“DEAR DIARY . . . Today was a bad day! I saw so-and-so in the cafeteria line during lunchtime and she didn’t even speak to me. Next time I see her, I’m not going to talk to her either, so she can see what being ignored feels like. I don’t think we’re going to be BFFs anymore. Should I slip a note in her locker telling her that? Well, that’s all for now.”
Such was the type of rhetoric some documented in their diaries as children. Those fond memories of keeping a diary to track the type of day we had, the interactions with our frenemies that took place, the kind of legendary events worthy to be recorded in writing.
The important stuff — you know???
Yes, keeping a diary was actually a form of journaling. And, I remember those days vividly. (Except in my youthful days, the term of endearment known as “BFF” was nowhere to be found.)
I even have my first couple of journals tucked away in a box in my basement somewhere. Oh, and I even kept somewhat of a diary into my teenage/young adult years. Didn’t purchase an official “diary” though. Just used a calendar to chronicle the impactful events of the day.
And, I even use planners and calendars to this day to remind myself of important tasks to do but also to highlight how I’m feeling, progress I’m making on goals, and pivotal moments in life (upcoming, ongoing, and already in the past) that I don’t want to lose remembrance of in the old memory bank.
So, I chronicle and track and record and do so through a favorite pastime of mine — HAND WRITING.
We’ve been discussing journaling the last couple of blog posts and I thought I’d continue with that same theme today, because I’m currently working on creating that tracking document that I previously told you about in The Bee-Attitudes of Closing the Gap.
My goal is to take what we would normally write out in long form (about our daily moods and behaviors) in a diary and/or a journal and figure out how to succinctly capture those same sentiments in some type of daily tracking sheet.
Yes. Trying to wrap my head around this one. (Hey, and if you have any ideas of what would be good in such a tracking sheet, please DO SHARE. This inquiring mind wants to know.)
As a matter of fact, I happen to think that more people would journal in this way if there was something that looked a little more compact that could easily capture their feelings, emotions, and behaviors in a “quick-at-a-glance” hand-writing way.
You know how we are these days. Microwave this and microwave that. The way society’s systems are set up, oftentimes, put you in that fast-track mode for much of how we function in daily life.
And when it comes to us truly coming to terms with dysfunction in our personal identities, we can easily write off problematic ways of being that aren’t serving us well. We just ride the wave of those ways and keep it movin’.
We know something’s not right with our moods and behaviors, but we don’t ever fully address the elephants in the room. Because we don’t have time, right? We just keep the hamster wheel a-turnin’, while forwarding the dispositions and misbehaviors that are causing us pain and stunting our personal growth.
AND, HERE’S THE DEAL . . .
I’m all about inward healing these days. I DO believe it’s my mission in life right now. To heal and to help others along that journey. And if I can be frankly honest about it, I haven’t met a person online or offline that couldn’t use a little inner healing balm in some way or another.
After all, we’re human, people. And if you live life in this world as a human being, you’re going to need some inner healing from time to time.
So, I aim to drop-kick our excuses for not having time to journal or to diary or to write some long drawn-out discourse about how we feel that helps lead us to the root causes of why we feel the way we feel and why we act the way we act
AND
work to create a beneficial “moods-behaviors” tracking mechanism that’s more in line with our time and attention constraints.
All with the intention of helping us identify WHY and WHERE our personal makeups need some fine-tuning, so we can move right on into that personal identity placement we’re meant to fulfill.
Oops! I’m a little behind with this whole undertaking, though. Therefore, I’d better get after it.
“Moods-Behaviors” tracker soon-to-come.
degreesofmaternity.com 
Thank you so much, Mthobisi. You always bring the sunshine with your comments. I truly appreciate your kind and uplifting words of encouragement. Yes, there’s something liberating about being in tune with the way you feel. And, I definitely think that we have moments where we react in certain ways but may never have come to terms with exactly why we respond in the ways we do. So, deliberately tracking these behavioral moments in time may help us bring some attention to negative areas in our lives that can be helped if we focus on them with solutions that bring healing.
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Insightful blog post Jana. I definitely see the passion you have for writing and since the name of the blog is “DEGREES OF MATERNITY”, I can say you are nailing it in your chosen niche because writing about maternity involves therapy, emotional checks and understanding your moods as well ad the moods of others.
Also, I agree that as a human being living on this cruel world, you are bound to be in need of inner introspection and how you feel inside, it can be pain, hurts and scars caused by bad people, you end up crying or worse the death of a loved one🙏😭. Thus, I believe journalling your moods , what happened this day and the legendary events that need to be documented helps your moods to feel better since you have confronted them internally💯
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