Sipra Mishra
2nd Year

Have you ever reached that corner of Instagram that features aesthetically pleasing notebooks and ridiculously cute stationery supply? Well, I sure did! I was a seventeen year old stuck at home during COVID with my brain half fried with anxiety while the other half desperately seeked a hobby that didn’t involve staring at a screen. It was during this time I discovered journaling and my life has never been the same.

I am sure I wasn’t the only one whose mental health went for a toss during COVID times. My anxiety had shot through the roof leaving my creative abilities crippled and the only thing I found myself doing was scroll, scroll and SCROLL.  It was during this routine scrolling when I stumbled upon journaling. The very idea was enough to cause my neurons to fire up and the next thing I found myself doing was reading up everything there was to read about journaling. Well, that was 2021 and since then I have been journaling almost every day and trust me when I say this, It is as effective and as relaxing as meditation!

But what actually is journaling? Does it involve owning pretty, aesthetic notebooks, cute pens and God knows what other stationery supplies that these Instagram influencers are pushing down our throats? Well, let me break this to you for once and for all. Journaling, in simple terms means getting in touch with your thoughts and emotions through writing. Simple right? All you need to get started is a notebook and a pen, that’s it!  Journaling isn’t a new term coined by us; gen Z peeps, it has been around the corner since the dawn of history with many prominent figures advocating for it.

From the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, to Leonardo da Vinci to Oprah and even the new age productivity experts Ali Abdaal and Ryan Holiday, and every successful person who has graced the face of the earth has spoken about the importance of journaling.

Journaling is a great way to relieve stress and get in touch with your emotions. It is an excellent medium to quieten the cacophony of voices in our heads and be more present. It’s like you are talking to someone you love but instead of a person it is a page from a notebook. You can write about anything and everything that comes to your mind and honestly you don’t even have to be a great writer to start journaling. Let’s just say your journal is like a personal archive that is meant for you and you alone. It’s like your little pocket buddy with whom you can have a conversation about anything on planet earth. Journaling is a great way of reflecting on life. It is like a time capsule. Turn a few pages back, maybe grab an old journal from years ago,and you would be surprised by the experience! It’s surreal getting to experience a phase of life all over again and getting to reflect upon it and understand the lessons learnt from an experience in life.  If you were to take my words for it, I would say your personal journal is a panacea to every difficulty, every distress in life. Oftentimes we seek solutions to problems, being completely unaware of the fact that all the answers lie within us. Sometimes you just need to calm that racing mind down, take a deep breath and start writing and watch how all the answers start coming to and everything starts making sense. That’s the magic of journaling! There have been countless incidences where I would just start journaling and everything would just start making sense.

Well, by now you must have understood that I swear by journaling and if you stuck around till here, I am assuming I have captured your interest and you too want to start journaling! Fret not, let’s get you started with the basics. All you need is a notebook and a pen. That’s it!

The stationery part of the process isn’t quite the problem, but the habit development part is. It’s easy to start with something, get all excited about and as time passes it starts becoming a chore. I have been there too. It’s easy to get started with, but sticking with it is what’s difficult. I have had my own share of on and off experiences with journaling. As someone who has been through this, I would tell you start small. Don’t overwhelm yourself by wanting to journal everyday and have a routine. Start small and go slow. As a beginner, I would suggest start with a gratitude journal. Just keep a notebook and everyday write three things that you are grateful for. You could also start by keeping a notebook, one where you just write down your ideas, some quotes that you came across and really liked, honestly anything, there are no rules here. You could also start with Morning pages. Morning pages are nothing but pure stream of consciousness put onto paper. You wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is fill three sides of paper. Again, it can be anything you like. When I started, morning pages seemed a little daunting to me but with repetition it has become a second nature. Another great way of sticking with journaling is ready made prompts. Look up for prompts online and pick one that resonates with you and start writing. Once you have developed the habit of journaling, you won’t need anything else. Just a pen and paper and you are good to go.

There is a saying that,” paper is more patient than man “. I have found comfort and solace in the very act of maintaining a journal. It is liberating to let your thoughts run wild without the fear of judgment. There were times when I was grieving, I was heartbroken and journaling helped me find that strength to keep going. There is something incredibly therapeutic about getting in touch with your own authentic self and what better way to do so other than journaling? It’s a surreal feeling to go through your old journals and see how much you have grown as a person. I find utmost happiness and peace while I journal and by far it has been the most important thing that has happened to me.

As William Wordsworth once said,

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”

Grab a notebook and a pen and start journaling!