The Virtuous Activity That Became My Greatest Escape

Sometimes II’ll notice myself writing down my notes about what is happening as it’s happening: what I’m doing, what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking.

I call it contemporaneous journaling.

Contemporaneous journaling started with the intention of recording my thoughts, feelings, and emotions as they were happening. The intention was to cultivate deeper insight about my experience.

It’s since turned into a habit — something I do automatically, often without thinking about it.

I pick up my phone to take notes on my experience while I’m in the experience.

Although regular journaling has many positive aspects, contemporaneous journaling is not true journaling.

It’s reflexive, not reflective. It’s not aimed at organizing thoughts and experiences to see the patterns. Instead, it is a way of taking myself out of an experience.

It’s actually a form of escape.

The moment I’m observing myself in an experience, I’m no longer in the experience of it. I’ve shifted from participant to observer.

And if I’m writing about it, then I’m reporting it. That removes me even further from the experience.

It moves me from body to mind, from heart to head, from emotion to intellectual abstraction.

The moment we try to put words to our experience we lose the experience itself.

When I am observing myself in an experience or writing about it while it’s happening, I’m no longer in it. I’m no longer present. I’ve shifted to the outside.

Does this mean journaling is bad?

Not at all.

It’s an issue of timing.

You can’t be a participant and an observer at the same time.

You can’t be a participant and a reporter at the same time.

I must train myself to stay in my experience first, and write about it later, after it’s complete.

When I short-circuit my experience by trying to observe and report it too soon, I also short circuit my opportunity to heal what has arisen.

Staying in our experience can be emotionally difficult, but the only way out is through. I don’t need to remember every detail of every experience.

I must trust that I’ll remember what was most important and relevant to my evolution.