,
| and a lack of feeling anything is coming out of the process.
|
| I am now inspired to open one back up...
| PaulsWallet wrote:
| I highly recommend the book "Your Head is a Houseboat" to anyone
| who wants to start journaling but doesn't really know how to get
| into it. It is a very approachable, almost child-like
| introduction to your brain and the voices in your head.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| > I must be completely honest and make no attempt to hide from
| thoughts or feelings that arise. This can only be done (for me,
| personally) when I'm sure that no one's eyes will ever see it.
| Only then do I allow myself to be completely open.
|
| Mainly a question for the author, who is unlikely to see this,
| but how do you ensure that no one's eyes will ever see your
| journal? I guess I _could_ set up automatic GPG encryption for
| org-roam, and journal in there, but I 'd much rather journal on
| paper. A safe? A cash box?
| dizzant wrote:
| For me, "no one" translates more accurately to "no one I care
| about." I keep my journal physically on my person, in the
| backpack with my laptop. If the backpack is stolen, I actually
| don't care if the thief reads my notes -- maybe he'll find
| something of value there. More than likely, he won't care about
| my interior conflicts.
|
| My wife and friends know not to look through the journal
| without my permission, and I trust them. If I didn't trust
| them, I would find different friends.
| jbmny wrote:
| I use vim-gnupg. It makes the whole thing a breeze. And in my
| experience, the author is completely right: I won't open up all
| the way unless I have guaranteed privacy. It's not that I have
| anything criminal to hide, but we all have things we're
| uncomfortable putting on the page and being forced to
| acknowledge as reality.
| leobg wrote:
| This is actually an exercise in Gestalt therapy: You argue your
| position from two chairs. It works.
| [deleted]
| taylorius wrote:
| This seems a very interesting approach. I find i have multiple
| "voices" in my head, all of which are parts of me. I can have
| conversations between these mini personalities,but I've never
| tried writing them down. I think I will give it a go. Needs to be
| super secure journal though! :-)
| wonder_er wrote:
| I've been reading "No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring
| Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model", and I wonder
| if you might find the book worth the read!
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| If you are someone who doesn't always click the articles before
| reading the discussion, make sure to check the page out for this
| one.
|
| The design of this blog is amazing.
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