We have all had the feeling of needing to talk to someone, but not knowing who to turn to, or even worse, not being able to talk to the person you need the most. It is an extremely exhausting and frustrating experience to feel trapped in your head and to get buried under a mountain of piled-up emotions. To keep ourselves sane, we need an outlet to relieve stress and anxious feelings. 

After a long day of feeling bad for myself and letting the emotional bricks build on top of me, I knew I needed to just sit and listen to music. At the time, almost two years ago, I thought of music as my outlet because I could ignore the negative thoughts and concentrate on the lyrics or rhythm in the music. Looking back, I see why it was a good temporary solution for me, but just because I neglected my emotions didn’t mean they went away. While sitting and listening, I heard a lyric in a Bruno Mars song that stuck with me. The line “In hopes you’re on the other side, talking to me too” in Mars’ “Talking to the Moon” made me realize how much I wanted to have a conversation like that. Being able to talk as if someone is listening and having an opportunity to organize my thoughts appealed to me, so I started thinking of ways I could do so.

Since I enjoy writing so much, I decided to pick up an old notebook and use it to write down stressful situations I’ve encountered. This journal became a way for me to organize the jumble of thoughts that run through my head when I’m upset or angry. For me, who is a hot-head and is constantly annoyed by little things, the journal became a way for me to take a step back, write and organize my thoughts, and truly determine if it’s worth extreme emotion. I was allowing myself to be upset but in a structured way, instead of ignoring my emotions as I had before. I continued to learn more about how I function as a person and what skills work best for me, I’ve seen them come alive in my writing. Sure, a lot of my writing is a brain dump with sentences that don’t make sense and ideas that repeat or don’t flow, but I’m not being graded on my thoughts or why I am mad. The point of the talking to the moon journal is that I’m the only one who gets to read it, and even then I never go back and read things I’ve already written because I don’t like reminding myself of why I was upset.

As the quarantine hit, I found that my journal would sit in the back of my drawer for longer periods of time. Not only did I lose a sense of motivation, but I wasn’t mad as often anymore. At first, I saw the fact that I didn’t need the talking to the moon journal as me improving and not becoming reliant on the journal, but later on I noticed that it was because I was so emotionally tired and deprived of social interactions and had nothing to write about. Yes, I became less mad, but everything seemed to be neutral for a while. I wasn’t happy or sad, peaceful or mad, organized or overwhelmed… everything just felt still. I also found that when I would have a great day I would get an energy rush, the same way I would when I was angry at something, and I had an idea of how to put that energy to use since it happened so rarely.

After digging around for yet another journal, my idea came to life, talking to the sun. Talking to the sun has the same concept as talking to the moon, but with a whole new attitude around it. Instead of talking about negative things only, talking to the sun journal is for everything that makes me happy, big or small, that I would tell everyone in the world if I could. Maybe I got a new dive and my heart was still racing after being home for an hour. Maybe my friend texted me out of the blue which reminded me of how much I love all of my friends. Maybe someone complimented my outfit or something specific that day impacted my mood. Whatever it was, big or small, it had the opportunity to go into the journal. The talking to the sun journal is something I love going back to and re-reading because I love seeing how excited I would get over seemingly small things and it would remind myself that sure, I’m an emotional person, but it can go both ways.

Now that I have my two journals, I can balance and acknowledge the dark and the light sides of my life. I think that seeing and dealing with the negativity can be a big step for people, and I have to say my moon journal was the perfect way to start confronting it. Once I could deal with the darkness more efficiently, I could see how important the light was to me. Once I saw how happy the little things in life made me, I started to become more positive and energetic in my personality. 

I wanted to share my experiences with journaling because, especially in times like these, everything can feel like a weight on your shoulders. We tend to ignore negativity and pretend like everything is OK when in reality, we are living in a pandemic and we shouldn’t be positive all the time. What is important is balance and acceptance. Instead of pushing negativity away, we should practice acknowledging it and dealing with it effectively instead of allowing it to pile up. Please remember that I am not an expert and that I am not claiming that journaling will solve all of your problems, but I hope that you are open to trying journaling to see if you have a similar emotional benefit as I did. Something as simple as picking up a pen and piece of paper can be a great first step to organizing stressful and angry thoughts or finding a new appreciation for the small things in life that give us our spark.