How to journal

Many psychologists use some sort of thought recording technique aimed at uncovering and challenging inaccurate and destructive thought processes. For example, someone struggling with severe social anxiety may use a record that allows them to write down thoughts and emotions that are associated with social anxiety by noting the time, place and situation that preceded the anxiety, as well as the thoughts associated. The idea is to identify the core beliefs that underlie these emotional and mental reactions, evaluate the validity of these core beliefs and challenge those that are destructive and false. 

The overall aim is to change thinking habits, and therefore the emotional and behavioral correlates, by changing the core beliefs. So, if someone with social anxiety uncovers that her belief in her lack of worth is related to her feelings of fear and embarrassment around others, she will use evaluations of past and present experiences to see whether such a belief has a base in reality. If not, she is able to link the development of this belief to past experiences and revisit those past experiences so that the reality may be identified and the negative core belief replaced with something actually based in reality. So, our socially anxious example might discover that having received little approval as a child from her parents led to the base feeling that she is not worthy of approval that coloured her respective experiences. She might also find that her behavior led to her experiences later in life being interpreted as a confirmation of her inherent biased beliefs about her worth, such as giving people the impression that she cannot complete certain tasks on her own, or allowing people in her life that are generally disapproving. Taking a more objective view of her past, she may further figure out that her parents give little to no approval to any of her siblings either and that they treated one another with a similar attitude. She then comes to understand that while it is true she received little approval, there is little evidence to suggest it was due to her inherent lack of worth but rather her inability to understand her reality when she was a child. With this new understanding, she is in a position to challenge her core belief and replace it with something based in reality and to use that information to alter the way she feels in relation to others. She is likely to focus on her behaviors that have contributed to maintain this belief and engage in thoughts and actions that counter this belief: For example, she might find that investing in how she feels about herself before socialising, for example completing an intellectually or physically challenging task, she tends to feel more grounded and less awkward around others. Over time, this practice, along with others, will help create the psychological space within herself needed to cultivate a firm sense of self worth.

This practice to keep track of knowledge about your mind, body and environment by having a daily physical record of your thoughts. This enables you to be able to pick up themes and patterns in your thinking and gives you a library of information about yourself and your world, as we often tend to forget our thoughts and struggle to extract the useful information. The easiest is to write down your thoughts after a mindful exercise and then whenever you are inspired. I wouldn’t recommend a strict routine that is too time consuming but to gradually introduce the habit of noting your thoughts and then develop a specific practice that works for you. For example, some people prefer having a book with them at all times so that they can keep track of thoughts that come up because they are more likely to feel motivated by the emotions at the time to write down their thoughts. Others prefer to have regular time in which they record their thoughts and feelings as they are more likely to keep up the practice as they respond well to routine. 

The purpose of the mental observation practice is to learn how to create this internal mental space so that core beliefs about yourself, others and the world can be re-organised in a way that is in alignment with your core needs, desires and fears. 

Thought patterning 

This is the skill that helps you to extract meaningful information from your thoughts in the form of patterns and themes.

At least once a week, go through your thought record and try to make sense of it by identifying themes, patterns and things that emotionally trigger you. Keep a separate journal to note what you think about your thoughts. This journal is to keep track of your thoughts about your thoughts. You could even have a third journal that tracks any patterns or themes that come up in your second book (your thoughts about your thoughts). This will help you understand not only what you think and how you behave but also how you think about yourself. This is something you can introduce at a later time when you feel you need to expand your perspective but basic record keeping and pattern identification has to be established first. 

Expression 

Once you have identified meaningful patterns in your thinking, find ways to express this understanding, in multiple ways. You could talk to friends, write a story/poem, draw a picture, make a collage, take photos, dance, write a song, or whatever forms of creative work for you. Try to allow yourself to be creative and allow your ideas to inspire you but not to control the process of expression. 

Interpretation 

Once you are done with your creative expressions, don’t engage with it for a few days. Then, take some time to allow yourself to be affected by the creation and engage with it regularly.  For example, if you wrote a poem and drew a picture, put them away and after a few days and when you have time and space, take a look at them and just observe your thoughts and feelings. Record your feelings and thoughts in your second journal. The purpose is to get additional information about these patterns and to see them expressed in another form than writing. You want to see what these patterns say about where your energy goes, what seems to really motivate you, what are the outcomes of your actions, what are your needs, what are your fears and what you are committed to. This serves to help you gain an understanding of what your drivers are and what you want.

Re-interpretation 

Getting a better idea of what you want and what drives you, you can begin to align your goals with these aspects of yourself, so that you can achieve what you want in a way that really works for you. Using this knowledge, you can change your perspective about yourself and the things you desire, and start changing things in your life that support that alignment. For example, if one identifies the need for authentic connection as a primary need and that the need for control (spurred by a fear of rejection) results in a state of constant anxiety, then slowly reducing the habit of control and minimal exposure to less significant forms of rejection would alter the pattern so that the existing desire for connection become the more dominant drive

Note on sitting with emotions: it is important that this is not only a mental exercise and that some time is spent sitting with the emotions, feeling them fully and learning to tolerate the more distressing emotions. The two documents attached to the email give some ways to try to do this.