Awhile back I wrote about a thing I like to call mental journaling, as an alternative to normal journaling. This is basically where you just simply imagine words in your mind, rather than actually writing or typing them out.
Since writing that post, I have had some new “revelations,” if you will, about the subject, and figured it was time for a follow-up post. With that, here you go:
10-15 minutes per day (alongside real journaling)
Over the last few months, I have come to realize that physical journaling and mental journaling each have their own unique set of pros and cons. For instance, physical journaling is great for keeping track of things numerically (in my case, the number of days since I started my diet), while setting aside specific time daily to practice mental journaling can help to reinforce that “muscle” in your brain, so to speak. That way, if you’re ever in a stressful situation and want to journal but can’t do so for real (out with friends, etc.), you’re better prepared to mentally journal instead, thanks to daily practice. Therefore, I feel it’s best to do BOTH forms of journaling daily. I usually get my physical journaling out of the way in the morning (I detailed that process here), and then set aside 10 or 15 minutes in the evening for mental journaling, and during this time, I make sure to avoid all other distractions (TV, music, phone, etc.) as much as possible.
“Rapid” mental journaling in loud situations
Unfortunately, some scenarios are gonna be so loud and stressful to the point where normal mental journaling will be difficult. For these cases, I’ve gotten into the habit of just doing very simple, “rapid” journaling in my head, where I just focus on one or a few words at a time and tell myself things like “fuuuuuck” or “god dammit” or whatever.
Same goes for anger/flashbacks (curses)
I find that the “rapid” mental journaling described right above can also be beneficial for bad flashbacks/ intrusive thoughts. I used to have a habit of screaming “fuck” really loud, or something to that effect, when a bad memory appears in my head out of nowhere, but thankfully this habit has been declining ever since I started mental journaling more, and specifically rapid mental journaling.
Vague formats
I said in my first mental journaling post that I sometimes like to imagine the words being typed out in a word processor in my head, while other times I like to imagine them being handwritten in cursive (since that’s what I do for physical journaling anyways). Lately, however, I’ve started to imagine the words in a “vague, wavy” sorta format. It’s hard to explain, really, but I felt the need to address this so that you’d know that it’s okay to use the limitless potential of your mind to imagine forms of wording that can’t really exist in reality. In fact, I’d almost recommend it above the more “realistic” forms of imagining the words, at this point.
Song lyrics
When all else fails, I like to also just simply sing songs in my head, and imagine the lyrics being typed out in my mind as I do.
…Well, once again, hopefully some of this helped at least someone.
Peace!
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