It’s so fun to hear people share about how and why they journal!
Next in our Peek Inside a Journal feature is Cathy Diaz of WhyWeJournal.com.
Cathy shares posts to help support your journaling practice with prompts, inspiration, and even ideas for background music.
When did you start journaling?
I started journaling when I was 13. It’s been over twenty years. I’ve taken breaks but I always go back to my scribbling. While I was artsy when I was younger, I became more of a messy journaler in my twenties, which honestly, hasn’t improved much! With more birthdays under my belt, I’ve taken to reflective, gratitude, and prayer journaling.
How has journaling impacted you? What has it meant to you?
Journaling was the expressive space I needed when my world felt too small. When I first started, my emotional health was very poor, and I felt like I had no way out. The teenage years are amazing, but hell. It’s not just your body that goes through hormonal changes, but your brain as well. You learn who you are, who you want to be, and a lot of what I was going through was too overwhelming to speak out loud. Writing it down regulated my thoughts and emotions. My journals have been a steady and stable safe space for me and I love telling others it can be more than ‘just a journal.’
Tell us about your personal set up? What type of journal and tools do you use?
I have a desk by my side of the bed and have probably over twenty journals of varying degrees of scribbles and attention received. I prefer blank and dotted and have a lay flat sketchbook journal that I also am using for mind mapping right now. I use ball-point colored pens, as I’ve learned from my early lessons with pencil and sorting through my thoughts with different colors is helpful to my brain. I sort my journals according to their intended use. Right now, the journals that receive the most attention are: my prayer journal, my 3-4 creative work journals, my birth/breastfeeding journal for my daughter, and my master writing journal. This is where my learning and creative efforts go. I have a myriad of others that I also use.
When do you find the time to journal?
I am a toddler mom, so I am extremely sympathetic to anyone with small children. I usually maintain a few lines of my prayer journal most days of the week. Everything else (including laundry) is survival of the fittest. I keep a running log on my notes app of moments I want to remember of my daughter’s early life, to be transcribed later into the birth and breastfeeding journal. It sits at 261 pages in the notes app right now and I think I’ve written only 20 pages down. I try to do this almost daily, if not weekly.
Do you go back through old journals? How often do you review?
Yes, I used to go through them once a year or every couple of years. Since my daughter has been born, I have gone through them more often and I reminisce. Motherhood has increased my gratitude a hundredfold, and seeing my change on paper makes me excited to see how she will learn and grow.
What advice do you have for people just getting started?
You are the most important part. Your journal serves you and your needs. I love looking at the videos of the perfect crafting journal, but none of those are in my house. Mine are messy, taped together, full of indecipherable scribbles that only I can read. If you sit down trying to create a piece of perfect journaling art, but then become stressed and frustrated and, as a by-product–give up, you’ve lost a seriously wonderful experience.
My advice: there is no perfect or right way to journal. There’s just your way, for you.
Where can people connect with you to learn more?
I have a website called Why We Journal, where I blog and invite other bloggers to write about journaling. I even write about music in the background when you journal! The blog started out of a desire to live my dream of writing, and my belief that dreams are worth pursuing as an example for my daughter.
I also send a free monthly newsletter to my subscribers that focuses on journal prompts and blog news. I call it The 311. It consists of three text-based prompts, one visual and one audio track. The newsletters have themes, and I give priority to subscriber feedback on desired content for the blog and newsletter.
In January 2024 I managed to self-publish my first guided journal called “Reframe the Sabotage: A Transformation Journal.” It’s my first published work, available on Amazon with the Ebook version also in Kindle Unlimited for the digitally minded and budget conscious. This work focuses on the down and dirty cognitive behavioral terminology, designed for reflection, and has repeating prompt pages for self-directed reinforcement. If it helps one person, then all the hair-tearing anxiety I experienced was worth it.
You can connect with me on my social channels, and I love collaborating with other creators. Readers and Journalers can always follow me on Amazon and Goodreads.
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