The Case for Drawing

Awhile back I mentioned how I started using the Freeform app on my phone to do small, “raw” drawings as a form of therapy. I had called this “visual journaling” at the time, but really, it’s just drawing…

When I first talked about it, I referred to it as just something I would do every now and then on the side, but recently, it has actually become my primary form of self-therapy. Lately, for reasons I don’t quite understand, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I would do if I were a kid again in certain scenarios, or what I’d do if I had a kid of my own. I could be wrong, but I think it’s my subconscious telling me to “connect” to my core child within, somehow, and since I used to draw practically all the time as kid, I figured that doing so again made sense. Also, some thoughts and feelings are just easier to express as images rather than words anyways…

Applications like the aforementioned Freeform make drawing on the spot easier than ever now. That said, I think using traditional means of drawing are perfectly fine too. In fact, I would even recommend just imagining drawings in one’s mind. Similar to the mental journaling I’ve talked about before, actually. Sometimes even just drawing and/or imaging a singular word or acronym can be enough to put oneself at ease in the moment, depending on the situation…

Now that I’ve been doing these Freeform drawings for awhile, I can admit that I’ve already forgotten what some of my own drawings were supposed to represent in the first place. I don’t really see this as an issue, though. As long as a drawing was able to help you get through a stressful situation back when said drawing was first made, it doesn’t matter if you then forget whatever the initial stress trigger was down the road. In fact, forgetting stress triggers is a good thing. And if those same triggers come back later on, just make new drawings…

I can also admit that all of my drawings look childish, but again, I don’t consider this a problem. It’s not like I’m planning to ever share any of these. Besides, the whole point of this exercise is to feel connected to the innocence of one’s youth, so having drawings that look rather childish is kind of the point. That said, if you have the talent to draw something that looks more “adult,” then by all means, go for it…

I should probably also take this opportunity to address the stigma associated with drawing. While said stigma does indeed exist, like most things, you just have to learn to not care about it. Again, a lot of this is about connecting back to childhood, and one of the good things about being a little kid is that, at that age, you don’t really give a fuck what anyone thinks (yet). In a lot of ways, our childhood is our “core.” The kid you once were is you in your purest form. This doesn’t mean to always be childish, mind you. There’s a time and a place for everything. I guess if the childhood logic doesn’t work for you, then another way of thinking about it is to remember that drawing is one of humanity’s oldest forms of self-expression and/or therapy, dating all the way to cave drawings…

As always, I hope my constant rambling about mental health on this blog is able to help someone, somehow…

Peace!

PS: Something I almost forgot to mention is that some humans apparently have a hard time “visualizing” things in their heads. For these people, I recommend sticking to journaling/poetry, or something like music, since that’s another one of humanity’s oldest artforms.

UPDATE: I don’t really do this stuff anymore, but I’ll leave this post up in case anything here still helps anyone.

More Tips for Mental Journaling

  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:

5 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 5 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. EDIT: I actually find now that what works better here is to just focus on muscle-relaxation techniques (like trying to imagine all the different little muscle fibers at the tip of your nose, and then spreading out to the rest of your face, or even the rest of your body, if you need to).

Same goes for flashbacks/ fits of anger

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. EDIT: I think now that the muscle-relaxation technique mentioned above works better here too.

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!

UPDATE: I don’t really do this stuff anymore, but I’ll leave this post up in case anything here still helps anyone.

Related: List Repository

My Favorite Distractions

A while back I wrote about how journaling has really improved my mental health. That said, there are other things I do to distract myself from the “rough spots” in life, and figured I might as well share some of those distractions here…

Before getting to the actual list itself, however, I’d like to take a moment to also highlight that, the more I reflect on my own past, the more I realize just how short-sighted and mean and spoiled I really was (and still somewhat am). Thankfully, the distractions I listed out below (as well as reflection and goals and whatnot) have helped me learn to live with all of my guilt…

Anyway, here we go:

“Easy” watching

As one might expect, this is just simply the act of watching TV or videos that don’t require too much attention or investment. Your favorite game show, your favorite cooking show, your favorite YouTuber, your favorite movie series or TV show that you continue to marathon over and over cause it’s comforting for one reason or another… You get the idea… I find that game shows in particular help me a lot cause they’re on TV here all the time, so it gives me a “schedule,” of sorts. In fact, one of the reasons why I don’t like streaming as much as everyone else is cause having unlimited options overwhelms me, and I like that regular TV basically “chooses things for you.” I think I also like game shows in particular cause I can “play along,” and with competitive cooking shows, I can try to guess who’s gonna win. I know there’s a common belief that watching too much TV is bad, but I honestly think this is an outdated mindset, especially when referring to the aforementioned “interactive” shows that keep your brain active, to an extent. Sometimes I even try “recreating” certain game shows in my head (like come up with the puzzles and then pretend like I’m trying to solve them). Lately I’ve actually been watching Food Network on mute, as simply seeing the food being cooked is relaxing enough. EDIT: Youtube Shorts are also sometimes fun, I must admit.

Message Boards

As geeky as it may be, I think stuff like Reddit and Discord can be a nice form of self-expression, when used appropriately.

Rationalizations

As one would expect, this is simply the act of trying to find different ways to rationalize all the bad things that might happen to you, like “It sucks that this happened, but at least I learned (insert epiphany here) from it.” I sometimes turn certain epiphanies into poems. UPDATE: Speaking of poems, I have gotten into the habit of writing (and keeping track of) haikus in my head, and this has become a great way to “channel” regrets and rationalizations 24/7.

Re-reading old notes

I have about a paragraph worth of notes on my phone that I re-read at least once a day, because they’re notes that are designed to counter-attack my most frequent stress triggers. UPDATE: The “rationalizations” thing above has kinda replaced this now, actually.

Making lists

Meta, I know! But seriously, I’ve found over the years that making lists can be pretty relaxing for me, and I’ve heard others say the same. Doesn’t have to be a specific topic, either. While I lean towards pop culture related stuff, I can make lists of pretty much anything. You don’t need to look further than my list repository to see that. In fact, I recently made a food list, of all things! Making lists (especially to-do lists) is also a good way to motivate yourself to try new stuff.

Little games

By “little” I mean stuff like Tetris, Solitaire, Snake, Wordle, etc. Basically just easy stuff that’s universally accepted as “low-risk.” Studies show that these kinds of games can be quite therapeutic, as a matter of fact! Make no mistake, though: If you’re prone to “gamer rage,” you might still get that even from these kinds of games, at least to a certain extent.

Mind games

What I mean by this is little games that you play entirely in your head. My favorite example of this is “track-by-tracks” (a term coined by a YouTuber I follow called Almost Human). This is where you take two different albums that have the same number of tracks and do “song vs. song” for Track 1, Track 2, and so on, and then add up all the points in the end to see which album wins. Basically any other variation of comparing one thing to another applies here too.

Trivia

Similarly to games, sometimes I like looking up random trivia card generators online, just as a way of learning new things. I also sometimes use a random number generator to determine how many virtual trivia cards to flip through at a time. I suppose this also ties into my love of game shows, like Jeopardy and whatnot.

Muscle relaxation through “mentalizing”

This is actually a technique that’s mainly used by the military, to help them fall asleep faster/ in uncomfortable conditions, but I find that it can also help with simply de-stressing during the day too. Basically, you start by picking a spot on your body (usually somewhere on your face like your nose or the inside of your mouth, but starting from your fingers or toes works too). Then you think about all the different little muscle fibers in that particular area, and imagine those fibers “loosening up.” Then, continue that process through different parts of your body, until you fall asleep (or feel relaxed, especially around noisy people). This is basically an advanced form of “counting sheep.” Another way of falling sleep that seems to help me is just letting my mind wander to the most random shit possible!

Sensory exercises

Similar to the above, I think it’s important sometimes to just focus on your breathing, as well as other sensory details (smell, touch, sound, etc.). Another advantage of drinking hot drinks is that you can feel the heat in your hands, actually. The “extreme” sense of touch there really helps me to focus on the present, and having a microwave around helps me to keep the tea hot.

“Survival mode”

This is simply the act of reminding yourself that the most important thing in life is simply just to survive in the present moment. Humans need three things to survive: Food, water, and shelter. Constantly remind yourself that you have those things, and if you don’t, figure out what you need to do to get them. If it helps, pretend your life is a livestream, or reality show of some kind, and constantly narrate to yourself in your head as you do the things you need to for survival. Even sleep is technically something we need to survive, so I find that narrating to myself “I’m going to sleep now cause I need to” in my head also helps (in addition to the muscle technique mentioned above). Funny side note: One of my favorite movies of all time is Wall-E, and one of the key themes of that movie is “life should be about living, not just surviving.” What I’m saying here kinda goes against that, but sometimes, it is what it is…

Nature

Even just opening the window blinds and looking at the clouds can be therapeutic!

Talking to others

While I don’t think you need many friends, necessarily, I do think it is important to talk to at least one other person now and then. Sadly, not everyone has this option, but thankfully AI is getting better at filling this void. Also, if things get desperate, you can always pull a Cast Away, but I would only do that as an absolute worst-case scenario!

Pictures

This may sound a bit self-centered and/or silly, but lately I’ve found that I enjoy revisiting and taking pictures, both of myself and things around me, as a means of building an ongoing “time capsule” to look back on fondly. I’ll go through my thousands of photos and share the best ones here on my blog someday, just to make it all feel more “meaningful.” I don’t have mainstream social media anymore, so I’d rather share that kinda stuff here instead anyways.

Looking for patterns

I saved this one for the near end cause it’s not really something I do anymore, but felt it was worth noting anyways. This task just simply entails looking for patterns all around you. Count how many pens happen to be on the table in front of you right now. Focus on the seams on the blanket on your bed. Look out the window and see how many cars (or cars of a particular color) pass by over the next minute or so. Stuff like that. Again, I eventually burnt out on this one, but for at least a little bit of time, it helped me a lot.

Multitasking

This basically just means doing one or more of the things above. In fact, just the other day I was listening to a live stream while playing solitaire and occasionally looking over at my TV on mute. This sorta thing may be frowned upon by some, but personally, if multitasking doesn’t burn you out, I think there’s nothing wrong with it.

Nothing (yes, really)

Sometimes, just doing absolutely nothing is important for clearing the mind!

…Well, thank you for indulging me once again! As I wrap up, I would like to take a moment to point out that the right distraction can vary depending on your situation and environment. Recently I have discovered that, for more intense situations, I need to prioritize distractions that are smaller/quicker. Make of that what you will!

Peace!

Specific Tips for Journaling

Scroll to the bottom for a TL;DR summary! 

Not too long ago I blogged about journaling and how beneficial it has become to my well-being in recent times, so I figured I should now take things a step further and detail how exactly I journal, in case it helps anyone out there who may be trying to get into it more…

No further introduction needed, so here we go:

Prioritize small notebooks

The smaller the notebook, the less intimidating the act of journaling itself will be. Holding a rather large notebook in your hands may feel daunting, whereas a smaller notebook may feel like something that can be filled out rather quickly (because it can). Completing your first few notebooks quickly and seeing them getting stocked on top of one another in a short amount of time may help you to stay motivated to journal longterm. Pocket-sized notebooks also have the convenience of being more portable, of course. That said, regardless of size, I also like to flip the notebook upside down for every other page, so that I don’t have to change my writing position!

Skip every line between sentences

So if I had to guess, you’ll eventually run out of small notebooks and start having to fill out larger ones that you find around your home. No sense in wasting money on other small notebooks when you have plenty of big ones that haven’t been used yet, right? Well, when you eventually get to this stage, and still feel intimidated by normal, non-pocket-sized books, simply do what I do and start skipping every line between your sentences. Nobody ever said you had to fill out every line, after all (assuming you’re even using lined paper to begin with). Also, feel free to take your time to think about what you wanna say next after each sentence. It’s not a race!

Bullet-points/ incomplete sentences is fine

By skipping every line between sentences, you’re already doing a form of bullet-journaling, sorta. Therefore, I would argue that forgoing grammatical-correctness and simply writing in incomplete sentences is fine. More than fine, in fact. By prioritizing incomplete sentences, you’re allowing yourself the opportunity to get thoughts “out of your system” faster. Who cares if the writing itself is hard to follow? Nobody is gonna read your journal other than you anyways, most likely. Heck, you don’t even have to read back through old entries (I almost never do).

Try writing in cursive

A long time ago, someone encouraged that I write in cursive “to make writing more fun.” I started doing so, and never looked back. As this old friend of mine had said, writing in cursive is just simply much more fun. Plus, as another friend of mine from around that same time had said, it’s “a dying art.” As far as I’m concerned, we might as well all start writing in cursive just for the sake of keeping the art alive, so to speak.

Use a good pen

Going into journaling with a shitty pen is like going into battle with a shitty gun. Personally, I’m partial to either BIC or Pentel RSVP, fine-size, but you do you! My dad is really into fountain pens. I gave those a try, and they’re not my thing, but maybe they’re yours. More power to you if so. Pencils are cool too, of course. UPDATE: Now I’m into felt pens! They’re much better for the speed at which I wanna be journaling at, turns out!

Start your entries by noting daily things

While I personally feel it’s important to journal at least a little every day, I understand that some days are more “journal-worthy” than others. Because of this, I always like to start my entries by making note of a few things that are “constants” in my day-to-day life: How many hours of sleep I got the night before and what I plan to eat throughout the day, mainly. As the day itself progresses, I also like to use my journal to keep track of how many friends I text throughout the day (I prefer texting over in-person interactions by a landslide). Lately I’ve also been noting what I plan to do each day, and have also been reminding myself on a daily basis that “The most (but not only) important thing is survival.” UPDATE: Regarding what I do each day, it’s usually just journaling itself now, so I’ve been reminding myself “it’s okay to just journal today.” After all, the earliest humans just did cave drawings of the same stuff over and over…

Regrets/ worries (“that’s what journaling is for”)

Now this is the real “meat” of everything that I’ve been trying to accomplish by journaling as much as I do now. I mentioned in my last journaling-themed post that I struggle with two things in particular; regretting the past, and worrying about the future. I usually make note of that at least once per day in my journals. Sometimes I go into details about whatever specific worries or regrets I may be experiencing in that moment, but most of the time I just simply write something like “having regrets again this morning.” Either way, I usually follow this up with the sentence “But that’s what journaling is for.” Lately I’ve also been feeling nostalgic for my parents’ homeland (which I visit most summers), so every day now I write a quick sentence about the thing I miss most from there on that particular day (but also remind myself why I’m happy to be where I actually am now, despite the bad parts). I also make sure to (vaguely) write about at least one regret every day now, as well as at least one “second-hand embarrassment” moment.

Noting reactions to bad flashbacks

This may not apply to everyone reading this, but some of my past regrets are so bad that it causes me to have distressing “reactions” (twitching, cursing at the top of my lungs, etc.). That said, I’ve noticed that ever since I started journaling daily over this past year or so, I haven’t been having these sorta reactions as much, and I think I large part of that is because I journal about them. Again, I’m usually pretty vague, and just write something like “had a couple of reactions as I woke up this morning, but I think they’re getting less frequent still, so that’s good at least.” I also try to remind myself daily that my flashbacks are usually at their worst in the morning.

Noting current events

Even though I don’t like reading back through old entries, whenever a major event happens, I like to write it down, just for the sake of turning some of my entries into “time capsules,” of sorts. As I’m sure you all know, a lot of unprecedented events have been happening in the world recently, so I’ve been jotting down current events more than usual…

Stream-Of-Consciousness

This probably goes without saying, but when I can’t think of anything else to do, I just write whatever comes to mind, without really thinking about it. Sometimes I write about other tasks I might do later in the day, or just “channel” things in general (especially when it comes to worrying about what others might think about me).

…Well, that’s it! Hopefully at least some of this helps someone out there…

Peace!

PS: I know there’s a stigma against straight men who journal, but that stigma seems to be fading, so pay it no mind! Also, while it goes without saying, what you write doesn’t need to make sense to anyone other than yourself!

UPDATE: Lately I’ve also been leaving my journaling notebook opened to the latest entry and laid out in front of me throughout the day as much as possible. I find that this also helps to keep me at ease. Also, now I write on the top-left corner every day “age brings wisdom (usually).” Additionally, I’ve also started using the Freeform app on my iPhone to do “raw” drawings to reflect stressful moments in my life, as sometimes it’s easier to this instead of turning feelings into words. I call this visual journaling. I remind myself to do both this and mental journaling on the top-right corner of my physical journal daily now too. EDIT: I actually don’t do either much anymore, but I still note them daily in my journal, to remind myself that they’re still options.

TL;DR: I journal about 12 things daily: Sleep quality, “age brings wisdom (usually),” friends spoken to, what I’m eating, “the most (but not only) important thing is survival,” amount of bad flashbacks (roughly), thing I miss the most from Portugal, why I’m happy to be in the US (despite bad parts), biggest regret, 2nd-hand embarrassment moment, main thing(s) I’m doing, and reminders of mental & visual journaling. And this is all separate from any stream-of-consciousness stuff I might write for fun and/or additional stress relief. There’s actually a few other things I journal daily too (which I usually use the margins for), but those are too private to share here.

UPDATE 2: I’ve also started integrating “copying” into my journaling process, as in writing down other people’s poems that I like, inspirational quotes from people I look up to, lyrics to popular songs, etc.

UPDATE 3: I don’t really do this stuff anymore (but I’ll leave this post up in case anything here still helps anyone). These days, I just do stream-of-conscious notes, and sorta pretend like I am writing to a pen pal, to make it feel more meaningful. Listening to an album or playlist at the same time helps, even if I don’t end up writing much during that time.

Related: List Repository

My New Take On Journaling (Words In Your Mind)

  Throughout my life, I have been anxious about two things in particular:

1.Dwelling on the past (which ranges from little embarrassing moments to much bigger mistakes and regrets)

2.Worrying about the future (including things which I may come to regret down the road)

Over the last year in particular, I’ve begun to journal at a much more frequent rate, as many psychology experts agree that journaling is one of the most effective forms of anxiety-relief. While I’m happy to say that I’m at a much better place mentally now thanks to all the journaling I’ve done, up until very recently, something still felt like it was missing…

Part of my worrying of the future involves dwelling over the possibility that someday I may not be able to journal at all. I often find myself thinking about potential grim scenarios like ending up paralyzed, or something to that effect. I understand that the chances of such a thing ever happening are slim-to-none, but when you have a brain as anxious as mine, even the tiniest of possibilities need to be taken into account…

Because of this, I spent the last several days doing a deep-dive online into the psychology of journaling, to understand exactly why it’s proven to be effective for so many, including myself. My goal with this was to see if I could “reverse engineer” the psychological effects of journaling from the inside out, so that I could then figure out how to recreate the experience in a purely mental way, without having to worry about any physical limitations that the future may bring…

My research ultimately led me to stumbling upon a certain video just a few days ago (which I unfortunately forgot to save and can’t find again now), where the theory was stated that journaling works as well as it does because it allows us to literally and figuratively face our own negative thoughts, rather than constantly trying to distract ourselves from them. Distraction, while healthy in small doses, should never be seen as the ultimate “silver bullet solution” to something. You can only run away from your bad thoughts for so long. Eventually, you have to face them head-on. By transferring those thoughts into something tangible, like words, we are able to finally “detach” ourselves from said thoughts, and look at them from an outside perspective. With this new angle, we can then “attack” the thoughts, so to speak…

Obviously, certain bad thoughts are still gonna keep coming back in your brain, no matter how often your journal about them, but that’s not the point. Rather, the point is to just simply get yourself into the behavior of constantly turning trauma into something tangible, therefore assigning “meaning” to it, over and over. For what it’s worth, though, I’ve found that the more I “process” something, the less traumatic it feels in the long run, but I understand that there are outliers to this sort of circumstance…

So getting back to my initial question of the day: How do you recreate this experience in purely a mental way? After watching the aforementioned video, the answer became simple to me: You simply turn your thoughts into words in your head. For the last few days in particular, whenever I have a bad thought, I picture a standard word processor in my mind (white background with black ink) and then “type out a sentence” that summarizes whatever bad thought I’m having. Sometimes I just do a bullet point, rather than a complete sentence, or even just a singular word. Usually I imagine just one sentence at a time, but sometimes I imagine multiple at once (usually three at a time, cause it reminds me of haikus). My style of physical journaling is “bullet journaling” anyways, so envisioning things this way isn’t too far from what I do in reality.

Obviously, I’m still in the early days of applying this new technique, but thus far, it has proven to be quite effective. It’s my belief that, at least on a subconscious level, humans tend to associate the expression of thoughts with words in particular. If you think about, it makes sense. Humanity has been using the act of writing as our primary “expression tool” for so many generations now that it’s practically burned into our DNA/ instinct. So ultimately, the solution to “peace and acceptance” seems to be this: Turn feelings into words, and if you can’t do that in real life, do it in your head. I suppose some people would prefer to use symbols instead of words, depending on their culture, but ultimately, the principle is the same…

When it comes to mental health and self-improvement, I’ve been through this song and dance enough now to know that the journey is never gonna be linear. If my past is any indicator, this new method will probably work for me for a good while, and then I’ll burn out on it, like I do with everything else (I gradually write stories and poems less and less, for instance). That’s fine, though. Life is all about rotating back and forth between different stress-relievers anyways. The more techniques you gain along the way, the better. That said, I still felt the need to make this post cause this whole “literal words in your head” approach is something I don’t really see being talked about anywhere else online, and I feel like it’s a methodology that could probably help a lot of people…

Peace!

UPDATE: Something else I forgot to mention is that, at least in my experience, it’s a lot harder to burn out on journaling (be it real physical journaling or the “purely mental” journaling that I describe here) than it is to burn out on other hobbies. I think this is mainly because you can journal about literally anything, and humans are always having new, stream-of-conscious thoughts as is. Plus, as I said earlier in this post, it’s okay to revisit topics (especially traumatic stuff) every now and then when journaling. Basically, the key is to find something you can do under any circumstance, and never burn out on it. I see journaling (and mental journaling in particular) as ticking both of those boxes.

UPDATE 2: This is a bit embarrassing to admit, but another thing I do that’s sorta like mental journaling is pretend like I’m “livestreaming” in my head, if that makes sense, or pretend I’m being interviewed. Using my phone to make little reminders for things I wanna journal later also helps. Either way, phone notes or actual journal entries don’t have to make sense to anyone other than yourself.

UPDATE 3: Something else I didn’t think about before is that someone born blind wouldn’t be able to do this, unless they’re able to visualize brail in their head. I don’t know anyone born blind, so I guess I can’t say if that really works or not. Oh, well…

UPDATE 4: Rather than imagining a computer word processor, I’m starting to just imagine myself handwriting in cursive, like what I do in real life, or I alternate between the two.

UPDATE 5: I don’t really do this stuff anymore, but I’ll leave this post up in case anything here still helps anyone.

UPDATE 6: When it comes to worrying about the future, something that has helped me recently is realizing that the worst-case scenarios I imagine are usually just as unrealistic as delusions of grandeur, which helps me not the worry about them as much.

Related: Specific Tips for Journaling

Related: More About Mental Journaling