I always have a hard time keeping them up. I have an art journal that I use from time to time, but it is so messy and involves so much work to set up and clean up I don't do it a lot. I don't use my member blog on a daily thing and I'm not sure if I did have a daily journal/diary what I would write about. The events of the day? My thoughts? Would it be more of an observational piece, self-reflective, or opinion analysis? No idea.
Cool. Things have changed for me. I have been keeping a diary since April 2019.
It started out as very observational. I was chronicaling what happened in my life partly to process it. I had just transitioned from being a hermit to trying to actively socialize and be part of a community. I was also trying to create an identity for myself separate from my family, because at 25 I still hadn't done that. I was also beginning my weight loss journey. So in the beginning of my diary it was very focused on what happened, what I was doing, and trying to figure out the meaning of what happened.
I didn't understand people and I had a lot of unhealthy frameworks that influenced my behavior subconsciously. I was very much driving blind.
Everything happened gradually so it's hard to put dates on it. I think it began sometime in July of 2019. I transitioned to being very introspective. Instead of focusing on the motives of other people and trying to figure them out, I started expressing my own internal struggles in more depth. I wrote critiques of society. I even started to read my diary at open mics so that influenced me to stop writing about people and focus on myself and abstract ideas.
Phase three was maybe in October. I started my m&p (mindful and present) sheet which has evolved to my self triad sheet which I've shared on other threads. Essentially what this did was introduce a daily " what were positive moments of today, what was my mood, what am I grateful for" independent of my diary. So I no longer felt the need to include those thoughts in my diary, I was tracking them elsewhere, so it gave me the freedom to stop writing about days events completely and instead focus on my feelings and internal philosophical thoughts.
Also during this time I changed the schedule of when I used my diary. In the beginning I only wrote in it right before bed, but at that point I realized I could use my diary to "talk through" my problems within myself, so whenever I was struggling I would write in it, sometimes multiple times a day.
I was recently without my diary for 6 days and that was hell. I considered getting a new one or writing on scrap paper and transferring it once I got my diary back but I decided I wanted to keep all my thoughts in one place and rewriting would be far too tedious. So I simply didn't write at all. That week was incredibly stressful. I realized how much I now rely upon my diary to keep my mental state in check. Not only that but I frequently read back my diary to look for patterns or to see the "big picture" of my life because it's easy to forget what's all happened. This has allowed me to make a lot of realizations I don't think would have been possible otherwise. The human brain can only remember so much information at once.
I even wrote a bit about how my diary is my boyfriend. but it's true. My diary is very dear to me and though I don't like being attached to physical things I would say my diary even above my cellphone is my most prized possession.