3 Reasons Why Journaling Can Make You Feel Worse

Journaling can be a powerful practice. It gives us a way to express ourselves fully without fear of judgment, to witness our experiences, and to process our thoughts and feelings.

But sometimes journaling can do more harm than good.

3 Reasons Why Journaling Can Make You Feel Worse

(1) Reinforcement

When we’re in a heightened emotional state like anger or frustration, sitting with the emotion can allow it to pass through us. When left alone, emotions generally have a brief window. Some neuroscientists, like Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, suggest it’s as short as 90 seconds.

Journaling about our emotion reinforces it by keeping it on the front burner for longer. When we journal about the emotion, we prevent it from passing through us. As meditation teacher Jeff Warren explains, it’s like trying to move through tar – the more you try to move around in it to get out of it, the more you get covered in tar.

(2) Entrenchment

Entrenchment and reinforcement work together to prolong the emotional state. Beneath every emotion is a story we are telling ourselves that brings up this particular emotion. The story may be what meditation teacher Tara Brach calls “real, but not true.” It may feel real to us, and we might believe it to be true, but it is not the objective Truth.

When you journal about intense emotions in the moment, you stay entrenched in the story you’re telling yourself, instead of looking for other perspectives or narratives.

To get out of the story you’re telling yourself, you’d be better served by talking to a coach, therapist, or trusted friend. A coach can help you feel witnessed and heard, while also offering different perspectives on your situation that can break you out of the narrow confines of your story.

(3) The Spiral Effect

Have you ever noticed that when you feel joy it’s because of one particular thing in that moment, but when you experience anger it’s because of a lot of different things?

This is a phenomenon known as stacking. When we experience emotions like anger and frustration, it’s often the result of lots of little things that have been stacking up over time.

Journaling about these emotions and their underlying stories can cause us to spiral into a descent of problems and challenges. You start off by journaling about your fight with your friend, and suddenly you’re listing everything else that is going wrong in your life.

Rather than creating a space in which to allow the emotion to be, journaling can cause us to spiral deeper into the emotion in a destructive way. Suddenly, frustration and anger turn into despair, and eventually into hopelessness.

When to Avoid Journaling — and What to Do Instead

Journaling has its right place and right time. It’s best to stay away from journaling when;

• emotions are particularly strong;
• you notice yourself spiraling in a story; or
• you’re ruminating about something.

The best thing to do in those moments is to step away from the page and let the emotions move through you naturally. Take a walk, listen to music, do something physical, or simply sit in silence.

Allow yourself to feel the emotion without attaching to the story. Once you have more distance, you can turn to your journal to integrate the process and record what you learned from the experience. This is a more constructive use of journaling.