Journaling: A Resurgence

Can journaling help reduce stress, process grief, spark self-discovery, and even become part of the legacy we leave behind? In this thoughtful conversation, Barb and returning guest Denise Torgerson explore the many forms journaling can take—from art and gratitude journals to guided prompts, and even letter writing. They share personal stories of using journals through major life transitions, including loss, dating, healing, and personal growth, while reflecting on why putting pen to paper can be such a powerful act of self-care. Whether you’ve kept journals for decades or have never written a word, this episode may inspire you to pick up a pen and begin.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Yeah, now I don't want to have anything to do with Dr. Phil.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Many people don't.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Yeah, I know. You are listening to What's Next? Conversations with Boomers. And I'm Barb Demaray, your host. So, as many of you know, if you're a regular listener, I have a Sunday morning phone call with my very good friend Denise Torgeson, who is also a friend of the pot and comes on a lot. We got into a conversation about journaling. Journaling is one of those things that's listed when dealing with stress or anxiety. And Denise has done a little bit more research than I have. So we thought, let's talk about journaling. Welcome back, Denise. Hello, nice to be here. Always, always good to have you. So good to have you. Okay, so first of all, I'm gonna ask you, although I know, but for the listeners, do you journal? Do you keep a journal?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

In and out. So right now I'm keeping a journal. Um, but not always, not consistently, not year after year after year. I find I keep a journal when I when things are changing or when I'm kind of trying to figure things out. That's what I'm doing right now. Sort of self-coaching. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

So you kind of use it to process your thoughts then.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Often, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Well, and I and I think a lot of people use it for that. To to just write down what they're thinking.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah. The reason that I brought up journaling in our conversation on Sunday was because I'm a scroller on TikTok. I just scroll, scroll, scroll. Just you can kind of get lost in it. And um no, Denise, that's not a good habit. It's a great habit.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Yeah, of course we all do.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah, so what I was surprised at is how many people are journaling now and how it's become well, huge business, way more than it used to be back in the diary days. And um well, for example, I was talking to my niece the other day, and I said, Oh, we're gonna do a talk about journaling. She said, Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I don't I don't really journal very much. And I went, oh, okay. And she said, but I have a journal. She started lists. I do like to journal because she goes to therapy. I do like to journal about my therapy sessions. I said, Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. And I have a different journal because I like to journal about the books I read. So when I read a book, I journal about that. And I said, Oh yeah, okay, yep. And then when I was really not well, I was journaling about that. So now I'm gonna buy the journal that's exactly the same as that journal, so I can journal about how I feel better. I said, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she said, and then I think you should, I think she started talking about gratitude journaling, anyways. Five journals, right? So for film who doesn't journal very much, she's got five different journals. She's only got the five journals going. Yeah. And so I just thought that was really interesting how it's evolved into rather than because for me, everything's in one book, and then I go back to look for something and I get overwhelmed. And so the idea of having more than one journal excites me. Um, yeah. So right now I'm journaling um coaching questions, like on purpose, just to kind of see what shows up in my writing. So yeah. Are you sometimes surprised what shows up? Yes, that's the beauty of it. Yeah, that's the beauty of it. It's like uh, oh, I didn't know I was thinking that.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah. So give us an example of the coaching questions. You don't have to share what you wrote down unless you want to, but just an example of uh there, you know, lots of us would call those prompts, also.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

And so the ones I've lately, what has energy for you today? What has energy? What is alive for you? Those are the the two that I journal on the most. Um what what are the what are your favorite kinds of conversations? I like to journal about that. And then more recently, where I feeling constricted, right? In my body, but also what's what's arising when I think about that? You know, where do I have agency? Where don't I have agency? You know, are there things I need to do to kind of pull myself back to myself? Those kinds of things. So yeah, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

So such good questions. And and those kind of questions really get you thinking. I I've I've been keeping a journal. The first one that I started was when I was pregnant with my first child. And I journaled the entire pregnancy, how I was feeling, how foul along I was, you know, how how big she was. Of course, we never knew in those days if you were having a boy or a girl. Right. Um, and then, you know, the whole birth, and then the the first six months, and then up to a but till she was about three, I think. And it is so fun to look back on. Um, and I also I've journaled, I journal a lot um before Surge died. My husband died. It's basically, you know, what I did today. I mean, nothing interesting, no, no really deep thoughts. Just I did this and then I did that and then I did this. And then I started doing it after he died. So there was lots of, you know, surge has gone three months today, third surge is gone six months today, and how I was sort of getting used to what uh what I was calling the new normal. And so a lot of thoughts around that and and how I was feeling because I had so much anxiety, which brought on physical symptoms. I'm oh I like this rash on my neck, and I don't know I know it's sort of stress, and oh, it's driving me crazy, blah, blah, blah. Um, so again, those are really fun to look back on. And and especially if you, I mean, you know, they're they're certainly not pros, but if you sort of when get when exactly did I do that? When did I start doing this or start doing that? Okay, when, you know, what were the what were the details involved in whatever activity you're talking about? And it's it's really good to to, oh yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah, but then, oh right, right, right. And then I, you know, when I started dating and and having actual relationships instead of, you know, one or two dates, then those became stories. The content was just so incompletely different. There was none of, you know, I did this and this and this, or I just I started going out with this person named such and such, and this is how we met, and I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so those two are really fun to look back on. How how I started out feeling, and then discoveries I made and how it ended.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

And yeah, there's there's lots there. Like you you're talking about but different, different parts of your life, you know. I love that you say they're fun to look back on, particularly the ones around um surge dying and your grief. Yeah, I I've heard people say, I I look back on my grief journal from a year ago. They've never called it fun, but they've said how they they see, particularly when you're grieving because you're so in it. When you look back, they see how they've changed and how they've grown, how they've come forward, progressed through the yeah. We often used to, well, actually, we had a journaling group, but we would always recommend journaling to people when they were grieving. And there was the group of people that journaled anyways, and then there is a group of people that are just adamant. No, I don't journal. And they just nothing will make them journal. Yeah. And that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Denise, why do you think that is that that people would be adamant that no, I don't write my thoughts. Or I mean, you don't even have to write your thoughts down. I mean, it's not, well, I suppose it's all your thoughts, but it doesn't have to be deep reflections. It can be literally what I was describing before what I did today.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah. Um, and so why do people not want to do that? I don't know. I I don't know. I don't have an answer. I don't know. I, you know, some people I have a I love words. Right? So journaling to me, it's it's not foreign. It's like a friend, right? I pick up a pen to write. It's because I love words, but some people they don't read books, they they're not interested in words like I am. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess not.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I maybe, maybe for some people it's a it's a it's a scary process, but of course there's nothing scary about it. And last Sunday, when one of the things that you and I touched on was these journals that we've kept will be part of our legacy. I mean, our they're in our own handwriting. Our children will read them, supposedly. Um there have been things I've written and I'm thinking, oh, I hope nobody reads this. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

As you're saying, I don't mind, you know, I'm thinking I better go through there and throw a couple of rip a few of those pages out.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So share what you've been just saying a little bit more about what you've learned through these people that you've seen on TikTok, because I was completely unfamiliar.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Yeah. They they uh talk about their journaling ecosystem. Ecosystem. You know, what I'm gonna show you my journaling ecosystem. And so, and they start going through all their journals and what their journals are for. I think it's kind of fantastic how people are um I don't know, just uh and this one's for this, and this one's for this, and this is my gratitude journal, and this is my planner, and this is and some people use planners and journals together, and then some people have their journal and then but they have their stickers and they have their their tape, and it becomes a whole art project. And yeah, just amazing. Uh bullet journaling. I don't know anything about bullet journaling, but that's a whole other class of journaling, I for lack of a better word, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Yeah, bullet journaling.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah, yeah. And they're just people are very, very happy do doing it. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, right now I'm I'm pretty happy with the journaling that I'm doing. I in the past I've done gratitude journals. I've done when I first retired, I did uh people do to-do lists in their planners. I would do today lists in my planner, all the things that I've done. Yeah, because I was really thinking, oh, I'm just a sloth. I'm not doing anything. So I had to kind of keep track of the things that I did to kind of reel real. Oh, yeah, no, I I actually am doing a lot. I'm just not doing as much as when I was working so hard. So yeah, so yeah, there's different ways you can use paper and pen, right? Travel journals are really big.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Travel journals, and that's another thing that most people are familiar with, like diaries, buying a journal for your trip. And I've been on many, many trips. I never once journaled, even though I do journal, but I just, you know, I'm just busy doing things or afterwards sort of debriefing the day with Claire or whatever. Um yeah, I never I I but you know, that we take, we being society right now, we take so many photos that has now become journals of my trips because I I mean I've literally got hundreds. And of course, they're all dated with the place where they are. So you don't look at them and think, where was that? Oh, yeah, that was in Florence or whatever. Yeah, so which of course we didn't have back in the day. We didn't have, you know, we couldn't, we didn't photograph anywhere near as much as we do now. Yeah, you know, Serge kept journals and they weren't reflective at all. I mean, he just he he just didn't talk like that. I mean, he wasn't, I've really been thinking hard about. But he loved the journals themselves. He he loved really good pens. He's he's got a whole, he left behind a whole collection of beautiful fountain pens, and he loved to use them. And the place where he bought his pens also sold these lovely leather-bound journals. So, um, and they're all written in French, but I know enough French that I can read most of them. But they are just, you know, today I did this, today I did that. Of course, he chronicled his whole cancer journey. But there was no sort of any thoughts about I know I'm gonna die. Right, or I wonder how much time I have left. Or very it was just very matter-of-fact and surface. Um but he's got several, and I have them in a box, and I think what a wonderful thing for our children to have with his handwriting, and he printed and he printed very neatly, and for you know, our grandson to have these.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Yeah, so I was going through some of my mom's stuff the other day. Well, actually, a bunch of pictures, and I came across a little journal that she kept. I mean, it was in just this little tiny book, and a lot of it, a lot of it, Denise, was about the weather.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

Yes. Um, yeah, you know, and uh Mary and I did fickles today and it all right but um also there was some entries where my dad became really ill and how that was for her. But again, not a lot of deep thinking, but it is there's a record of it. And what's really important to me is it's in her handwriting.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Right. Yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

And I think, you know, Claire was reading it when she was here uh Easter weekend, and you know, found it fascinating. And I also have a journal of my that my dad kept on there the one and only time they went to Europe together. He was in Europe during the war, and he used to write letters, as I've shared with you, to his parents of his experience during the war in in World War II. And although their letters, that certainly reads like a journal. Yeah, that's incredible. You know, it's it's so often recommended as a self-care tool.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Well, I think, you know, we a lot of us more than ever before, we spend far far too much time in our head. And um, I think particularly when you're overwhelmed or anxious about something, to get it out of your head and onto a piece of paper is really helpful. Really, really helpful. And sometimes to quietly champion yourself, right? Or to um I was gonna say to vent, but actually I don't, I don't, I don't have any evidence to back this up, but I'm not sure that venting is as healthy as people think it is. But a place that you can talk to yourself about yourself, I think is a really helpful thing to do. It gives you some distance between what you're experiencing in your body and in your head.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

That makes sense, yeah. And and you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking when you're writing things down, um nobody's gonna challenge you. Right. Why would you think that? Why would you do that? Why why wouldn't you do this? You've got you can be your true self, you write down what whatever comes to mind, and there's no right or wrong about journaling, right? Right. I mean, you don't even have to know how to write a proper sentence because it's you do it.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

It's no a lot of people do art journaling too, right? I'm not an artist, so that's foreign to me, but a lot of people do art. Art journaling. What's that? Well, they just, you know, how am I feeling today? And then they draw or paint the picture. Oh, I see. I see.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Oh, paint their feelings or draw their feelings or draw their experience. Well, that's interesting. Or collage or yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My journaling has changed so much because as I said, it was just what I did every day. I have so many of it. The days that I all the years I used to watch Dr. Phil to watch Dr. Phil today, next day, next day, next day. Yeah. My my my friend Deb and I, we worked for 10 years. We worked out in the gym together. Worked out with Deb from one to two, and then I went home and watched Dr. Phil. And and then I blah blah blah blah blah.

unknown 18:21

I know.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I don't want to have anything to do with Dr. Phil.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Many people don't. Yeah. I know.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

I know. Yeah. Kind of lost a lost his credibility with us. Anyway, this isn't about Dr. Phil. Sorry, Dr. Phil, which I'm sure he's listening.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

What why do you think people should journal or should they? Like why why do you think it's recommended?

SPEAKER_02 18:53

The practical application for what I've just been describing is just to keep a record of what you did and when you did it. You don't have to necessarily have to, if if you choose not to say how you feel while you were doing that. But it is because we do forget. And you know what? We forget more and more now. I found that we tend to forget more and more. Um, and because I've looked back, you know, just just the last few days, I've been reading them and oh yeah, you know, as I said, it happened then, or it happened then. So, number one is to keep a record, and I and I think that's really useful. But I know certainly while I was going through all these relationships, putting it down on paper and then reading about it afterwards, it gave me some solace. It kind of brought everything to light. And also, it certainly was each one of these men, and I'm sure it's the same with anybody dating, you started, I started to see a pattern. And in every case, it was a pattern that I discovered for me did not work. But just kind of how you know what for oh, I've met such and such, and I, oh, we just we just get along so well. I think this is going to be really great. And oh, we just have the greatest conversation, and I I'm just really, I'm really pumped. And how things slowly change. And uh so it is, it is really um, I don't know what is the word. It's very interesting reading back on that because you know, I've decided to end that chapter, it may reopen at some point, who knows. So that was kind of a chapter of my life, and it's all in writing. And it is just it's just interesting. And and also through that process, I really changed in terms of what I will tolerate and not tolerate, which I I wasn't cognizant enough about before. Um, do you think turning helped you with that? I think it did partly, yes. Especially when I read back, you know, I was, oh, maybe this is just a one-off thing, and I would, you know, nobody's perfect and that kind of thing. And and you know, when I started reflecting back, I think, well, why would I ever put up with that? Somebody literally yelling at me, excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't usually journal events. It's yeah, and now I'm thinking, I should probably be doing that. Yeah, I don't, I I'm more in inner, inner what's going on inside, not so much what is happening on the outside. Yeah. So I don't have a record. I don't keep a record. Um, I have a friend, she's in her 80s, and all of she keeps all of her calendars, and every day it's the weather. The weather has written if there was a an event, she would write that on her calendar. And she's kept them for I don't know, 60 years. I don't know. Yeah. Wow. Mm-hmm. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

But here's something as simple as that. Does she have children?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yes, she does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Well, you know, she's gonna leave this earth at some point and she will leave those behind and her kids will read them. Yeah. So um yeah, because so often, you know, when we say we have questions that we want to ask the people that have died. And nobody, you know, fewer and fewer people are around to answer those questions about our family, right? Yeah. Parents are gone, most of our aunts and uncles are gone. So who do you ask? But if there's an actual written documentation of some of those events and some of those thoughts, then a lot of those questions might be answered.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah. I actually, as you were talking, I was just thinking about another lady in one of the groups I did. You're doing it, you your daughter bought this for you, and I can't remember what it's called, but you're writing like a memoir. And the what what what does she give you? Like she gave you something with prompts and you have to answer the question.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Yeah, story worse, it's called story worse. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. I know, I know. And the questions they ask are, oh my gosh, gee, you know, I think I've never thought I haven't thought about that. Yeah, there's there's a bunch coming up that I haven't. Do I do you believe at la in love at first sight? Is one of the questions. Yeah. How does your how does the home that you that you brought your children up resemble the home that you were raised in? Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, there's some really good. What what was your first impression of Serge's family when you first met them? Oh. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's tons of them. But when I read them, I I enter and I say, oh gosh, that was boring. That was so boring. I this is really. Is this the way because our book club right now is reading the book, The Correspondent, which is so interesting. And it's all letters. And letters, as we've saying, are similar. If you keep the letters, it's similar to a journal. So uh, and this the the author is she writes so well. They're they're just a joy to read. Um but they it does remind me of journaling.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Right. Because how yes, I think we talked about that the other day too. Yeah. I remember um because I used to travel on the Greyhound a lot to and from Vancouver, and I would sit on the bus and write letters to people. And it that very much like journaling. This is what's this is what the weather is today, and this is what I did in Vancouver, and this is how I'm feeling, and this is how I miss you. Or I would go out for dinner when Ambrose was away, I'd go out for dinner by myself and I'd write letters to people. And so I wouldn't be alone, you know, I'd be with whoever I'm writing a letter to.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Yeah. That's so cool. Well, sure, that's a form of journaling.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Absolutely. So, and I just want to say, I don't reread my journal. You don't. Oh. Oh, and why is that? I don't know. I don't have a reason that makes sense. Maybe I don't really want to know what I was up to years ago. Sure. I'm not sure, but I don't. No, no. So like everybody's different, right? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

And this is the beauty of it. There's absolutely no rules. And and you know what kind of journals you want to keep. I mean, when we started coaching, you know, it was huge. And we were all taught to express gratitude and keep a gratitude journal. And so I when I was journaling all the time, I would end each entry with today, I'm grateful for. And yeah, it it was a really nice way to end the day to and actually put it on writing. So, and again, looking back on those things that I was grateful for. And I I do it in my head now, actually. But anyway, just to say, you can write whatever on whatever you want. Yeah, and I'm and I'm sure that you were saying there's art journals, but people that are creative writers, they keep journals with just uh their uh things that they could write about, bullets probably. Um I remember I took a writing course one time, and and uh I took it, I've taken several actually. And one of the courses that I took, she really um emphasized when you read a book and you see a really interesting word, make note of it, write it down. So you keep a list of descriptive words if you're writing something and you, oh, I want to how can I say that differently without going to AI. Right, yes, right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Um yeah. I find I do that when I listen to um interviews of people that I find interesting. Just how sometimes listening to other how how other people language things. So I'll write down words or phrases or to come back to. Yeah. Yeah, it helps.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

You know, you somehow think you're gonna remember these things, but you don't. Yeah, it's really helpful to to write them down. So as I was saying before we started recording, I was talking to my sister, and she does a lot of journaling, but she told me about Progoff, if that I if I'm pronouncing his name right, Ira Progoff, who died at the age of 77 in 1998. And he was considered to be the godfather of the contemporary journal writing movement, which has blossomed incredibly in the last couple of decades. His best known book at a journal workshop is what it was called, which was published in 1975, is the basic text and guide to the application of what he called, quote, the extensive journal process. And it still stands as the best, most complete work in the entire ever-expanding library of journaling, journaling guides. It is rather like the King James version of journal writing books, long, complex, and challenging, the source of many of the most enduring and useful concepts in the field. It's just a little bit more. Writing in a journal about one's ideas, feelings, and experiences is almost always useful. And then he's quoted as saying, but an unstructured journal usually just goes around in circles. Progoff says, to become a valuable tool of psychological self-care, a journal needs a design that will help a human being answer the question, What is my life trying to become? That's profound. Yeah. Yeah, it's um so we can basically make it whatever we want. I just thought it was it was a fun thing to talk about because you you do read it as a recommendation so often uh to manage stress and anxiety, but there's all different reasons why you would keep a journal.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, I've got I I've experienced that. That it without a structure, you do go around and around. Or I have. So I get that. I understand that. Yeah. That's why when I picked up the pen again to have specific problems, to me, that's helpful. It feels like I'm you know, uncovering something or opening to potential or possibility rather than just random. Random, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Right. That well, that what he would call that having structure for sure. Yeah. So okay, Denise.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Anything anything else we should say here? You know, journaling you know, the evidence is saying that journaling's really good for us and that picking up a pen or doing art journaling or whatever it is that we're doing is an act of self-care and and is an act of again possibility, discovery. I'm a believer, I always have been a believer in journaling. And I see people who journal and they can see how it's helped them. So yeah, that's I that's really nothing wise to say here, really, just that it's it's good for you. It is, it's a bit of a mirror, isn't it? And it can be really fun. It can be really fun, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Yeah. How about you? Well, I I I will, as I say, I've been keeping them on and off for okay, Claire's gonna be 39 this year, so I started it on eight 1986 writing about my pregnancy. So I've been writing them on and off since then. Oprah is a big journal person. She talks about, she apparently has kept journals since she was 13 and still has them all. So um yeah, yeah, they're they're they're big and an important part of our life, I think, if if we choose to have them.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

One one last thing, I'll just say one last thing, Barbie. Uh back in the day, I used to uh uh Julia Cameron's um three pages. Yeah, I don't know if you've the artist's way. So I used to do that. So I would do three pages and I and I would always turn it into a vent. And I found that I would put the pen down, um, feeling really negative, worked up because of things that I written that I had written, and that it was sort of following me throughout the day. And so that that didn't work for me. So just to say that it's a good place to, you know, put all that stuff on a piece of paper for sure. And then I would end, I would sort of write a paragraph or two, a kind of a love letter to myself, just to sort of ease the inner critic voice that often shows up for me in when I journal. Um, yeah, I would purposely end it with something positive about me or to me, or yeah. I on purpose do not put the pen down if I'm in a state of powerful emotion or anxiety. Because it yeah, it follows.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

The visual when you were talking, the visual for me was that you were ending it, giving yourself an embrace.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Denise. Always fun. Thank you. Always fun. And we'll be talking tomorrow. We're gonna come up with more stuff. Okay. This episode is written and created by me, Barb Demaray. Produced, edited, and engineered by Mela. Many thanks to our guests today for making it possible. And if you enjoyed it as much as we did recording it, follow us on your favorite podcast player. Also, we are now on YouTube at what's next.convos with boomers. Thanks for listening.