Welcome to Journal On It, the podcast where we slow down, tune in, and turn the page on the story we tell ourselves. I’m Shannon and each week we explore the powerful practice of journaling and self-reflection to help you reconnect with your thoughts, your purpose, and your inner voice. Whether you’re new to journaling or you’ve got stacks of filled notebooks, this space is for anyone ready to grow, feel, and get honest one page at a time. Let’s dig deep, write freely, and reflect boldly.
Episode 7, Meditation Journals.
So what is a meditation journal? In its most basic form, it is the notes you keep after you have meditated. There are two main ways that this type of journal is kept. The first one being is a more checklist style where you kind of have the same bullet points that you write down every single time. And then the second way is more of a journal entry where you’re writing a paragraph or two about your experience while you were meditating.
But no matter which method of these you choose, there are a few items you should have at the bare minimum. That being;
- the date that you’ve meditated on,
- how long you meditated,
- what type of meditation you did,
- be it a guided meditation,
- a not guided meditation,
- one with movement,
- a breathing exercise type of meditation,
- and anything that it invoked like emotions or thought-wise.
If you have consistent thoughts that interrupt your meditation, you will want to note that as well.
The Pros.
This provides a great space for you to reflect on what you’ve experienced during your meditation and how it affected your emotions, be it before or after the meditation. So for example, if you go in feeling very anxious and you come out feeling very calm and relaxed, you would want to annotate both of those emotions and see if that’s a trend that continues for you. This leads into the next one, which is it helps you really learn your patterns. It can help you kind of dive into what emotions are reoccurring and what thoughts are reoccurring while you’re meditating.
Journaling as a whole can help you enhance or strengthen your ability to focus, which is obviously going to help you when you’re trying to meditate. Your meditation journal can act as a accountability buddy. So if you’re somebody who struggles with building a habit or maintaining a habit, it can be exceptionally beneficial. Because it does allow you to keep up and keep tabs on when you are and when you aren’t meditating. And as with journaling and meditation, it does enhance the ability to manage your stress. This can be a really great way to figure out what meditation styles work for you to help with stress management.
The Cons.
The first one I found pretty much noted everywhere was it can add a lot of time to your meditation practice. And that is time to like sit down before and after. Meditation journaling can sometimes be a distraction from the meditation itself. As with most mindfulness practices, this does have a chance to allow you to wallow or kind of fixate on your negative emotions. And that can be a dark path to go down. So be careful with that part.
And for me, the biggest con was if you decide to meditate somewhere outside of your normal area, be it at your house or your yard, you have to pack up your journal and supplies to go. I use like a little pillow or cushion to meditate on. But if you’re somebody who has like the singing bowls or things like that, that you meditate with, this can add an extra thing to that pack. It can be a lot to carry somewhere, especially if you’re doing like a spiritual hike or if you’re going to do a group activity where you’re already packing quite a bit.
Intermission.
If you hear meowing behind me, it is because one of my cats is in the room with me. Hopefully, he is settled. He needed ear scratches really bad just a moment ago. Hopefully, he’s good to go now.
And last but not least for the cons is it can be very difficult and discouraging to see how often you have thoughts or emotions disrupting your meditation practice. This is probably one of the ones that most people kind of get stuck on. So keep that in mind, this isn’t to discourage you or dissuade you. This is how you see where you’re supposed to focus on so you can grow your meditation practice or your mindfulness practice.
My Experience.
Now for my personal experience when it comes to meditation journals. I tried to do a journal dedicated to a meditation practice and I found with me already having a pretty dedicated set time in which I do journal every day, it didn’t really work for me personally. What I did decide worked and what I do quite often still is I keep track of when I’m meditating. I built that into my journals habit tracker at the beginning of the month and every day when I meditate, I go in there, I mark that I’ve meditated.
If I find that I’m really noticing a repeat thing, I will then kind of take that day and make that journal time all about the meditation and that like repetitive thought or feeling that keeps coming up. That’s kind of where I’ve been at for probably two years now practice wise. But like I said, I did try at first to have a dedicated meditation journal and I’ll kind of go over what I did there.
Where I began.
When I first started meditating, I didn’t know a lot about the meditation or about meditation journaling. I just knew I wanted to add to my mindfulness practice and my journaling practice with meditation and I wasn’t certain where to start which happens quite a bit when I decide I’m going to do a new thing. I just dive in headfirst. That’s just how I do things sometimes but it did teach me a lot. I learned I’m definitely an overt like analyzer, I’m going to spend a whole bunch of time looking at each and every detail and sometimes I can get lost in those details. I think that can be an issue for a lot of people when it comes to meditation journaling which is why I said sometimes it can be discouraging.
Because I didn’t know what I was doing or where to start and I am an overthinker, I ended up spending a lot of time filling pages with every single thought that crossed my mind. Every emotion that even flickered into existence and dissipated before I could comprehend it went onto those journal pages. I put way too much into it and for me that took away from my meditation practice. I found that I was doing way too much in that journal and not enough focusing on the meditation.
Conclusion.
I decided to reel it in a little bit because like I said, I do tend to overdo and I found that doing my meditation, thinking it through, and then setting aside a chunk of my journal to keep track of the habit and noticing my thoughts and emotions and making sure that I was giving myself space that if I was working on something or if I was processing something I had a place to write it down and kind of do my analysis on it and dig deep into what was happening in my own mind but I also needed to not have that take over the entirety of my practice.
Overall, I find that having a place to think about and process what you’ve discovered during your meditation is really beneficial but I think you’re going to have to find a way that it works for you. For me, doing a whole journal on it was just too much and it would become hyper fixation and it just wasn’t the right thing for me but I know many people that this is the correct thing for them. They find a lot of peace in going over their meditations and they learn a lot about themselves and their practice, writing it down and looking into it. So it’s all about finding your balance with it.
Outro
Thanks for joining me on Journal On It where we slow down, tune in, and turn the page together. If something resonated with you today, take a moment to journal it out and let the words lead you. You can find show notes, journal prompts, and more at the link in the episode description. Remember, growth happens one honest page at a time. Until next time, keep writing, keep reflecting, and keep showing up for yourself. I’m Shannon and I’ll meet you back here soon.
Resources:
https://www.artofliving.org/us-en/meditation/beginners-guide/meditation-journaling
Music
https://pixabay.com/music/beats-whispering-vinyl-loops-lofi-beats-281193/