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Journaling - Blog Posts
Journal pages i made using old letters i found in a seconhand market⋆｡˚୨୧˚｡⋆.
Introduction.
Recently, I realized that I have shared a few posts on here, but I never actually introduced myself. For starters, I'm Tammy! :)
I have always loved writing. I can remember writing stories (alone and with my younger sister) as a child. As a teenager, I enjoyed writing poetry, and I loved the creative writing class I took as a sophmore in high school. Throughout my teenage years and early 20s, I was constantly writing in online journals because I love being able to express myself through words on a screen (or even on paper).
Now, at 37 years old, I am a freelance writer on various websites. I am a member of a discussion website that allows you to practically blog for a small payment (spare change, basically, but a great website). I also have several non-work-related blogs for no reason other than the fact that I wanted to blog. Finally, I recently started journaling offline again, as a way to get my thoughts off my chest, but for my eyes only.
I've often said that if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd still take on my writing orders with my clients, and I'd still run my other blogs for fun. I would get bored otherwise.
Writing as always been a part of me. Being a writer is who I am.
I am not sure where I am going with this blog, or what order my experiences, memories and thoughts will be posted in. It's just a way for me to share my journey as a freelance writer, and as someone who enjoys writing for fun.
Speaking of which, I have an order on Fiverr to work on soon. I hope everyone reading this has a great day! :)
On Journaling
Hi, so i LOVE journaling. im obsessed with it, i love talking about, its my main personality trait, i try to convince everyone i meet to journal (and have succesfully convinced many of my friends to do so).
I would like to talk about it, and answer questions about it. More than anything i think this is an interest and hobby of mine that has become so integral to my being and i cannot live without it and i think its super super helpful and fun. Obviously for many people it isnt helpful or inspiring but it could be! give it a try! so here is a LONG post about my basic journaling practice, why i journal, and how i became consistent and happy with it.
My journal collection.
Currently im actively using a 3 notebook system, and i have 4 total journals. the first (A) is my regular journal one that i will habit track, write my goals, ramble, diary entries, collages. anything. the second is my commonplace book (B) (the most recent additon) which i use to collect information i want to reference back to (everday reciepes, facts, excersizes/activities) and i also use it as a on the go notebook since its small enough to fit in my purse. 3rd (C) in my system is my planner. its a blank notebook that i draw a calender in and use it for to-do lists or things i need to remember, its the messiest of the 3. the 4th is a bit of a wildcard, i have a journal that i am making for a friend and they are making one for me and we trade them once they are done. fun little bonding activity, i do more prompts and artistic collages and lists for them.
I am pretty picky but also broke so i wanted to share the types of journals i use. type A is currently a art creation sketchbook (im canadian so a win for us) i adore it and its a good length of pages for me since i can finish them quickly and they are thick enough for me to draw in on occassion. B is a A6 spiral bound blank muji notebook, small enough for my purses and i like the hard cover so i can flip it over and write even without a hard surface. C was a gift, a grid notebook a freind got me but i have in the past used an A5 muji blank notebook, im the least picky with this type. Just no lines, my handwriting is messy and lines get in the way.
My History + Why
so i have been doing diary writing of some sort since i was a kid, if very sporatically. i was definitly inspired by dork diaries <3 and i for sure think it was a way for me to talk to someone about the traumas i was experiencing without guilt or shame. I have journaled on and off for years. i started taking it a bit more seriously in highschool, I'd finish one journal every like 2 years/1.5 years. last fall i had a pretty thin notebook that i didnt love that i had for oct-dec since i didnt want to start a new nice one so close to the end of the year and for some reason i just poured into it. i think the goal of finishing it was motivated 1. because i was excited to use my new one for the new year 2. i was very conciously working on my mental health and developing new hobbies, 3. i was away from my friends, and 4. I decied that instead of having the like 5 journal system i previously did (why idk) and being so precious about it i would mush them all into one and build from there. this year I have finished 2 journals and started my 3rd one yesterday. not even that i was trying. infact my first journal of the year i thought was so beautiful so i was a bit precious about it sometimes. It just got solidified as a habit, and i needed it as a coping mechanism. its definitely something i use more when I'm feeling lonley or my friends are away at school, but even during the summer i love it. I dont force myself anymore which is a wonderful feeling.
The biggest change i made to become consistent started with me noticing how bad of a vibe my journals had before. i only ever journaled the bad things or the things i was too embarassed to say. So everytime i picked it up i felt BAD. i stopped using my journal at the time half way through and started a new one with the express mentality that i was going to do both good and bad things in one space. make it my life. I started writing out my goals semi regularly, documenting good days like my birthdays, journaling while waiting for friends at cafes, sticking in receipts and packaging, doing pretty/ugly collages, all while also journaling through late night breakdowns, difficult times, therpay sessions, and coping strategies. i used it as a place to extend my joy AND process my sadness and mental health. the point is, make your journal a confidant. Its so helpful for me (a chronic oversharer) to write stuff down and then if i still feel the urge to talk to someone i do. this doesnt limit my social interaction but enhances the conversations i can have because I have already processed parts of my emotions.
So generally speaking i journal because its helpful and fun. I suspect i have ADHD and i also dissacociate from my depression/anxiety so i forget things. both good and bad. so i need a record of not only my plans but also the good things that happen in my life. Nostalgia runs deep in my bones and i cannot wait to read these back as i age. every year i wish i had journaled more in my childhood. its also a way for me to process my emtions and feelings without spiraling, i write slower than i type so it forces me to slow down. I also feel like externalizing my emotions to a book gets them out of my head. there are a few anxiety reducing things i have learned that help A TON
You dont need to be consistent about it, there has been days or weeks where i dont touch my journal because i dont feel the need to. But because of the years of practice i know when i havent been thinking about my emotions or I feel like my brain is a mess that i need to. Even when i've just had a really really good conversation i know its something i want to write down. sometimes i will type entries into my phone and either print them or copy them into my journal.
My journals, past and present, are some of my most prized possessions. PLEASEE feel free and encouraged to ask me things or tell me about your journaling practice!!!!
🆘 Don’t Leave Us Alone in This Struggle…
After losing our home and everything we had, we are trying to start over, but life is not easy. Being in a foreign place is difficult, we are struggling financially, expenses keep rising, and even basic needs have become a heavy burden. 💔
My children need stability, and we are trying to hold on, but we need your support.
🙏 Any contribution, no matter how small, can make a big difference in our lives.
🔗 Donate now: https://gofund.me/abbc2759
⏳ Your support is the hope we are holding onto… please don’t leave us alone
The tags are so random bc this post needs to reach a wide range of audience so ppl could help, sry 🙏
pinned ! ᕱᕱ
ෆ YAE | 18 — black & any prns
ABOUT ; mostly just yapping. i’ll talk about anything that crosses my mind ෆ i hope to meet new people on here as this site seems really fun!!
virgo, black, student, artist . i like to play & draw
♡ drawing, genshin, ts4, jjk, madoka magica, my ocs, cute things, journaling, horror films, mha, metaphors, poetry, roblox, writing
I bound my first book! It was so much fun and I plan on making more as gifts for my family. The stitching is a little wonky, and I cheated on some of the smaller pages but I love how it turned out! I learned so much about books and how they are made from @sealemon 's YouTube channel. Please check out her content!
Here's the first spread I've done:
I hope to fill the whole book with journal spreads based on my favourite quotes, books, and songs. I love @olivebreezy 's blog, it's full of beautiful journal spreads and great inspiration!
for journaling duh!
30 THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU BECOME MORE SELF-AWARE
❦ how much self-control do i have with things that i know are bad for me, but tend to indulge in?
❦ how do i respond to someone who is different from me or whose ideals and beliefs i don't agree with or understand?
❦ how do i deal with being misperceived or misunderstood?
❦ how do i respond when someone judges me, makes fun of me, or calls me names?
❦ how do i deal with other people's mistakes and unpleasant behavior?
❦ how do i deal with people who have hurt me in the past?
❦ how do i spend my free time?
❦ how do i deal with negative people?
❦ how do i deal with stressful situations? do i tend to worry a lot? what else do i do?
❦ how do i deal with inconvenient life situations?
❦ how do i respond to situations that i have no control over?
❦ how do i deal with negativity in my environment?
❦ how do i deal with challenges in my life?
❦ how do i respond to situations that force me to get out of my comfort zone?
❦ how motivated am i to change my life for the better?
❦ how much do i follow through on what i preach and talk about?
❦ how do i deal with uncertainty, the unknown or a future event that i have no control over?
❦ how do i respond to obstacles, hardships, and "bad" things that happen in my life?
❦ how do i respond when i don't get what i want?
❦ how fulfilling is my everyday life?
❦ how do i respond to new ideas and new ways of thinking?
❦ how do i respond to bad or inconvenient news?
❦ how do i deal with the violence, hate, and suffering in the world?
❦ how do i recharge, rejuvenate, and replenish my energy?
❦ how much do i prioritize spending time and energy on myself and on my passions?
❦ how do i deal with change? new job, new house, new lifestyle, new people, new rules, new technology...do i tend to avoid it, welcome it, fear it, like it, complain about it, stress out about it, worry about it?
❦ how do i deal with emotional pain?
❦ how do i respond when plans change or plans get cancelled without my say so?
❦ how do i respond when i make a mistake or when i fail at something?
❦ how do i deal with rejection?
Journal Page #2
Joan of Arc rant
Scraps from today
⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ 𝓔𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓼𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓼 ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺
Happy Easter you guys! ✝️💐🐇🐤🐰🐣 I'm way too happy with these spreads and I had an AMAZING day with my family and my fiancé ansjsj, it was BLISS™
⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝓞𝓼𝓵𝓸 𝓼𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭 ⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖
Kind of old news, but I finally put together a spread with stuff from my little trip to Oslo a while back! Also not my favourite thing but I like the blues 🩵💙🐋🌊⛵💎 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ 𝓞𝓾𝓻 𝓵𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓵𝓮 𝓪𝓻𝓽𝓼𝔂 𝓼𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭 ʚ♡ɞ
જ⁀➴ I thought the Hyperpigmentation meme was just the perfect style to get my fiancé to draw something for me and I just LOVE this spread so much (also why is his so much better, Omg!) -`♡´-
I've been so busy recently (◡ ω ◡)
(And by that I only mean I bought this mini stationary bike that I can keep in my room or in my studio and work out all the time (ʘᴗʘ✿) and I also went ahead and bought all the yummy snacks that I hadn't had in ageeeesss and ate them all AND burned all the calories so easily ✨ I'm just so happy with my choices rn and I had to document all of it, so here are my two lovely spreads (they even smell great 🫠)
💌🌺❤️ Valentine's day spread ❤️🌺💌
Turned out a bit chaotic but it's a happy one.
(the necklace doesn't match so I put it under the cut hahah (◍•ᴗ•◍))
But I LOVE IT
Ik I said I wasn't going to do any more scrapbooking on this journal because it's already bulking up way more than the first one at this point and I'm not even halfway there, but I had all of these stickers laying around and so much bleeding to cover up and I just~ (灬º‿º灬) Last time though!!!
✨🍬🎁 Advent calendar spread 🎁🍬✨
🔔✨🎁 I had no actual control over how aesthetically pleasing this turned out (well except for the background and the ones I drew) but I just love it. And I had so much fun collecting trash for it having this spread to do in addition to opening each surprise 🎁✨🔔
🎀🎄🍊December vibes🍊🎄🎀
I'm so happy with this video, I had such a good time filming and tried some subtle effects for the first time when editing! Please go watch it if you want to 🩷🎄🍊🎀✨
Ps-❤️🎄✨Don't forget to let me know if you subscribe to my channel so I can subscribe back to you✨🎄❤️
Hi stanford! I am getting into journaling and since you're the author of Gravity Falls' most mysterious journals, I was wondering if you have any tips on how to start one? I don't quite know where to start.
I draw too, your illustrations are stunning!
Hello, and thank you, anonymous stranger! I have been waiting for an ask like this!
To start a journal, you must first decide what you're going to be focusing on. It could be anything from famous art to oddly colored grass clippings. As long as your writing is THOROUGH (as many details as possible), PERSONAL (allowing your own feelings to influence your observations), and RELEVANT (keeping any information written on topic/related to your topic).
Another important part of journalism is making sure your topic interests YOU. Not your peers, but YOURSELF. If you aren't interested in your own journal topic, it will be difficult to find motivation to continue keeping your journal.
That's all I have to say for starting a journal. Feel free to reach out if you have any more questions about journaling.
Journalists in gaza are posting their last message.
What are we waiting for, what have we allowed to happen?
Ismail and motaz are the same journalists in this video by the way. They're people who always find light in the dark. Praying for them and all Palestinians.
Every time I think that I’m actually not that into journaling I somehow add another place to journal and this has now brought me up to three journaling destinations
it was a bad day
I’m trying something new. My default reaction to unfavorable outcomes is to damage control the bad emotions quickly and put as much distance from the situation as possible. To me, the negative emotions that I may experience are ephemeral, and if I just give myself enough time, they will naturally resolve with minimal effort. I imagine that’s why I have such a difficult time viewing journaling as an effective coping method. It immortalizes a bad experience when all I want to do is forget about it.
With that said, I think there are some valuable things to gain from doing it, so I want to attempt it here. Today was a bad day. Realistically, I think there have been various bad events recently that aggregated to make today feel really shitty.
1) I was rejected from Stanford and Boston University. At no point in this process did I think that I would get accepted to Stanford so I was mostly unfazed by the rejection. Boston University, however, did feel within my reach so getting that email stung a little more.
2) there’s been this relentless feeling of having so many restrictions/limitations on doing the things that I want. Between frequently getting held up at work, the days being shorter, needing to balance my time between friends, family, and my boyfriend, I just get the overwhelming sense that there aren’t enough hours in the day. 3) I feel like I should be improving in so many aspects of my life, but I’m not. I told myself that once I was done with my secondaries, my schedule would just open up and I’d be able to do all the things that I’d set aside in favor of prioritizing medical school. And yet here I am with no secondaries to do but still feeling like I’ve made no measurable progress in certain arenas of my life. (2 and 3 feel related)
4) I continue to struggle with getting my relationship with my sister to a place that I’m happy and comfortable with. Because of that, time devoted to her and my nephew sometimes leave me feeling agitated. This agitation can then extend to my parents. 5) I went in for my annual physical and I got my covid booster and flu shot. The shots in combination wrecked me and left me feeling physically ruined for about 48 hours. After the aches and pains subsided though, I developed a sore throat that has been lingering. Mild enough to not be debilitating but significant enough to annoy me. It’s not the end of the world, but thinking that I may be sick during the Orlando trip is probably upsetting me more than I want to admit. 6) I broke a nail and I got a hole in one of my favorite shoes 😕
All of these things in combination resulted in me reacting poorly to a rather trivial situation this morning. While I was on the phone with my boyfriend during my commute, my mom called to do our morning check in. I answered her and she proceeded to vent some of her frustrations about my sister and her divorce. The conversation was brief and I quickly called my boyfriend back. I had it in my mind that I would tell him the details and he would weigh in on the situation with his opinion. Especially considering that last night we didn’t get a chance to talk about some of the things that I wanted to. But the conversation was steered in a different direction and I found myself frustrated at how asymmetric the conversation felt. At the time, I was simmering in my frustration, unable to redirect the conversation to a place that I was happier with, withdrawing more and more as time went on.
At the time, I blamed the outcome of the conversation on my boyfriend’s personality, citing that his ability to mobilize his thoughts quicker than me allowed for him to dominate a conversation and fill it with endless thoughts of his own choosing. Now I realize that while that may be true, it’s hardly the entire picture. A conversation doesn’t end like that because he can think of more to say in a quicker timeframe. It ends like that because I never make it known to him that I have something that I want to say. No person, not even the love of my life, is responsible for knowing what I want at any given time. It is my responsibility to make what I want known. The difficulty that I have with being able to ask for what I want is a different beast and one that I’ll be saving for a different journaling attempt. But for now, I’m happy to have identified something that needs improvement.
So it was a bad day. But I’m glad that it was because it means that we have work to do. But it also proved that the two of us are in this together to do that work. That is exactly the kind of relationship I want ♥️❤️
Welcome Home HERA Mission XVII!
With the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) habitat, we complete studies to prepare us for exploration to asteroids, Mars, and the Moon… here on Earth! The studies are called analogs, and they simulate space missions to study how different aspects of deep space affect humans. During a HERA mission, the crew (i.e., the research participants) live and work very much as astronauts do, with minimal contact with anyone other than Mission Control for 45 days.
The most recent study, Mission XVII, just “returned to Earth” on June 18. (i.e., the participants egressed, or exited the habitat at our Johnson Space Center in Houston after their 45-day study.) We talked with the crew, Ellie, Will, Chi, and Michael, about the experience. Here are some highlights!
Why did you decide to participate in HERA Mission XVII?
HERA Mission VXII participants (from left to right) Ellie, Will, Chi, and Michael.
“My master’s is in human factors,” said Chi, who studies the interaction between humans and other systems at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “I figured this would be a cool way to study the other side of the table and actually participate in an analog.” For Michael, who holds a PhD in aerospace engineering and researches immunology and radio biology, it was an opportunity to experience life as an astronaut doing science in space. “I’ve flown [experiments] on the space station and shuttle,” he said. “Now I wanted to see the other side.” For Will, a geosciences PhD, it provided an opportunity to contribute to space exploration and neuroscience, which he considers two of the biggest fields with the most potential in science. “Here, we have this project that is the perfect intersection of those two things,” he said. And Ellie, a pilot in the Air Force, learned about HERA while working on her master’s thesis on Earth and space analogs and how to improve them for deep-space studies. “A lot of my interests are similar to Chi’s,” she said. “Human factors and physiological aspects are things that I find very fascinating.”
NASA missions all have patches, and HERA Mission XVII is no different. Did you get to design your patch?
HERA Mission VXII patch, which reads “May the Force be with you” in Latin and features Star Wars iconography. It’s a reference to the mission’s start date, May 4th aka Star Wars Day!
“We did!” They said …with a little the help from Michael’s brother, who is a designer. He drew several different designs based on the crew’s ideas. They picked one and worked together on tweaks. “We knew we were going [inside the habitat] on May Fourth,” Michael said. “We knew it would be Star Wars Day. So we did a Star Wars theme.” The patch had to come together fairly quickly though, since a Star Wars Day “launch” wasn’t the initial plan. “We were supposed to start two weeks earlier,” Ellie said. “It just so happened the new start date was May the Fourth!” Along with the Star Wars imagery, the patch includes a hurricane symbol, to pay tribute to hurricane Harvey which caused a previous crew to end their mission early, and an image of the HERA habitat. Will joked that designing the patch was “our first team task.”
How much free time did you have and what did you do with it?
HERA Mission XVII crew looking down the ladders inside the habitat.
“It was a decent amount,” Michael said. “I could have used more on the harder days, but in a way it’s good we didn’t have more because it’s harder to stay awake when you have nothing to do.” (The mission included a sleep reduction study, which meant the crew only got five hours of sleep a night five days a week.) “With the time I did have, I read a lot,” he said. He also drew, kept a journal, and “wrote bad haikus.” Because of the sleep study, Ellie didn’t read as much. “For me, had I tried to read or sit and do anything not interactive, I would have fallen asleep,” she said.
The crew’s art gallery, where they hung drawing and haikus they wrote.
Journaling and drawing were popular ways to pass the time. “We developed a crew art gallery on one of the walls,” Will said. They also played board games—in particular a game where you score points by making words with lettered tiles on a 15×15 grid. (Yes that one!) “Playing [that game] with two scientists wasn’t always fun though,” Ellie joked, referencing some of the more obscure vocabulary words Will and Michael had at the ready. “I was like, ‘What does that word mean?’ ‘Well that word means lava flow,” she said laughing. (The rest of the crew assured us she fared just fine.)
Chi tried reading, but found it difficult due to the dimmed lights that were part of an onboard light study. She took on a side project instead: 1000 paper cranes. “There is a story in Japan—I’m half Japanese—that if you make a 1000 cranes, it’s supposed to grant you a wish,” she said. She gave hers to her grandmother.
The whole crew having dinner together on “Sophisticated Saturdays!” From left to right: Will, Ellie, Chi, and Michael. They’re wearing their Saturday best, which includes the usual research equipment.
On weekends, the crew got eight hours of sleep, which they celebrated with “Sophisticated Saturdays!” “Coming in, we all brought an outfit that was a little fancy,” Ellie said. (Like a tie, a vest, an athletic dress—that kind of thing.) “We would only put it on Saturday evenings, and we’d have dinner on the first level at the one and only table we could all sit at and face each other,” she said. “We would pretend it was a different fancy restaurant every week.”
The table set for a “civilized” Saturday dinner. Once the crew’s hydroponics grew, they were able to add some greenery to the table.
“It was a way to feel more civilized,” Will said, who then offered another great use of their free time: establishing good habits. “I would use the free time to journal, for example. I’d just keep it up every day. That and stretching. Hydrating. Flossing.”
Like real astronauts, you were in contact with Mission Control and further monitored by HERA personnel. Was it weird being on camera all the time?
HERA personnel and the monitors they use for a typical HERA mission.
“I was always aware of it,” Michael said, “but I don’t think it changed my behavior. It’s not like I forgot about it. It was always there. I just wasn’t willing to live paranoid for 45 days.” Ellie agreed. “It was always in the back of my mind,” she said, further adding that they wore microphones and various other sensors. “We were wired all the time,” she said.
After the study, the crew met up with the people facilitating the experiments, sometimes for the first time. “It was really fun to meet Mission Control afterwards,” Will said. “They had just been this voice coming from the little boxes. It was great getting to meet them and put faces to the voices,” he said. “Of course, they knew us well. Very well.”
For more information on HERA, visit our analogs homepage.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
1. I will see the World however I see fit. I will grow flowers where they've dropped bombs and deafened people// I AM HERE.
2. I am a little caught up right now.
Life should be a long drawn affair of yellow.
Dripping chaos everywhere I go.
journaling
what do i fill the pages with? words? hard. drawings? bad at them. ideas? need to arrive.