MMM: the two sentence journal prompt that changed my brain this week.
I’ve always been the girl with journals. I started young, as soon as I could read and write — right around the time I was 5, turning 6. I have seriously found writing from my 6-year-old self. No joke. The sentences make less than zero sense and many are accompanied by stick figures, but they are the earliest narrations of my life.
My first journal looked like a compact hardcover book. The cover was a yellow and silver iridescent sparkly collage with a printed bumblebee taking flight right off the corner. A small lock and key allowed me to shut the journal at the end of my adorably misspelled entries, which gave me the sense that I would always have this quiet space for myself. Truly under lock and key.
As I got older, the journals evolved. I would run to the back of the bookstore in search of the notebook section, meticulously selecting my next blank slate. It’s a feeling… selecting a journal as a child. I usually opted for leather (now as an adult, I recognize it was most likely pleather or some other type of coated material), bound tightly at the seams. I wanted it to crack hard when I peeled it back all the way. It wasn’t something I consciously recognized at the time, but as I’ve gotten older I recognize the feeling of safety that came with that choice as the manifestation of a realization that I could pour my heart out and spill my own secrets to myself.
My high school and college years were the driest years of my journaling life. At the time, I barely thought about it — living my life in all of its busy moments. But in my twenties, I moved away from home *truly* for the first time. I found myself living alone in an apartment in a town 1,000 miles from my parents in a place I had never even visited. And I began again. The things that came through at that time felt like epiphany.
The last few years of my life featured another journaling drought. I would pick it up for a couple days and then set it down for a few months. Sometimes those gaps spanning 6 months to a year. If you’ve been around here for the birth of this Substack you know that one of my purposes here is to slow down and experience my life. In the trenches of it, not after the fact or overthinking the “before.” I aim to be a living, breathing journal entry. Someone in the middle of what she’s doing. A person on a path and not at her end point. The messy middle, if you will.
So that meant — I knew I needed to find a way to reinstate my journaling practice in a way that fits my life right now. You know how when you say you need something in your life and you make a firm decision, how that thing just somehow seems to find you?
That’s when this post by
popped up on my feed.
This. Journaling. Prompt. Wow, wow, wow. It was the simplest invitation back into my journaling practice. A non-performative writing exercise. Something I could sit with each day with zero pressure to share it or to make it perfect. Just two sentences: one about what went well and one about how I felt.
It’s the same idea as taking off on a run with no intention of going more than 10 minutes. The fact that you’re only allotting 10 minutes makes it feel approachable and minimally intimidating. You can do anything for ten minutes, right? But once you get going, you almost ALWAYS feel good enough to go for longer. Before you know it, you’ve run for 30 minutes. Last week I went out with the intention to just run for 20 minutes and I stretched to an hour because it just felt so damn good to move my body in the sunshine. It’s the same energy with this journaling practice. I sit down to write for two sentences right before I turn my brain off for the night. And inevitably, that two sentences almost always morphs into more. The act of writing down what went well shifts me into gratitude mode and acknowledging how I felt honors my feelings, no matter how big or small. The added bonus: I’ve reflected on my day and dumped my brain before sleep. Some days, it really is only two sentences. I’m exhausted. My legs are tired and I’m touched out from a day of being the primary parent Mom-ager. Other days I feel expansive, allowing the space and the time to unfold myself and it becomes a two to four page rant fest. Either way, nobody will ever see it. It is bliss.
I truly cannot recommend this enough. Thank you to
for inspiring this new practice in my life. Here’s a link to her full carousel that this image came from — titled “mini rituals for a softer life.”My 6-year-old self would be so proud. The version of me who was chronicling her bus stop interactions, her best friend squabbles and her recess revelry. If I could say to her “we are chronicling our entire life, for ourselves, by ourselves,” I bet she would say, “but of course we are, weren’t we always?”
ALL OF THAT TO SAY: Write it down. Even if you’re not a writer. Write it down, even if it’s a few words at the tail end of a bad day. Write it down, even if you feel the ache and pull toward sleep. In a year, you’ll look back at all of your sentences and have an entire book.
Wishing you lots of little moments of softness this week.
XO-
SB
Ohmygosh. I loved this.
Hugs for Teddy!