Do y'all prefer digital or physical journaling?

bluealchemy

bluealchemy

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Clearly I'm being a bit of a perfectionist by wondering whether I will have more meaningful results if I keep a physical journal or type it out on my laptop haha.. But i am actually curious

I like my digital journal because I'm a really fast typist and I have a LOT to say so it is more effective than writing things in my physical journal.

But I wonder if a physical journal is more effective sometimes even though it's more slow and my hand gets sore.

What's your preference?
 
My preference is to scribble down my writing on old notebook paper without regard to legibility, spelling or syntax. As soon as both sides are filled up, it goes in the recycling bin. I live alone so I don't need to worry about it being read by someone else. I prefer handwriting because it's impossible to go back and change anything that I've written.

Because here's the thing: The physical method of doing your writing exercises is not important. What is important is 100% honesty with yourself, which is why Nicole Sachs and Dr David Hanscom both say that the writing needs to be thrown out immediately. If you keep it, it is far too tempting to edit what you put down, because you're always thinking about you or someone else reading it later. This does not lend itself to true honesty in most of us. I discovered this in myself when I was doing the SEP, which is that my brain was literally encouraging me to skip over things. Forcing myself to put those things down and face them was vital to my recovery. In my case they weren't even earth-shattering as it turns out, but they had created a whole layer of shame and guilt from childhood.

The digital version which is recommended by Nicole Sachs is to keep an almost blank document on your computer, use that for whatever you are writing during one session, then delete all of the journaling before saving the blank document again. This should eliminate any auto-saved text.
 
If you are a Windows user... use Notepad.
It is simple, comes with Windows and won't make copies in the background; just close the program once you're done. To be extra sure you can do a 'CTRL-A' and 'Delete' before you close it down, although it isn't really necessary.
However Jan raises a valid point that handwriting has the crucial benefit of being unable to backpaddle (delete/backspace) on what you've written.
 
JanAtheCPA said:
My preference is to scribble down my writing on old notebook paper without regard to legibility, spelling or syntax. As soon as both sides are filled up, it goes in the recycling bin.
Click to expand...
Good to know. I always just fill up a notebook, but I never really read it again unless something came out that was 'aha' and even then I only glance maybe once? Also, I write so fast, it is usually really hard to read (LOL)...but those scribbles are like stacking blocks...I oftentimes see a picture I wasn't seeing before the scribbling began.
But yeah, I'm gonna just toss them from now on.
 
I just listened to Nicole Sachs' latest episode (season 3 episode 76, only 30 minutes), in which she describes her own recent severe pain flare, and walks us through her process step by step, including exactly how she does her writing which of course she calls JournalSpeak. It's awesome.
 
If you have an iPhone there is a new journal app that you can use that comes with iOS so you can type it out on your phone. It can also be Face ID protected for privacy too incase someone else has your phone.
 
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