My therapist recently gave me a piece of homework that initially sounded easy, but turned out to be much harder than it seems: think about the question, “Who is Ela?” I’ve lived in my own head for 20 years – I must know who I am, right?
The therapy session before this homework had me talking about how I often blindly follow the advice of others, only to later realise that it isn’t actually what I wanted to do. I also talked about how I tend to tell myself that what I’m doing isn’t what I ‘should’ be doing, a mindset influenced by things like social media or comparisons with people I know. With that in mind, I found it hard to answer the question of who I am, as I started to spiral: “Do I do [insert thing here] because I genuinely like it, or because I think it’s what I’m supposed to do?”.
My therapist recommended asking people close to me for their perspective as a way of figuring it out. But there are two issues with that: one, people may just tell you what they think you want to hear, and two, we all have parts of ourselves that we don’t show to others, or that we only show to certain people. I didn’t really want to do this exercise with others, as I might take people’s less-than-glowing responses too personally and start thinking I should change myself. So, I did the thing that felt most natural to me: I took to my journal.
I have a Pinterest board where I save journaling prompts ideas, and it turns out I already had quite a few dedicated to self-discovery. I started with: “What could you truly not imagine your life without?”, to which I wrote a page all about the deep impact that music has had on my life. I won’t copy all my entries word for word here, but in brief, I realised that music is the basis of who I am, and all of my fondest memories include music in one form or another. That felt like a meaningful revelation, even if liking music isn’t exactly a unique personality trait.
Another one I answered was: “When you die, what would you like to be remembered for?”, which was slightly harder. I decided that I would want to be remembered for being funny and for being able to ‘light up a room’. I know it’s a cliché often said to people who have passed, but I’d want people to say it and really mean it about me. It isn’t my goal to be a celebrity or anything, but it’d be nice to have made some sort of small mark on the world, possibly through writing, or through research if I go on to do a postgraduate degree. Maybe you’re reading this blog in an archive years after I wrote it – in which case, I’d say: “Well, I’ve succeeded!”
I did a couple more of these prompts I found (I’ll link my board at the end so you can try some too). One that caught my eye was “A Month of Letters,” where you write a letter a day to someone different for 30 days. I found it a couple of weeks before June, the perfect time to start, since June has 30 days It also lined up nicely with something I’d already been thinking about: writing myself a letter to read whenever I’m feeling anxious or down, reminding myself of how strong I am and to keep going.
I’m still in the middle of the challenge, but something I’ve especially liked is how it forces you to think of people you wouldn’t usually consider writing to. For example, day two asked for a letter to someone you love. My first instinct was to write to my mum, until I saw that there was another day specifically for writing to your mother. I ended up writing to my one-year-old nephew instead, which then made me feel a deep appreciation I’d never fully reflected on before. It’s made me think in ways I never have, so I’d definitely recommend the challenge if you have half an hour to spare each day.
When I first started journaling at 16, I went through a phase of only answering prompts; I thought my life wasn’t interesting enough to write about and there was no point unless some deep insight was involved. Now, I’m leaning more towards the opposite – I want to write down what happens in my life so I can look back on it, even if it wasn’t anything particularly remarkable. That said, my therapist’s homework pushed me to answer deeper questions again which made me gain a deeper understanding of myself, so I’m learning to enjoy answering prompts on occasion.
Journaling is a deeply personal practice, and I don’t believe there’s any ‘correct’ way of doing it. I write unstructured entries most of the time, unless I’m perhaps bored, or want to think deeper into a certain topic, when I will then turn to prompts. Maybe you keep a journal or a ‘diary’ where you write about the mundane and find it a chore, to which I’d recommend: try answering a question. You might unlock something in yourself too.
Here’s the link to my journaling Pinterest board – have a gander: https://pin.it/4dYGfkcbX
Leave a Reply