I used to look back through my journals and panic because my writing was so negative. I began to wonder if my past was just a big jumble of hurt.
Then I realized I don’t really journal. Journaling would imply I sit down and write about things on a semi-regular basis. But I only write in my journal when I’m working through a difficult interaction or a tough issue. When life gets complicated I take my angst out on the paper.
I’m fairly horrified when I read old entries. Because these are some raw, unedited thoughts. Sometimes they’re ugly. But they’re also the truth. Not the actual truth, but the truth about where I started when life got rough.
Refusing to acknowledge our unedited thoughts doesn’t make them less true. Acknowledging them allows us to work through them. And how can we move forward well if we don’t start by taking a good hard look at what we’re starting with?
So often we want to skip this step. This step is scary. Most of us weren’t taught what to do with our big emotions and unedited thoughts. So instead of acknowledging them and working through them, we stuff them. Or use them as an excuse to hurt.
But when we take the time to sort out truth from fiction, reaction from reality, we can recognize the truth. The truth about where we started. The truth about where we need to go.
So next time I look through my journals, I’ll do it with that lens. This is where I started. Now where did I go from there?
How do you deal with your raw, unedited thoughts, reactions, and emotions?