The Quickest Way to Understand Our Feelings Is to Journal about Them (Plus a Journal Prompt)

It was a Friday morning. I woke up at 5:30, about 15 minutes before my daughter did, so I had some time. A rare but joyous occasion where I get to have my thoughts first thing in the morning. I felt calm. I felt joyful. I felt at peace. My husband got my daughter when she awoke, and when I met them in the family room, I felt loving and connected. 

Then as I was talking to my husband, he told me something about the upcoming weekend that upset me. Made me feel a certain type of way. Then we had to discuss it.  And then things kind of unraveled from there. 

I couldn’t tell if my daughter had a fever or if our thermometer was working, and our backup thermometer was missing. My husband was telling me that she didn’t have a fever even though she felt pretty warm. He said it was the sweater she was wearing. But she’d had a cough for about a week so there was a possibility she could end up with a fever, and so I started spiraling. 

Then, my husband was running late, which cut into my time, which meant that instead of getting three hours to get everything done, I now had two and a half hours. And all of it made me feel so angry.

As soon as my husband took my daughter to school, I kept getting distracted and starting things and stopping things. I could tell my mind wasn’t right. I knew I should journal. I knew I should face my feelings, but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to stay angry.

I’d been listening to the audiobook, The Magic, by Rhonda Byrne and doing the 28 days of gratitude, and my inner voice was telling me to be thankful for things, and I was arguing with it that I had nothing to be thankful for, and I didn’t want to be thankful. All I wanted to see was the negative. All I wanted to see was what was wrong. All I wanted to do was be mad at my husband. I even typed a rage text to him but then didn’t send it, thankfully.

I was letting my thoughts snowball into how my day was going to be awful and how the weekend was going to be awful and how there’s nothing to look forward to and how it all feels really depressing. 

And then I made myself sit down and journal. 

I don’t even think I wrote for two minutes, and I felt complete relief. It took it out of my body and put it onto the page. That’s what journaling does. It takes it out of your body and transfers it onto the page. 

Think about how powerful that is. Sometimes all you have to do to work through your feelings is write about them. Sit with them, reflect on them, observe them, and let them go. Because our pain needs to be acknowledged, and the easiest way—the quickest way— to acknowledge our pain is to write about it. 

Sure we can tell someone about our feelings, but that means they need to be in a place to have a conversation about it and we need to be open to what their perspective is going to be. I do follow up with my psychotherapist for big things, and in the past, I would’ve needed to talk to her over something like what happened that Friday as well. To help me get centered. But now I know I have the tools I need. I know I can talk to myself on the page.

The alternative is that I stay angry. And then I just destroy everything in my path. When my shadow side takes over, I leave things left on the floor, drawers open, messes everywhere. But when I let myself acknowledge my feelings, the anger goes away, and I’m able to look at what I am really feeling. 

For anger is only a mask, hiding our true feelings. And those feelings have to be acknowledged. The anger has to be acknowledged. The shadow self has to be acknowledged. In order for us to be able to face our feelings, let them go, and live our f*cking lives.

So if you struggle with feeling angry like me, here’s something you can try: 

• Write for 10 minutes about how you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it (it has been my experience that the more I resist this, the more I need to do it).

You can handwrite it, type it or speak it into your phone. Whatever way you choose to write, be honest with yourself. And face especially the feelings you don’t want to face. Meet them on the page. Reflect on what they’re telling you. And then let them go. 

I wish you all the joys of journaling.

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Photo by Andres Molina on Unsplash