Future-Focused Journaling
In my journaling workshops, I've had the wonderful experience of seeing just how varied and meaningful journaling can be for different people. For many, it’s a private space to process emotions, solve problems, brainstorm ideas, set goals, or reflect on person growth. It's often a deeply personal practice, meant for the writer’s eyes only.
But journaling can also serve as a way to create something lasting: to capture the milestones & memories of your growing family, preserve family memories, pass down traditions, or create a personal legacy.
Journaling isn’t quite the same as memoir-writing; while a memoir typically presents a polished narrative of significant life events, journaling is usually more spontaneous and reflective. However, both practices share the goal of preserving personal experiences and insights for future reflection - and possibly future generations.
As I began to explore journaling-as-memoir, I came across several insightful books that shed light on why and how we might want to preserve our journal entries. Here are some key points and take-aways that really resonated with me. Do any of them jump out at you?
Journaling as Storytelling
When we write in our journals, we're not just documenting events, we’re engaging in the powerful act of storytelling, reflecting on our experiences, exploring our thoughts, and preserving our stories. As Brewster and Zimmerman explain in The Healing Power of Storytelling, “Telling stories is a uniquely human adaptation: they are the tools we use to make sense of ourselves and our world.”
Anyone can be a storyteller, and there’s no right or wrong way to do it. You’re the expert of your own story and might very well be the story-keeper for your family. So, grab your pen and start documenting those moments that matter. Embrace your unique voice and let your journal be a testament to your journey or that of your family. Start today—your story is worth telling!
A memoir is like a slice of life - not an entire life
Journaling-as-memoir doesn’t need to become a full-length, publishable book (unless that’s your goal). It’s not about covering every detail of your life but about capturing the moments and memories that truly matter to you. Natalie Goldberg, in Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, suggests that a memoir should reflect the essence of your experiences rather than follow a linear timeline. Focus on the significant stories and bring them to life!
If you need inspiration, you may want to explore apps and programs like StoryWorth and Remento that provide guided prompts to help you reflect on and document your experiences. At the end, they turn your stories into a bound keepsake. Please note that I don’t make any claims about their effectiveness or outcomes—just sharing some options that might be useful for your storytelling journey.
Legacy Journaling
In The Great Book of Journaling, Merle Saperstein highlights an important distinction between journaling and legacy writing: “Unlike journaling we do for ourselves, legacy journaling is written for the benefit of others. A Legacy Journal can be a record of one's spiritual values, life lessons, messages from the heart, reflections, and more.” This means that while personal journaling helps us understand and process our own experiences, legacy journaling aims to pass on wisdom and insights to others. So, go ahead and use your journal to share your unique life lessons, values, and reflections. Your stories could provide invaluable guidance and inspiration for future generations.
The Value of Your Journal
My great grandmother kept a simple diary with one-sentence entries detailing the mundane yet meaningful aspects of her daily life—like how much she paid the milkman or who came to dinner. As a child, I often wished for more juicy details, wishing she’d spill the tea on family secrets. As an adult, I’m deeply grateful for this diary and the quiet testament to the ordinary moments that shaped her life.
If you haven’t started your own legacy journal yet, now is the perfect time. Your story, no matter how ordinary it may seem, could become a treasured part of someone’s history. Remember, someone, somewhere will appreciate the journal you keep. Alexandra Johnson captures this beautifully in A Brief History of Diaries: A diary is “useful to the person who keeps it, dull to the contemporary who reads it, invaluable to the student, centuries afterward, who treasures it!” I find this sentiment to be both amusing and profoundly true.
Write Your Own Story
James Hagerty’s Yours Truly: An Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Story urges us to write our own story while we can. He implores: “Don’t leave it to family members, who are certain to make a hash of it.” While this is a playful nudge, it highlights the importance of capturing your own experiences and viewpoints. If nothing else, it ensures your family gets your obituary right!
Sometimes, simplicity is key
During my exploration into journaling-as-memoir, I discovered that some of the simplest and least expensive resources can be incredibly effective. For example, Burn After Writing and similar "about me” type journals offer easy prompts to capture personal memories and reflections, beginning with earliest childhood memories and progressing throughout your life span. These single-sentence prompts are a fantastic starting point for any journaling practice. They may seem mundane or simplistic, but when expanded upon, collected and woven together with a whole notebook of personal reflections on your life, they can paint a rich, detailed picture of who you are.
Give it a try!
Pull out your journal and pen and respond to the following prompts with as much or little detail as you like. Give yourself time and space to dig into each memory and see where they take you, allowing your thoughts to flow and expand naturally.
As a child, I dreamed of becoming…
Posters I had on my wall growing up…
The first thing I bought with my own money…
The person (book, movie, or song) who had the greatest impact on my life…
My life story in three sentences…
No matter your reason for journaling, the key is to make it a meaningful and personal experience. Whether you're writing for yourself, your family, or future generations, your journal is a unique reflection of who you are and the life you're living. So grab a pen, open your journal, and start capturing the moments that matter most to you.
