Likely, you have noticed how much talk there is around the topics of self-care and mindfulness.  I hear these terms used to describe all kinds of activities—everything from getting your hair done to attending a meditation retreat seems to fall into the categories of personal rejuvenation.  In fact, I noticed on a listing of professional development workshops offered locally, the one on mindfulness filled up the fastest. 

Today, people share similar struggles no matter their profession, income bracket, or background.  We are stressed-out, overworked, drained, and exhausted.  Our love of life has waned to a point where we are grasping desperately onto a return to basics to take care of ourselves.  Beneath the layers of fatigue, indifference, and failed goals, so many of us just need to recharge our batteries. 

In a fast paced world, many of us have turned to journaling as a means for self-care and mindfulness.  The research shows us that conscientious journaling can relieve stress and increase happiness.  Getting a journaling practice may take a little bit of time and effort, but just like exercise or meditation, the positive effect comes from giving it a fair try.  

Anyone who has taken a writing class has heard this phrase, “Write what you know.”  What instructors mean when they say this is that writers can tap into a both depth and breadth of content when they write under the topics and subjects that are most familiar to them.  So, what is you know that you could write?

If you are a parent who finds children to be hilarious, disastrous little bundles of madness then you likely have amazing experiences to journal.  Write up how frightened you were the day your toddler son was sitting on your newborn daughter.  Write about the time that your mother-in-law visited a week after the baby was born and expected to be served a full luncheon.  Then there was the time the kids had a balloon fight in the living room and actually choked from laughing so hard.  Or remember the time your daughter broke into the makeup and decorated herself to look just like the Joker from Batman? 

So, what if you are not a parent.  Write about the heroic tales of starting your own business (or finishing your degree, writing your book, or volunteering, or whatever your accomplishments are).  I wish that I had kept a journal of how much I struggled in college.  I worked a full time job, paid all of my own expenses, and attended school full time, and somehow in that madness I still graduated with decent grades.  Write down those stories.  Make a list of advice to share with others.  Create a series of suggestions or articles in your journal about how your dedication worked to your advantage in meeting your goals.

If you think about journaling as a means for capturing the events of your day, you can miss out on the opportunities that journaling can inspire.  Do not let yourself get stuck in the idea that journaling has to look or feel a certain way.  It does not need to conform to someone else’s ideas of how it should look.  
​

Now, there are some considerations that we need to look at when journaling, because there are a couple of ways to journal in the wrong way.  Of course, no one wants to turn a self-care activity into a stressful activity, so keep these suggestions in mind when journaling. 

First of all, like any self-care activity, journaling takes time to be useful.  If you go to the gym once and work out, you are not going to leave there with the same body you had at age 20.  To achieve the intended goal, set aside time to realize that goal to its full potential.  With journaling, a couple of times per week works fine for most people, although some do like to journal once a day. 

Secondly, do not get wrapped in a negative spiral.  Sometimes, people get the idea that journaling is writing down all of the rotten things that happened during the week.  Please do not do this.  Writing down all of the bad stuff is a sure-fire way to make things worse.  Have you ever ruminated on some bad situation for days, weeks, or even years afterwards?  If so, then you know how digging up the unpleasant memories can lead to self-doubt and regret. 

Journaling works as well as we are willing to dedicate time and energy into it.  Those who journal frequently and conscientiously have better results.  Try to spend a little time journaling and try not to get pulled into a negative spiral.  
​

Earlier, I mentioned not allowing oneself to be trapped in a negative spiral by writing about past events that were less-than-glamorous.  We all have them.  These skeletons in the closet are times when we did the wrong thing, made the poor choice, or embarrassed ourselves or others.  Everyone has them, even the most over-confident, self-absorbed of us has them. 
So, yes, writing about dark memories can lead to a negative spiral but there is no expectation or requirement that they do.  How is that? 
​
Journal writers can turn negative memories on their heads by rewriting the past.  Writers can write what they know by addressing past failures but then rewrite them into new versions of themselves.  No one knows your negative memories better than you do; these are the stories you know inside and out.  You have repeated them over and over again.  You have told yourself you would improve and never make those same mistakes.  And you have suffered the consequences of these events.  Writing about these events is writing what you know. 

To journal around these kinds of events, first find a turning point in the story.  Write what actually happened in your journal up until that turning point.  Then when you get to the turning point, change the story.  Instead of writing about what actually happened (the version where things went badly), change the story at that moment and rewrite the rest so that the outcome is in your favor. 

So, that time that I said something stupid in front of my boss then failed to follow up with an explanation, I can rewrite that event.  I can write the event exactly as it really happened, then at the point when he said, “I’m surprised to hear you say that,” I change things.  Instead of me walking away from the conversation, I will explain what I meant.  Clearly he misunderstood and I did not take the opportunity to explain my viewpoint.  In my journal, I can make that correction.  And if I do that, maybe I will stop ruminating over that time I didn’t explain myself to my boss. 

Write what you know.  Fill up your journal pages with the words that tell your stories.  Use your journal as a space to collect your stories—childhood, parenthood, adulthood.  Keep track of what went well and what could have been improved.  Do not let yourself fall into the trap of the negative spiral that can be created by writing about past negative memories.  But do take those past memories and rewrite them; take control of them so that they become positive experiences.  

Spring is the most exciting season of the year.  I do not know anyone who says they do not like spring or they cannot wait for spring to be over.  After a dark, cold winter, people look forward to longer, warmer days.  Blue skies, light rain, and green gardens are the hallmark of spring. 
No matter how young or old, most of us experience a little bit of spring fever as the weather warms. The sunshine calls us to move outside and soak in the sweet smells floating on the warm breezes. 

Spring provides an excellent opportunity for journaling, reflecting, and reading a wider variety of books than we did in the colder months.  Book journaling creates a unique season for readers to move outdoors with a book in hand and delve into the changing season as leaves sprout and flowers bud all around us. 

Book journaling combines two therapeutic activities—reading and journaling into a pastime that writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs can benefit from personally and professionally.  Not only can we explore our own thoughts and reflections in a spring book journal but we can peruse the pages of good literature for guidance, advice, and recommendations on how we can move forward.  As the seasons shift, so life changes in slow turns.  By book journaling, we can encapsulate the microcosm of our own development against the subtle maturation occurring all around us.  For many people, a book journal provides a unique opportunity to reflect on two favorite activities—reading and journaling.  
​

As the complimentary season to fall, spring is a season of change, of movement towards the light and away from the cold dark days.  It is a time of forgetting time and finding fascinating surprises as the days get longer.  It is a time of peeling away layers of clothing and peeling away layers of cobwebs in our heads and stretching our muscles.  It is the season where we come out of the dense closeness of interior life and stretch our wings in preparation of extending them for flight. 

Letting go of winter is typically a joyous time, even for the diehard skiers who look forward to warmer spring skiing under blue skies.  Transitioning into spring can mean more exercise, longer walks, less time spent indoors, and more daylight to spend on everything from long conversations with friends to reading by sunlight.  

Spring is a great time for planning and planting.  This is the time we plant our gardens—both our literal gardens and our metaphorical ones.  This is when we set our goals and put plans on the calendar.  We spent the winter reflecting, thinking back, and considering what was behind us.  Now we look forward, we are energized, and we dig out the seeds to plant for the coming season. 

Those seeds may be actual flower and vegetable seeds or may be the figurative seeds that we need to plant to move our lives out of a stagnating winter and into a vibrant spring and bursting summer.  Our seeds may be writing projects we started, artwork that needs to begin, professional development to the stack of books we are excited to dig into. 

When working with a book journal, try to write about the book after each reading period.  This may be once a day or once a week, just depending on how the book is progressing for you and how your schedule unfolds.  The journaling can significantly enhance the reading and learning experience of what a reader gains from interacting with the book, because anytime that we stop to reflect, we allow for opportunity to process our reading and learning with greater depth. 

While reading this spring, write in your book journal.  As you move forward, consider the themes of spring like: starting over, planting, planning, new beginnings, new life, extended days, more light, warmer feelings, transitioning between ice and fire, stretching, expanding, growing, developing, and coming into one’s own.  
​

Take a look over the following list.  Perhaps one of these books will jump out as a good option for your next book to read and journal about this spring. 
 
This I Believe by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman
This collection of personal essays and narratives tells a hundred different stories.  If you are looking for a book that allows you to read in 2-3 page increments, helps you connect deeper with people, and connects you to people you may not rub elbows with, this may be the book for you. 

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
This lovely assemblage of stories set in the English countryside will lighten your heart and enhance your love of nature.  Herriot walks you through farm life including not a few baby animals’ birth stories.  This book is a fun favorite for everyone who reads it. 

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The sweet, classic tale of a toad and a frog who travel and go on lovely adventures together.  This light hearted story will remind you of everything that is right with the world. 

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
I can find a way to squeeze in an Austen book into any season, this is true.  But I also think that Mansfield Park is a great fit for spring book journaling.  Franny Price, the intelligent protagonist from an overburdened family, starts life at age 10 when she moves to a wealthy aunt’s house.  There she educated, struggles, and eventually lands the life she chooses—with her love and her books. 

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Open to any page and turn sideways.  The lines of poetry look like leave of grass when held sideways in jagged, irregular heights and lengths.  Not only will Whitman rejuvenate your drive to get outside and enjoy the warm weather but it will warm your heart to the beauty of everyday life around you. 

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Truly, this memoir is the tale of rags to riches, racism to acceptance, and desperation to stardom.  Noah’s experiences of growing up with a black mother and white father in South Africa, where his very existence was illegal, is a fascinating tale that ends with Noah persevering towards success. 

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
If you lack the funds to travel to France for a year, read this book instead.  The narrative takes readers through the warm kitchens of Provence to meet the unique, quirky characters who have called that land home for millennia.  No book would make a person love Provence more. 

1984 by George Orwell
If you have not heard, 1984 has made a comeback in a big way.  It is back on the bestseller’s list, and not because it has been banned but rather because it is relevant again.  Readers by the thousands are flipping through Orwell's 1949 tale of a dystopic future and eating up its pages. 

Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Yes, I do have an innate desire to connect spring with France.  Chocolat is the classic tale of spring time love.  Although the story takes place over more than a year, its themes of denial, searching, and loneliness turn to romance, acceptance, and openness.  Just as spring does for us every year. 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
I admit that I have not read this book, but a fellow book lover recommended it to me.  She said that it totally changed her perspective and opened her eyes on a variety of social issues important to her.  I do feel like books that are powerful enough to alter a person’s world view deserve to be shared. 
 

As the anniversary of my dad’s passing approaches, my sisters and I have started to plan how to acknowledge it.  We usually go to lunch at his favorite restaurant, but now we are open to new ideas—trying out other things he liked, going places he liked to go, or fulfilling goals that he wasn’t able to complete in time. 

After he passed, I was in a heartbroken state for months, and every year on his birthday, I am a crying mess the whole day.  Last year, I don’t think I stopped crying for hours.  His passing has been so much harder than I anticipated. 

Ours is a family without many photographs.  We have a few here and there, a couple of family portraits taken at JC Penney or some fuzzy snapshots at birthday parties, but we lack the dusty, swollen boxes of printed photos that some families have, where there are enough prints to pass around to everyone.  In fact, I have only one photo of him.  

And yes, I do miss the photos, but I also miss the stories.  I missed out on the chance to collect his stories, to write down the events of his life, and to be able to reflect back on those events and pass them onto my own kids.  I failed to collect his stories, and I dearly wish that I had thought of it sooner.

My dad was a baby boomer born in 1949 with a sister born in 1950—Irish twins.  After he passed, I traveled to my aunt’s house to visit during summer vacation, and we talked about him.  She told me things I never knew. 

He couldn’t say his name when he was little so called himself Klocky.  He was overweight as a kid.  Traveling to Ireland was one of the worst things to happen to him since he did the bar crawl every night, though seeing the homeland was a dream come true.  He attended college but didn’t see the point in continuing so he left.  He got his head stuck in a wooden chair when he was little and his blind grandmother hacked the chair to pieces with an axe to free him (it is amazing to me how many people survived childhood). 

My dad was not a writer.  He was not the person who would sit down with a journal and furiously dash out paragraphs to collect the tales of his life.  He also was not a reader (even though I admit that I bought him a dozen books that I thought he would like if he would just try them).  

But, had I given him a journal with questions already written in it—what was your nickname as a kid and how did you get it?   Where have you traveled and what was your favorite place to visit?  And what steps have you taken to overcome adversity in your life?  If I had given him a journal with questions written in it, I may have been able to collect some of the stories of his days on Earth.  Or if I had shown up with a notepad and asked him questions, I could have collected the details of his life and kept track of them for our family to enjoy now. 

My kids are little and they ask me about Grandpa Pat.  What was he like?  What were his favorite movies?  What were his favorite meals?  Where did he grow up?  I only know a few of the answers to these kinds of questions, partially because I didn’t pay close enough attention 30 years ago when I lived with him, and partially because I didn’t write them down.  His stories become grayer with each passing year.  

As the baby boomers age, enter retirement, and eventually pass, what will the younger generations do?  Will we lose their stories to time just as has happened for previous generations?  Or can we take a couple of small steps towards capturing the stories of our loved ones and preserving them?  The process of capturing personal stories in a journal can be reasonable simple. 

The simplest solution is to hand over a journal and ask our elders to start writing down stories, and for some of them, that would work out.  But for people like my dad who did not enjoy reading for pleasure or writing anything longer than a grocery list, that method would be difficult at best to execute. 

For people who do not write naturally, providing guiding questions to initiate journal posts could help them get started.  If they have questions to answer, then they are not depending on their own inner creativity to decide what topics to write about. 

As well, conducting an in-person interview could work out well for some who prefer not to write at all.  If you have an elder friend or family member who does not want to write, asking that person questions to collect in a journal can save the details of their lives for decades to come.

I wish that I had considered writing down my dad’s stories before he passed, but I missed out on that opportunity.  I will have to focus my energies into collecting the life stories of other baby boomer family members so that their tales can be preserved.  
​