By Kee Smith
Naturally, as a writer, I write everything down. To be honest, I don’t think there’s any other way for me to navigate through life successfully. I have two large whiteboard calendars, one planner, my calendar via Outlook, four large whiteboards, and countless notebooks. Each serves its purpose in managing goals, tasks, brain dumps, emotions, appointments, and projects. I have so many different places to write my life out for three reasons: 1. my life is very busy, and it helps keep me on track most of the time. 2. the more I see and write a goal or task, the more likely I am to accomplish them, and 3. everybody just comedy needs to know everything.
I’ll let you determine whether or not calendars and whiteboards benefit you, but I want to strongly encourage you to begin journaling as a form of self-care. Although I am a firm believer in speaking your mind, sharing your emotions with someone you trust, and therapy, I am also firm in my belief that everything isn’t for everybody. Sometimes we need to write our feelings in a notebook and release them. Remember when we were kids, and we’d have those little diary books that came with a lock and a key? Most of us would lose our key and feel so accomplished that we use a Bobby pin to break into the lock but somehow, starting an entry with “Dear Diary” and closing it out with “Love, your name” always created a sense of relief in whatever our childhood selves were experiencing without ever having to tell a soul. Journaling as an adult is the same thing as a diary entry as a child but with heavier stuff. Perhaps it’s some sort of tool in healing childhood traumas. I don’t know.
In addition to sharing your secrets with yourself, it also makes for a great way to write out things you are grateful for daily and a brain dump of whatever is cluttered in your mind when you’re feeling overwhelmed. All in all, journaling is an excellent way to write things out and release them, giving you space to focus on the things that are right in front of you instead of everything at once. So try it out for one whole week, and let me know how much of a difference it makes for you.
Kee Smith is a contributing writer and is a homie, lover and friend and always “write” on time. Be sure to connect on IG @_ _ _lowkee
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