Journaling has been both an outlet of self expression and a coping mechanism for me. I’ve journaled on and off since I was very young. I remember writing about clothes I wanted, people I admired, things I wanted to do - but also my feelings, frustrations, and sadness I experienced. Recently I was looking through some old journals, and I was surprised by how big and deep my feelings were at a young age. It made me sad for my younger self honestly. But I was also interested to discover that a lot of the things I was feeling when I was 9, are things I feel now too. I’ve gotten into a rut recently of not journaling, mostly because somewhere along the line I seemed to adopt the mindset that whenever I wrote it had to be deep and all about my feelings. I’m trying to view it now more as just an outlet of self expression, as it seemed to be when I was younger. I also want to make an effort to utilize journal prompts when I write to break away from my ideals of what a journal entry “should” look like.