Journaling.


I kept a journal for years, hundreds and hundreds of pages written by hand.  
I mostly enjoyed doing it but I began to be really uncomfortable with the thought that someone else might read it - by finding it - or after my death, even if I left specific instructions for it to be destroyed unread - and I knew I did not want that.  That also began to inhibit my writing because I was always conscious of that "someone" who might someday read it.

So about ten years ago I stopped, re-read ALL those pages and then shredded everything.


The great thing about writing a journal is expressing what you truly think and feel at that moment.
For me it is that expression that is so valuable.  

I don't think there is ever anyone in our lives that we can tell everything to.  We may think there is but I know from bitter experience that that is never true.  Not spouses, or parents or siblings or best friends.

And sometimes the things I'm struggling with, that I want/need to open up about and consider, are things that anyone else is going to find boring and stupid.

Sometimes just writing it down is a way of letting go of it.


So I have started what I think of as temporary journaling.  I sit down with a pen and paper and write whatever I want.   Then I read it over.   Then I shred it.