What NOT to write in your journal

So.. I have this journal that I take to church. I have lots of journals. I keep one on the computer and I keep a written one at home AND I have this one that I take to church in which I take notes from the speakers and lessons and in which I also write my impressions and feelings. Whatever is running through my mind at church is what I write in that journal. It didn't begin life as a church journal, though, so it has some regular personal stuff at the beginning too. So, let me tell you a little story.

This weekend was our stake conference (the bi-annual meeting where all the local congregations gather together for general counsel--a large meeting). I went to the Saturday evening adult session, was distracted by a friend on the way out, put down my journal to check my calendar and.... left the journal behind! Disaster.

I did't discover this until the next morning, of course. I had to be at the church over an hour early (before the general morning session began) for choir practice. I was accompanying the stake choir and our final practice was in the morning before the conference. I was VERY nervous about this because there were 3 songs and it was the first time I had played in front of such a big congregation since we moved here. Also the 3rd song I found very challenging and, even after many hours of practice, there was still the very real chance that I'd get so nervous that I'd totally mess up and make a fool of myself. So I was rushing out of the house for this practice when I remembered my journal and went back into the house to get it. Couldn't find it. Looked and looked. And this is when the fear was born. What if I'd actually left my journal behind?

Now, I was going to church over an hour before the general session began, so I could easily look for the journal before the church filled with people. But. There was a general priesthood leadership session already in progress--it had begun at 8:30am (just when I was leaving the house in order to arrive at 8:45 for choir practice). So there had already been a bunch of men milling around in the room where I suspected I'd left the journal.

So I left the house and made the drive to church.

This is when I feverishly tried to remember: what had I written in the journal? Anything embarrassing? Oh, surely. Anything mean? Oh, I hope not. Anything silly? Inevitably. Anything private? Obviously. Anything identifying? Oh, I HOPE not. And I also hoped that whomever found it would not be the overly curious type of person who would actually READ what I'd written in an effort to find who the journal belonged to. But how else would the journal be reunited with its owner--me?

So I got to church and ran around for a few minutes before choir practice looking in some random places, hoping it might have been set aside in a relatively discreet location, awaiting discovery by a worried writer. Didn't find it. Joined the choir. My nervousness about playing the piano was swallowed up in my agitated concern to find my journal. A blessing? Hm.

Anyway, when we finally moved into the chapel for the final run-through of the songs, I had a few minutes (while the choir was straggling in) to ask one of the men already on the stand: "Where is the lost and found?" He made an explanation: there is no formal lost and found, blah blah blah blah. I grabbed his lapels: "I lost my journal. I NEED to find it." He gave me a big smile and said, "Oh, I know where that is." He pointed to the podium and there it sat, my lost journal. It had been found last night, he said, and in the priesthood leadership meeting, it had been held up before the congregation, "Did anyone lose this journal? It is almost filled!"

So, I got the journal back. And, incidentally, my nervousness about playing the piano was considerably abated by this distraction. Nice.

And I've been thinking. About what is best to put in journals and what is not good to put in journals. I have kept journals since I was a child and I have re-read them a few times. One time only have I actually started with the beginning journal and read through them all. That was an editing trip, where I glued black paper over things I'd written about that I never wanted to remember ever again. Occasionally I'll think of something or someone from the past and I'll go back and read what I have written about it or them. Sometimes I'm trying to remember a date and I'll go back and consult what I've written.

Which brings me to a question. Why do we keep journals? For LDS church members, the first answer may be perhaps that we have been commanded to do so. We are a church of record keepers. In fact, the scriptures are records. All saints are commanded to keep records. I think I would keep a journal even without being commanded to do so, though, because I am the sort of person who has a need for expression.

And what do we typically write in journals? When I read back in my journals I noticed a preponderance of entries about boys. Sigh. But also I wrote a lot about my spiritual feelings. Many entries were the exit point for strong feelings: love, infatuation, anger, hurt, inspiration, discovery. When I was young and single I wrote nearly every day and those entries covered a variety of emotions. After I got married, had babies and became busier, I noticed that I most often wrote when I was depressed or angry or worried. I think it was because I had no other outlet for those non-constructive feelings. And when I read back on those years, one of the main impressions I got of my life at that time was that I was often, well, depressed or angry or worried. I did write about joyful things too, but most often I made the time to write because I had feelings that I felt could only be safely expressed in my journal. And, since it is much easier to share good and happy feelings with those around you, it was the bad and sad feelings that got relegated to the private pages of my journals. Sadly, the joyful things were not recorded as often.

So pretty much my journals, up to about 5 or so years ago, were mainly a repository of expressions that I felt could only safely be left in those private places. I don't know who I imagined would read them. Or what purpose they would serve. But it was about 5 years ago (I think) that I sat down and read through them all. And that is when I reevaluated the purpose of my journals.

That purpose was, I decided, to be uplifting. I don't know who will read them. My children have no interest in them at this point. I like to read back now and then. And I don't regret what I've written (except those few entries that got black-papered). Some of it is entertaining. Some of it is touching. Some of it is kind of depressing. Some of it is downright painful.

And I still feel the need to express those kinds of things. But what I decided was that when I recorded those sad or painful things, I needed to follow those up with expressions of faith, possible solutions, and long lists of gratitude. So the idea I began with is that whenever I would turn to my journal because of anger, depression or worry, the first thing I would do is write a list of the things I was grateful for. Then at the end of the list, I could write whatever I was worried about. Often, the gratitude list mitigated my negative emotions and I felt less of a need to rant or complain or whatever. At the very least, my lists of gratitude gave me perspective on my worries and I was able to write about the worry and then about possible solutions, or other ways to see the problem, and also about the faith I felt that all would be resolved, or I could record at least a partial restoration of the comforting perspective of this worry being only a small portion of an otherwise very happy life. These kinds of entries not only relieved my feelings, but also left me feeling more hopeful and positive. These are also the kinds of journal entries that I feel uplifted by re-reading. So to me, that's a win-win: fulfilling to write and uplifting to read.

I also decided to write about scriptures that especially spoke to me. So my journal became part of my scripture study routine. I would read the scriptures and then whatever passage stuck in my mind I would copy into my journal and then write about how that particular scripture (s) was relevant to me right now. That's nice to re-read too.

And I think this is the kind of record of myself that I don't mind leaving for my posterity. (That is if they even want to read them. There are a ton of those journals--and I'm only40, so there will be a bunch more--and some poor descendent is going to have to hoick those things around. But that's not my problem) I don't want anyone to see a rosy, problem-free version of my life. But what I want them to see is what I see: worries and fears and depression and upsets interspersed with the faith to carry me through them AND a life otherwise full of happiness, pleasure, joy and comfort.

I don't want a record of my petty complaints about others. I don't want a catalogue of my own faults. I don't want to enshrine my dark feelings. And I certainly want no permanent account of my sins.

And not only this, but I have found that when I give vent to negative feelings without the mitigation of a hopeful solution or a restored perspective, I only give additional life and strength to those negative feelings. For me, it's like the expression of an anger just feeds the flames. When I write in my journal about being angry, I reinforce all the arguments in my favor and I build up all my self-righteousness about whatever I'm angry about. And when I write about being depressed, I'm just putting into tangible form those amorphous emotions that have been swirling around in my heart. And for me, expression makes the vague much more substantial. So if a depression is forming and I write about it, the depression is NOT relieved, no, instead it's formation is completed. And it becomes more real and has more power over me.

So for me, expression gives life to whatever I'm expressing. Is this true of other people too? It is something to consider, certainly. I have gotten to the point where before I write I must ask myself: Do I want to give this feeling life? Because once I write it, it's alive and working in me, for good or evil.

Now, I don't always successfully avoid giving life to the negative things. You may have already observed that in my blogs. But I am, at least, very aware of this principle. For me, words have power that I have the ability to control. I am in charge of what I express, so in a very real way, I am in charge of what I record on my soul.

And besides. What if I lost that dang journal and everybody read it?