If you intend to write a memoir, your journals are a gold mine and a treasure trove. But they also come with shadows, demons and difficulties.
by Eric Maisel
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This series of posts called “Journaling for Men” is designed to help everyone, and especially men who may be unfamiliar with journaling, learn how daily journaling can help them improve their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It brings together ideas from two of my recent books, Redesign Your Mind, in which I describe how you can upgrade and redesign “the room that is your mind,” and my most recent book The Great Book of Journaling, co-edited with Lynda Monk, in which we gathered contributions from scores of journal experts and enthusiasts.
Please enjoy this series. I hope that you’ll begin to include journaling as part of your daily self-awareness and self-care program.
Say that you want to mine your journals for material to include in your memoir. What will go into your decision-making process as you face your mountain of journals? In addition to the intellectual task of deciding on the best frame, theme, or script for your memoir, in addition to the burden of sorting, shifting, choosing, and transcribing, you have the following four psychological tasks to address. Each is vitally important.
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Are you genuinely willing to reveal yourself?