73. Journaling your sobriety
Do you keep a journal? Would you like to?
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Transcript
Hello darling heart, and welcome to the Drink Less, Live Better podcast.
-:This is the podcast that helps you to see that drinking less doesn't need to be stressful, lonely, or boring.
-:I'm your host, Sarah Williamson, and I decided to have a year alcohol free as a little life experiment and haven't looked back.
-:With my experience and training, I now help other people with their alcohol free or drink less adventures.
-:You can find out more and sign up to my 5 day drink less challenge at drink less live better dot com.
-:I'm here to tell you that you can relax, connect, and have fun without alcohol in your life.
-:Join me here each week to find out how.
-:This week I'm going to talk to you about sober journaling.
-:I used to desperately want to be a sober journaler.
-:I could see people around me raving about all the joy and the peace that journaling gave them, and I wanted a piece of that action.
-:Well, dear listener, I'm here to tell you that I have not yet become a regular sober journal keeper.
-:I have had spades in and out of journaling.
-:It has served me amazingly well at particular points in my sobriety journey and less well at other times.
-:Today, I'm gonna share with you 3 different types of journaling that I have used over the last few years.
-:A type that I really struggled with, a type that served me okay for a while, and a type that is what I do now.
-:I have what is known as the journal graveyard on one shelf of my bookcase. There are over 20 journals there. There are blank diaries. There are beautiful artistic notebooks.
-:There are, prompted notebooks and journals, printed out ones, beautifully bound ones, homemade bat homemade ones, a 5 size,
-:a 4 size, and tiny little a 6 size, a complete and utter mixture. Some of them are full completely.
-:Some of them have 1 or 2 pages written in.
-:One of the things I used to really struggle with was the idea of journal perfection.
-:And I could not start writing in a journal because I was afraid of either stuffing it up and writing something that I then
-:needed to tippex or rub out, and also or writing something that I then didn't want somebody to go back and look at later on.
-:I got over the fear of making it not look nice enough by starting to use pencils and later on using erasable beautiful colored pens.
-:One of the other tricks I use is to print out tiny pieces of paper and, draw nice borders around them.
-:And then I use those to write little slogans or, quotes on, and I then stick those in my journals.
-:So my journals now have a certain element of scrapbook about them, which I really love.
-:I'm really happy to doodle in my books as well. I write spidergrams.
-:I draw thought bubbles and little pictures along the sides and in the margins just because I think it makes my journals look
-:prettier, and I give my brain the space to think whilst my hand is doodling on the page.
-:I had to get really clear about why I wanted, to be a successful journaler.
-:Originally, it was because other people were doing it, and I wanted the same.
-:But now my reason is because I love having the record to look back on.
-:I was recently looking through my 2019 journals, because I was about to deliver a workshop, And it was so good to look back
-:and find out what I was thinking, how I was feeling, what my emotions were at the time that I was first toying with the idea of sobriety.
-:I'm so happy to have a record of that now.
-:The first type of journaling that I really got serious with is called morning pages.
-:The idea of morning pages was put forward by the lovely Julia Cameron.
-:And if you're interested in morning pages, I would suggest you Google Julia Cameron and have a read around, how and what morning pages looks like.
-:It is supposed to be 3 pages, a handwritten stream of consciousness that you do first thing in the morning as soon as you get out of bed.
-:You write about whatever comes to mind.
-:I wrote my morning pages for about 6 months, and whilst I definitely did get some value out of it at the time, longer term,
-:it was not a method of journaling that works for me.
-:After I finished my morning pages, I turned to bullet journaling.
-:I really love bullet journaling for the creativity that it allowed me, the space to take that gridded page, make it into whatever
-:shape I want, use it to record out what I want as far as my mind, body, and soul is concerned for the day.
-:I used it as a bit of a trick tick list, and I used it for recording thoughts of not only what had gone before, how I was
-:feeling in the present moment, but also what my future plans were and what my goals were looking like at that time.
-:And that worked okay for a while.
-:I did, a solid, I think, 4 months of keeping a daily bullet journal, and then I just got out of practice with it.
-:The journaling method that has worked really well for me all the way through since from 2,000 and 19 until now is a daily diary.
-:I like to buy an a 5 diary that is 1 page a day and just fill that one page every day.
-:Some days, it is a bit of a stream of consciousness.
-:Some days, it is more drawing than writing.
-:Some days, I use journal prompts to write in it.
-:But, mostly, it is just a little record of where I am in a given moment.
-:I aim to be having progress rather than protect pro rather than perfection. See?
-:Progress rather than perfection in my journaling practice.
-:As long as I just keep going with it, I don't have to worry about it looking immaculate or worry, edit my thoughts and feelings.
-:If you found these these thoughts about journaling useful today, please drop me an email or a DM.
-:Let me know what it is you're particularly loving about journaling or what's keeping you stuck around journaling.
-:And if you need a little nudge in the right direction to get going with it, let me know that too. I'll happily be your accountability buddy.
-:Check out the show notes on this podcast or any other episode.
-:You'll find details about the Drink Less, Live Better 2023 retreat.
-:You'll see the link to a hidden podcast episode to help you with your 5 PM cravings, and you'll be able to read about my 1 to 1 coaching program.
-:I'd love it if you could follow and download the podcast, and if you feel inclined to leave a review, that'd be lovely as well. Thank you for listening in today. Please come back again next week. And PS I believe in you.
