Episode Transcript
Think meditation is hard? Do me a favor, take a slow deep breath in and now breathe out. Congratulations, you just meditated. Hi, I’m Krystal Jakosky, and this is Breathe In, Breathe Out: a Weekly Mindfulness and Meditation podcast for anyone ready to own their own shit and find a little peace while doing it.
Welcome back to Breathe In, Breathe Out. I'm Krystal Jakosky and I have a confession for you this week. I'm not great at journaling. I mean, I didn't use to be great at journaling and now I'm okay at journaling and yeah, I don't even call it journaling. I call it musing and I call it musing because quite frankly, the word journaling terrifies me. It makes me wanna run the other way. And ain't nobody got time for that. I am not going to journal because of my own personal experiences in life.
We all have those experiences that make us kind of shy away from different words or phrases or descriptions and whatnot. And so mine, my grandmother kept a journal almost every day of her life. And we were taught that we were supposed to journal for posterity. And so I had a lofty thing that I had to live up to, you know, a grandma every day. And then I had this weight pushed down on me that my posterity was gonna read it, which meant that somebody was gonna read everything that I wrote, which - that in and of itself was terrifying. And then it was, well, what are those people really gonna wanna listen to or talk, read about? What do I have to say that is going to be of any kind of importance in a hundred years? And really honestly, I don't think there's much that people are gonna be, you know, at the time I'm a teenager that doesn't, so it was really hard for me and I would journal for a week or two and I'd be really good and I'd be so proud of myself because I would journal every single day. And then I would go two years and not write a single word. And then I would journal for a couple of days again.
So I've had this on-again, off-again, relationship with journaling. And I will tell you that I found journaling was a huge gift and a healing process for me in my teenage years because I was going through a lot of stressful, difficult things we all are when we're in our teenage years. That's just the way it is. We have a lot of hormonal changes and life changes and friendships and everything is just huge. And I found as a teenager, that journaling really helped me process the challenges that I was going through. It really helped me get all of those emotions and all that upset and frustration out of my heart and onto those pages. And for a while, I actually journaled as though I was writing to an old friend, it felt so much better to write having somebody like a pen pal. My journal was my pen pal, and I would, I was pretty raw and uncensored <laugh> in my journal, but then somebody found it and somebody read it.
And, uh, they did not like what I had to say about them and other things in my life. And so from that experience, I decided I didn't like journaling because how do you hide it? And how do you protect yourself from that? And then years later, I got back to journaling, and part of that was the processing. Again, I needed to process, I needed to get things out. I needed to know that I was okay. And the only way to do that was to make sure that I removed it from my heart and soul and put it somewhere else that was safe. And by then, because I was older, I recognized that somebody might find it. I was able to put it on my laptop under password protection. And that helped me out. And I still had a book where I would hand write because something about a pen on paper was really beneficial to me, loving the, fill, loving the flow, loving how those letters just appear as you're writing.
There's just something very cathartic about that. There's a reason for what these stories are telling you. What I hope you're hearing is the fact that what got me into more regular journaling was the reason and the purpose behind it. There's always been this start and stop. And the thing was that when I would stop later, I would be berating myself for failing to follow through with that. Somehow I was this horrible person because I wasn't writing things down and that's really not a good place to be because then journaling is a, have to, it's a burden, it's this weight around your neck saying, you gotta do this again, which nobody likes nobody enjoys. So how do you take journaling from something that is so weighty and uncomfortable to something that is so positive and fantastic and such a gift? And the answer is finding the reason, finding the purpose.
I changed the name of it. I don't journal. I muse and my musings are what some of them come out and they are given through my weekly newsletters and people get to see them and read them. And I'm more than happy, ironically, to let people read my Mings. And then there are some that are just for me and they will not necessarily see other people's eyes. And yet they help me to move through some experiences that I'm going through emotions that are overwhelming. They help me process. There is a reason behind my musings. There is a reason behind my journaling. So when you're saying, I don't know what to write about, well, why are you writing? What's your reason? What's your purpose? What's the draw?
Maybe you're writing to your future self to remind your future self of the amazing things that you have been through. The challenges that you've been through, maybe your purpose is simply processing the emotion that you're feeling at a given time or processing an experience that's overwhelming. Maybe you're expecting a child or a grandchild, and you really want to write to let them know what you're experiencing and your hopes and your joys, and your dreams. What is the purpose? And in saying what's the purpose. It may be that there is a timeframe for you to be writing. I'm going to write here and now. And that means that when you stop writing, it's okay that you stopped writing because, at that moment in time, those journals fulfilled their purpose. So now you take a break and then you can come back to it. A piano player does not play the piano 24/7/365.
And they go days without playing the piano because they just do. You don't have to journal every single day unless that's your purpose. What do you want to talk about? How would you like to process that? What is your reason? What is your intention? What is your purpose? And when you figure that out, sometimes it just comes. It might be that you've decided that your purpose is that you really want to get to know yourself more. So you're gonna seek out journal cards and you're gonna figure out how you can dig deeper and really get to know yourself. And you might need those journal prompts to help you do it. There's even a timeline on that because you're gonna write a whole bunch and you're gonna learn so much about yourself. And at some point the journal prompts may be repetitive, or you may hit a spot that you've really got a journal more on, or that you've decided I'm done. I can take a break. You do. You figure out what works, figure out what brings you joy, figure out how journaling or musing or whatever you decide to name. It can benefit and serve you. And once you do that, it'll come to a lot easier and be a lot better. And who knows the beauty and the excitement and the wonders that may spill out onto your page. I look forward to hearing about what inspired you and what you decided to write about. And I'll see you here again next week on breathing, breathe out.
I hope this moment of self-care and healing brought you some hope and peace. I’m @krystaljakosky on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and I hope you check us out and follow along for more content coming soon. I look forward to being with you again here on Breathe In, Breathe Out. Until next time, take care.
