I have a question for you guys.
How often do you journal?
Or do you journal at all?
Because today on the podcast, I'm talking all about
how powerful journaling is and how you can get started.
And I'm also gonna talk about all the benefits.
So you guys might have heard me talk about this
many, many times on here as a matter of fact,
when I introduce you to some kind of a practice
or an exercise, a lot of times it's connected to journaling.
So let's get into it.
(gentle music)
You're listening to the Soul Online Self-Care Podcast.
I'm your host, Tina Stinson,
and I had a stroke at the age of 39
from stress and burnout that shook my world.
Now I'm laying it all out.
The deep-level self-care practices and mindset shifts
that I needed that kept me healthy, balanced, and thriving.
Join me in this intimate space
as we explore healing, resilience,
and a soul's journey to alignment.
This is where real conversations
about deep-level self-care happen.
Let's get into it.
(gentle music)
Hello everyone and welcome back
to the Soul Online Self-Care Podcast.
I'm your host, Tina Stinson,
and I wanna thank all of you for coming here today
and hanging out with me.
So today I'm talking about how to transform your life,
transform, transform your life with journaling.
And those of you who have been in my life for a while
and know me really well,
or even sometimes if you've just started listening
to the podcast, you're gonna know
that I use journaling a lot,
'cause a lot of my exercises,
when my practices involve some type of journaling
in some way, shape, or form,
because I love it.
And I didn't always love it.
I'm gonna share with you, like,
I used to really resist journaling a lot.
And now I do it all the time.
I have so many different journals.
I'm gonna share with you pretty much
all of the ones that I use in my life.
And a lot of times I implement this into,
who am I kidding?
Most of the time I implement this into my coaching
with my clients,
because I find it to be so transformative
and so helpful in so many ways.
So I'm going to go over some of the benefits.
I'm gonna share with you the type of journaling that I do.
And then I'm gonna give you a whole list
of different types of journaling
that you could embrace to get started
and start to bring in the benefits
that I get with this journaling.
Okay, so to get started,
some of the things,
some of the ways that I use journaling is,
I usually do a gratitude journal.
I go in and out of this.
I'm not religious about it.
Like I don't do it every single day.
I move in and out of it.
I like a gratitude journal in the morning and at night,
but usually the at night,
I'm just kind of talking out loud.
I don't usually write things down.
There is a whole lot of power to writing things down, right?
And so writing down what I'm grateful for,
how it makes me feel.
I find it's very important.
It's not about just writing off a bullet point list
of what I'm grateful for.
So that's one of the ways I do it.
Feeling into the gratitude is so much important
about when it comes to doing some type
of a gratitude exercise,
feeling into the feelings.
The another way I use journaling is,
I like doing like mind-dump exercises
where you're just writing the thoughts
that you're having down on paper,
like a stream of thought thing.
And this could be for so many different reasons.
It could be just a rant.
It could be a way to kind of like,
release some type of energy,
maybe you're frustrated, you're angry.
It could be, it could be so many different things.
But usually I do this type of exercise when I'm frustrated
and I need to like release some energy.
Another way I use journaling,
and this is like my new favorite,
is combining it with meditation and breath work.
And so getting into a really, really relaxed state
and then asking some journaling questions
and then just free writing what comes out.
Because when you're in that relaxed state,
you're like connecting with your higher self
with the universe or whatever you,
you know, whatever represents that higher energy for you.
So I love doing it this way
because I feel like you get so much insight.
And one of the things I love about journaling
that really kind of struck me,
it didn't come to me right away when I first started.
Because as I said, I wasn't really like all in
when I first started.
But what really started to connect for me is it's almost like
a way to like talk to your higher self
or your subconscious mind.
If you can really tune into that state, you know,
and that's why I really like combining breath work
with and meditation and then with the journaling.
So it's about the way I do this is I'll have my journal next to me.
I'll do a quick meditation or I'll do some like,
you know, really intense breath work to get myself
into a relaxed state, depending on how, how unrelaced I am
at the time, you know.
So and then I'll have questions that I know I want to ask
about ahead of time.
So it could be a question of asking for guidance of some sort.
It could be just looking for answers for certain problems
I'm having.
And it can also be like almost like brainstorming.
Sometimes I do this with business ideas.
And so it's really, I find that that's one of the most powerful
ways that I journal.
And I also do use just basic writing out,
brainstorming new ideas for my business.
So sometimes I'll just write everything out that's going
on my head because I don't know about you,
but sometimes things get all busy up there and crazy.
And there's so many things bouncing around.
And then I feel like if I don't write them down,
I'm going to forget about them.
And I might think it's a really good idea.
And so I'll just like write everything out.
And then what I do is I try to organize it into something
that might be worthwhile pursuing.
And sometimes I never even go back to these pages.
I just write them out.
Like sometimes I look at my old journals
and I look at some of my old ideas.
And I'm like, wow, that's not a bad idea.
And I like bring it back into my presence.
And so I think this is a really cool way
to brainstorm things for a business
or anything that you're doing, something that you're creating.
And so some of the typical benefits
that you get from journaling.
So like me, I feel more grounded.
I feel almost like a release, especially
if I'm feeling some strong emotions,
like frustration or anger or something like that.
I feel when I do gratitude journaling,
it's definitely like grounding.
I feel more present with myself.
I feel like I'm more in that moment.
And so I feel like if anyone ever tells you
you need to live in the moment, you need to focus on the present
and not the past of the future, then gratitude journaling
is a really great way to do that.
So as I said, it could be an emotional release.
So writing about your feelings, it's like a really good outlet
for expressing and processing, as I said, strong emotions.
And it helps reduce stress and anxiety when you do this.
It could bring clarity and insight.
And so this could be about your feelings,
or like I said, it could be about a business idea
or something or a problem that you're having.
Self-discovery is one of the benefits.
So it just encourages you to reflect
on the things that are going on in your life.
And it helps you understand yourself better.
It helps you really pinpoint the things
that are important to you, your values and your goals
and stuff like that.
So yeah, on top of that, goal setting.
And so I do have a very specific journal for goal setting
and I do it within the cycles of the moon.
And so I do this in the Insiders group.
So as I will share with you over and over again,
the SoulLine self-care podcast does have a community
that you can-- and you could join us over in that community.
And one of the things I do in that community
is buy monthly sessions on the new moon and the full moon.
Not two sessions for the new moon and two for the full moon.
I do one for the new moon and one for the full moon.
And the new moon is about setting the goals
and bringing new things in and the full moon is about releasing.
And so I love this practice because it really helps me check in
with myself.
It helps me check in with my goals.
And I have a separate journal that I use just for that.
So it's like my moon journal.
So goal setting goes into that category.
It helps you solve problems.
Like I said, when I have a problem,
or I'm looking for some kind of a solution to something
that's going on in my life, doing the meditation
and the breath working, getting into that relaxed state,
really tuning into myself and then asking myself the question
and not thinking about it too much, just free writing.
So you're not like going into deep thought.
You're just writing what comes off the top of your head.
And sometimes the things that pop up are so amazing.
You can get-- like very--
you can improve your creativity.
And so I would say that this shows up for me in different ways.
Like when I'm journaling about my business,
like I said, when I do brainstorming,
doing it through journaling really does help with my creativity,
because I'm not like bouncing it off another person, which
is also helpful, very helpful.
But it's almost like I'm bouncing it off myself.
And I'm going back and forth.
It's almost like I'm having a conversation with myself.
Also, when I do my garden journal, which is something new,
I just started.
I actually can't believe I'm just starting a garden journal
because I'm a huge gardener, and I've been doing it my whole life.
But this is the first year I'm doing a garden journal.
And I would say I get very creative in my garden journal.
I draw pictures of my gardens, how I'm going to lay them out,
how I want to lay them out, pictures of future gardens
that I want to build, and anyone who's a gardener
knows exactly what I'm talking about,
because I'm pretty sure all gardeners do this.
And so definitely it helps with improved creativity.
Mindfulness and presence-- so it can serve
as a mindfulness practice grounding you in the present moment.
As I said, to me, this is the best way to do that
is with gratitude journaling.
I like the morning gratitude to be things
that I could just come up with that I'm grateful for,
and then feeling into those feelings of gratitude
for those things.
And then the nighttime practice, what I like to do,
is I like to think about one thing that happened that day
that I'm grateful for, and why.
And I love ending my day that way.
It's just-- it's a beautiful way to fall asleep.
As I said earlier, it definitely helps reduce stress,
because you're getting things out of your head
and onto the paper.
I always say that with the mind dumping exercise
that I talk about, because sometimes you
have so much stuff in your head, also
with when I'm creating ideas for my business plan,
getting it out of my head and on paper really helps me clarify.
So it is a huge destressor.
It can help with memory and learning.
And we all know that, like taking notes when you're
in a classroom, it suggests--
research suggests that journaling
can improve memory and comprehension
and learning by reinforcing cognitive processes.
And so basically, when you take notes,
how many of us take notes?
And then we never look at those notes again, ever.
But I love doing it, because it really does for me.
It reinforces it, because I'm so easily distracted
when I'm listening to someone, unless they're doing some kind
of a tap dance and entertaining me.
Sometimes I float off into another world,
and I'm just not listening.
So taking notes keeps me present and focused
on what I'm trying to learn in the first place.
I don't know if anybody else is like that,
but holding back, or all I get so distracted sometimes.
It also helps with self-expression and artistic outlet,
so to speak.
And I talked about this a little bit,
but even when you're journaling,
even if it's just a personal journaling,
journal talking about your day-to-day life,
drawing pictures in it, diagrams, like with my garden journal,
I could draw pictures of the flowers I want to plant,
and I could draw diagrams of the garden,
and I find it to be so much fun.
And even when I'm doing some journaling
about business ideas, I'll write out lists,
and then I'll draw up what I want the program to look like,
maybe what I want the logo to look like, anything like that.
So it's really good for self-expression and creativity,
and allowing you to explore your style,
what is your personal style?
You could do it on a computer,
but when you're really drawing it out for yourself,
while you may not use that exact drawing for what you're doing,
and you might want to do it more professionally at some point,
it's really showing your very unique style.
And so I believe that journaling,
all of the above, all of the above benefits are amazing.
So that's why I just can't stress enough how powerful this tool is,
and that's why I use it so often.
Now, I always say when I start a podcast,
where I'm going to offer some kind of a journaling practice,
or some kind of an action step that I'm going to give you
that involves journaling,
I always put out the warning if you don't like the journal,
then you're probably not going to like working with me.
And that's very true, but what is really important for me today
is that maybe I can inspire you to start journaling,
because when I first started, it was introduced to me a million times,
and I was like, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that,
I don't have the patience for that, I don't want to do that.
And I'm very like type A, and always in a rush,
and always trying to do things fast.
And so slowing down to go through the process of this was really hard for me,
but I'm learning in my life, if I want to reduce stress,
and I want to reduce anxiety, the slowing down in any practice
that you're doing, any practice.
The slowing down is one of the most important parts.
And when you're trying to tune in to your higher self, or your subconscious,
when you're trying to tune in, slowing down is one of the first steps,
slowing down and paying attention.
And so I would like to inspire you to start some kind of a journal.
I think the easiest, most powerful thing to start with is a gratitude journal.
And so, you know, it's very easy, you just go out and buy an old book,
grab a pen, and you just couldn't start it.
You just write my gratitude journal on the front,
or you don't have to write anything on the front.
But I would write something on the front, because you're going to get hooked,
and then you're going to have more than one journal like me.
So like, I have my moon journal.
I have my regular daily journal.
I have my garden journal.
I think that's it.
Oh no, I have a self-care journal.
So I write down all my self-care practices, what works for me, what doesn't.
And this is something I use in my business, and with my clients,
so that I could, you know, what I learn about myself,
I could share that with other people.
And so I love, like, keeping notes, almost like studying what works for me,
why it worked, how it made me feel, so that when I come across a person
who's having a very similar problem to what I've had,
I could share with them what worked for me.
And so that's why I, like, keeping a self-care journal.
And that self-care journal involves what supplements I want to take,
what type of exercises I'm doing right now, the food I'm eating,
the things I'm avoiding, the things I'm adding.
And it's really cool to have a self-care journal.
So I'm also going to give you, like, a bullet point list of different types of journal,
journaling you could do to get started.
But as I said, the gratitude one is so easy,
and it's very enjoyable and very pleasant.
And it does a couple of things that will benefit you.
It slows you down, it brings you into the present moment,
and it focuses on the positive things in your life.
And we all know what we focus on expands.
So that's why I suggest gratitude journaling.
You could do, as I do, a daily reflection journal.
You could do a goal setting journal.
Now I do my goal setting in my daily reflection journal.
I might separate that at some point,
but I also have the moon planning journal
where I do goal setting and different strategies.
The goal setting I do in my daily journal is more like a to-do list
of things I have to get done for my business.
So I guess it's not really a goal setting,
but it kind of is on some occasions
because it might be a long-term project
that I'm trying to get done, and that is usually a goal.
You could do a creative writing journal.
So if you're a writer or you're into poetry
or whatever it is that you like doing,
it's perfect to do creative writing,
and you can even add your own artwork
when you're doing this creative writing.
If you're writing a story or poem, you could draw a picture.
Even if you're not a good artist,
it's just really beneficial to express yourself this way.
You could do a stream of consciousness writing.
I call this mind dumping.
So it's like writing without censoring or editing
anything that you're writing.
It doesn't have to be legible or grammatically correct.
It's about just allowing the words to flow
and come out and put it on the paper.
And this is really cool if you want to dig into some deeper thoughts
or you're subconscious, but I like using it for release
for venting almost to release powerful emotions,
like frustration, anger, maybe anxiety, sadness, anything.
And I call this mind dumping.
You could use it for problem solving.
Like I talked about I use this in combination
with meditation and breath work.
And I usually when I do this type of journaling,
it goes in my daily journal.
You could do like a journal for self discovery.
So just to dive in self exploration,
writing about like your values, your fears, your aspirations,
I do this also in my daily journal.
But I teach this to my clients in doing like core value work,
like figuring out my definition of core values
is different than what you would see if you googled core values
because if you googled core values,
what comes up is a bunch of adjectives like honesty and kindness
and stuff like that.
To me, really knowing what your core values are
is I look at every area of your life
and I help people and I do this myself.
I write down what my core value is, what my expectation is,
and what's important to me in that area and my life
in that time and space.
And it's really good to check in with these core values
when you're moving into new ventures or trying new things,
or second guessing a decision you have to make
because it's really good to look at your core values
and then really make some kind of a decision about whether
this is aligned with you or not.
And then even after writing these core values out,
they may change over time because obviously we change over time.
And so it's good to like look at them every year
or every six months and see if they're still aligned
with what you want in your life.
And if it's in alignment with the direction that you're going
and so that's how I would use self discovery journaling,
just doing like a core value, work up.
It's really great for emotional processing.
So having a journal where you can emotionally process things,
I do this in my daily journal.
This is also, as I said, processing emotions,
a mind-dumper exercise that I do.
You can have a travel journal.
Now this is something I don't do,
but if you're really into traveling,
documenting your adventures and your experiences
while you're traveling, capturing memories
so you could even put pictures in there and stuff,
I think that would be so cool to do.
And when I move into my travel era of my life,
I'm going to totally do that.
You could do a self-care planning journal.
I already talked about that.
I definitely do that and I find it to be really cool
to learn what's good for your body and yourself
because what's good for one person is completely different
for another person.
So this is a really good, I guess you could say,
almost self-discovery exercise also.
And then as I said again, a garden journal or whatever
your hobby is, like whatever you're into,
maybe you're into fashion.
You could have a fashion journal.
And so like in my garden journal,
I track all the seeds that I have that I or,
and I track the seeds I want to get
or the plants that I want to get.
What plants, what seedlings I've started
when I can put them outside safely
where they won't be hurt by frost,
what plants grow easily in my area.
So I just love keeping track of this.
And then I'm also going to keep track of when I harvest everything
when it's ready, whether I can't it or I froze it,
how it turned out, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc.
And so that's a lot.
I feel like those are a lot of good examples
of how you can start journaling to really, as I said,
and the title of this podcast,
it really can help you transform your life.
It's absolutely amazing.
Now I want to add also that there's no rules.
You could do whatever feels good for you.
These are just like ideas to get you started.
But what I really want to do today is just inspire you
to get started.
Now one of the questions I get every once in a while is,
what if somebody reads my journal that's private?
Like I want to feel like I could write anything in my journal
and it's private.
And so yes, this has happened to me.
And it's always been, I'm not gonna lie,
it's always been an ex-boyfriend,
oh my ex-husband read my journal.
It's always been a man, I'm sorry,
to all the men out there,
but it's always been that situation
hence the ex-part of the ex-boyfriend and the ex-husband.
But no, that's not the reason why they're exes,
but it's probably, like if I have different values
than the other person and one of my values is privacy,
then obviously it's not gonna work out.
This reading someone's journal is an invasion of privacy,
unless you have permission.
And it's just really not cool, really not cool, okay?
Now I'm single now, kind of enjoying it a lot for now,
but I'm also at a point in my life
where if someone reads my journal, I just don't give a flying
fuck at all.
Like go ahead and read my journal, I don't care.
Also, I'm a different person than I used to be.
I'm very aligned with my true self
and what's in my journal, if you're close with me,
you're gonna know everything I write in my journal anyway, right?
That wasn't always the case,
I wasn't always very aligned with myself.
So sometimes releasing things into my journal
was just a way that I could be myself.
And so that's different for me now, but still,
if someone close to me reads my journal,
it's still unacceptable, disrespectful,
and most likely a deal breaker.
And so I would encourage you to just like figure out
if you're okay with that.
And like a lot of the journals that I mentioned
a few minutes ago, there's nothing to hide in there.
Like if you feel like you have something to hide,
then you could do like little journal entries
on a piece of paper and then you could burn it
in the fireplace or in a safe place in your home,
fireplace, fire pit, wood stove.
Okay, those are the only safe places I recommend.
So be careful, don't burn your house down.
But I just wanna add, I stopped journaling
after the third man had read my journal,
it was like three times in a row.
And like the first time I ended up destroying all
my journals, I didn't want anybody to read them.
And then I started journaling again,
then another man read them, destroyed that journal,
then another man read it and I was like,
what the heck is going on here?
This is a trend and I stopped journaling.
And I feel like that was one of the reasons why I didn't wanna,
was my hesitation to start journaling again in the first place
and why I didn't wanna do it was because of that reason.
And so I worked through it and now I'm past it.
And as I said, I don't give a flying fuck if anybody reads
my journal now, go ahead and read it.
But we probably won't be friends anymore if you do.
So I think the pluses of having a journal outweigh
the negatives by a landslide.
Also, I think it would be really cool to have it like a journal
just about your everyday life.
And keeping that journal maybe for the rest of your life
as something that your children can read
or somebody in your family just to learn about all the things
that don't get carried down to our children
and their children and so on and so on.
It's almost like a record, everything's so digital now.
So writing everything out would be really cool
to have a record of things.
And so I don't keep a journal like this now
that I would leave behind as some kind of a informational
legacy of the family.
Maybe I'll start that at some point,
but I thought about starting something like that
during the pandemic, and I kind of started it,
but then I just stopped.
I don't know why I just stopped.
So all you need to get started though is a notebook
in a pen, right?
You don't need anything fancy.
Now, if you wanna be fancy, I've definitely done that
before I've got like really nice journals
and I still have a few of them.
You can go on Amazon and buy like book journals.
They look almost like books and they're not too expensive.
It's really up to you, but if you just wanna get started,
you can just go to the dollar store and buy a notebook
and just get started.
Now, if you need any type of inspiration,
you could sign up for the Sol-Line Self-Care VIP news,
which is the blog, but when you sign up for that,
every Sunday, I send out an email that has a journal prompt
and action step that's related to the journal prompt
and an affirmation, and it's a really cool way
to get started.
So you could just journal on that each week.
I will put the link to that in the show notes,
so if you wanna start doing that,
also I'll put the link to the Sol-Line Self-Care Insiders Group
in there, so if you wanna join us over there,
but until then, guys, happy journaling.
I hope I turned you on to journaling,
and I will see you next week.
Love you, bye.
Did you guys know that the Sol-Line Self-Care Podcast
has a community?
It's called the Sol-Line Self-Care Insiders,
and I would love you guys to join us over there.
So the link will be in the show notes,
and I want to say we do so many cool self-care practices
over there, so if you really want to up-level
your self-care, join us on the insiders.
Okay, I'll see you there.
