How journaling helped me deal with anxiety

Towards the end of 2021 - the near end of pandemic era. I've decided to start journaling. It was partly inspired by a friend of mine who journals. Her journal is filled with beautiful drawings (she's an art student) documenting interesting events/things that had happened throughout her day.

The main reason was because I was not very happy. There were a lot of things going on for everyone at that point in time, including myself. This was also the beginning of my mental health journey - perhaps a story for another post. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that writing down 3 things that you're grateful for on the day will somehow give you a different perspective and make you feel better. With that, I got myself a journal from MUJI to start my 2022. I love the layout of the journal. It allows me to see the days of the week on the left page and a blank squared page on the right to freely write or draw anything.

One and a half year into my journey, journaling has helped me deal with a number of negative emotions:

Burnout

Burnout is a psychological syndrome emerging as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job.

Burnout became a buzzword at some point during/after the pandemic. Undeniably, the pandemic probably did a number to most people as well. Personally, I wasn't having the best time during my job.

I didn't get a promotion.

Stuff happened at home and I couldn't be there for them.

Work became stressful and I started dreading Monday week after week. I used to think I was one of those few percent of people in the world who looks forward to Monday, work felt like play back then. I enjoyed it.

In my journals, I started documenting events and things that I was grateful for throughout my day no matter how big or small. If it makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, it goes into the grateful list. In a week, the list goes up to 10 on average. So, at least 1 or 2 nice things happened per day. On scale, that's about 520 nice things that could happen in a year. 🤯

My brain probably won't have the capacity to remember all of that - but my journal will. It's mind boggling to know that we will eventually forget a lot of good moments that happen in life.

We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten - Cesare Pavese

Even though journaling didn't entirely eliminate my burnout, because the root cause of it is probably from my job. It definitely helped me shift my focus to the good things that actually happened. Besides, work takes up 1/3 of our lives, it shouldn't consume our entire lives.

Impostor Syndrome

As a female software engineer, I'm constantly battling impostor syndrome, whether it's my new job or when a new project is initiated. Here's the definition of impostor syndrome:

The persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills.

Being in tech is a blessing and a curse, it requires constant un-learning and re-learning new technology and concepts. And as time passes, this process feels tiring and tedious. Not to mention the multiple rounds of grueling interviews to secure a good offer in multinational tech companies.

My journal has been great at serving as hard physical evidence for all my effort used against impostor syndrome. Flipping over the pages, this is what I can see.

I tried solving a medium question today, but I couldn't.

I tried to understand binary tree today, I think kinda get it.

I submitted a few resumes today.

I interviewed today.

Someone said I did well on this project.

So yea, I had to acknowledge my effort. Since I journaled what I did over time, I can't blatantly deny every single effort or think that was ultimately governed by pure luck. In fact, I had to acknowledge that I at least tried. This article gives a good overview of how to overcome impostor syndrome.

Anxiety

People say anxiety is caused by worrying about the future, depression is caused by thinking too much about the past.

Occasionally, I get a wave of anxiousness:

Worrying whether I did enough for my future self.

Worrying whether I tried and take all kinds of risk when I'm still young.

Worrying how some arbitrary events in the future will unfold.

They are completely unnecessary thoughts which are disrupting my existing peace. Yet, it is addictive and a really hard cycle to break. The first step to rewire our brain is to take notice. I use my journal to write down as many of these thoughts as I can. Seeing them on paper helps me process them, instead of falling deeper and getting swept away by the wave becoming more anxious.

After seeing those thoughts on paper, I try to categorize and prioritize them by asking a few questions:

1. Are they relevant or important?
2. Do they align with my future goals?

Usually if the answer is yes, I try to figure out whether I am taking action on it. If there's something to be done, I re-arrange my priorities accordingly. Conversely, if it's not something that I care about and it still bothers me, I try to keep asking why until I find a root cause. Sometimes our brain needs a reality fact-check because our brains make up our realities.

Having a bad day

Journaling is not 100% filled with rainbows and sunshine. Like the weather, like anything else, we have good days and bad days. Sometimes on a bad day, I don't feel like writing anything at all. If the days are blank for a few consecutive days, I know that something is bothering me and I'll try to find out the reason.

On some other bad days, I use my journal as a way to vent out - a way to process negative emotions. I may doodle it, write why I felt the way I did, or how the day played out which led to the 'bad' day.

After all that venting, I'd always end it with "It's OK". I find these two words especially consoling. Besides, more often than not, a bad day isn't 100% bad. There are always some good moments that happen - even something really small counts. Seeing it written out somehow made the day end on a better note. It's inspired by NightBirde's song and I love her quote:

“You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”

Comparing myself to others

Comparison is the thief of joy” - President Theodore Roosevelt

Yet, we all do it to ourselves all the time. The world we live in subconsciously encourages us, now that social media is so easily accessible. We see what others are doing, heck, even celebrities - what their day is like, what they are eating etc.

We see everyone else but ourselves. We don't have a mirror to look at. We don't have time to reflect on what happen in our busy day, even when we're on holiday, the first thing to do sometime is to post it on social media.

Having my journal and flipping through it is always a constant reminder that I am myself. These events happened, these are how my days were, these are all my emotions that I felt when it happened. It's truly my own storybook where I am the main character.

We all are our own main character in our life. We are all unique individuals. So don't compare your struggles to someone else's triumphs, because it's two completely different storylines. Now, go be the main character of your story.