Experimenting with Journaling

As I mentioned in my post a couple of weeks ago, I have been experimenting with the Genos Journalling App.  I have now done that daily for a fortnight, so (as promised, fearsome Reader) I am now reporting back.  (And for those following this saga attentively, I did find an old blank hard covered book in my stationery cupboard, and my handwriting isn't quite as illegible as I pretend).

It has been a useful and interesting experience.  I chose Self Awareness as my focus for the fortnight (the other options on the app are Personal Vision and Gratitude).  The various 'prompts' to which I responded include: I need to ask for help when... I am at my happiest when... I tend to sabotage myself when... I enjoy myself best when... and so on.

The discipline is then to write for the chosen length of time (3, 5 or 10 minutes, without stopping, and with no self-censorship, until the buzzer on the app goes.  In many ways, it is similar to working with a Thinking Partner using Nancy Kline's Thinking Partnership process (regular readers will know I'm a fan.

As to what I wrote, that will remain between the covers of my journal: that is rather the point. But the interesting bits are always when you write something that surprises you, or that you have always known but somehow lost track of, and so on.

One thing that is valuable is to go back over what you have written a while later and mark up what is particularly important

There was one prompt that I rejected (you always have the option to choose another prompt, if you don't like the one offered). The one I rejected (twice) was: One compliment I know that I deserve is... You may speculate and draw your own conclusions about what that says about me, should you wish to do so.

With regard to the Genos tool, it works well, apart from a few typos (particularly in the Gratitude prompts), and I would recommend it as a starting point. It's weakness, of course, is that it only has the three topic areas (and a finite number of prompts, of course).

For myself, however, I am now going to choose my own prompts, focusing on some different areas of my life that particularly want to attend to over the coming months.  I may report back further in due course.

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With thanks to Aaron Burden for sharing his photography on Unsplash