By smaller, I mean the size of my journals, moving down to an A6 size or Weeks (wallet size similar to a traveler’s notebook size). And also the amount and depth of thought I record.
It’s not that I need less processing. It couldn’t be with all the stressors. As a mother worried about my adult son, a daughter worried about my older parents, a wife, a sister and, not least of all, a Nurse Practitioner. I had around 800 patients to be concerned about and it definitely added a lot of stress, and a great deal of crushing sadness when I lost so many of them. All of these roles came with concern for the health of those in my world, and the overwhelming lack of control that came with so many being sick and having no way to help.
I found myself focusing more on spiritual and emotional peace and much of it was so high stress that I did not find it “jounal-able.” During the three years of the high anxiety I felt, processing on paper was almost more than I could take, causing me to step back from as much paper journaling and holding more of it in my physical body. Ever since this change in journaling, I have gained 20 pounds, not recognizing this was a problem until this moment.
This is a pretty vulnerable place to be living. I would like the next step to be to get back to the paper processing and sharing what happens when I do it and maybe what works for me.
If you have gone through something similar, please share what worked for you!
