5 Great Reasons for Shredding My Old Journals

Isn't life GRAND when you get hold of some new thinking...a new perspective on things that have been weighing you down for a long time...and suddenly you can move forward with a spring in your step and 20/20 vision! Today has been one of those days for me and I am so grateful I can hardly contain myself. I just HAVE to tell you about it. 

Over the past decade or so there have been some pretty tough years and through them, kicking and screaming all the way, I've made some pretty massive shifts in my understanding of myself and of being human. I've struggled and wept and gnashed my teeth largely in the company of several A4 bound books that I chose to be my confidantes over those years - my 'journals'. 

Now it is important to understand that a journal is NOT a diary. They are two very different animals. A diary is a place to list events as they occur or to remind you to get yourself to them: went shopping bought red shoes, dentist - two fillings, won CWA raffle - lucky me! Xanmyne's birthday next week, 29, send card. That sort of thing. Whereas a journal is a place to write about feelings, thoughts, ideas and more: must buy red shoes to go with terrible ugly bridesmaid dress bestie is making me wear it's disgusting - how will I ever match that colour - maybe I can wear just the shoes, so scared of the dentist Mr X - he's such a mongrel with the needle and his breathe stinks, cheated in CWA raffle (lucky me having my bestie on the committee - off to Hawaii next month, woohoo!). Xanmyne's birthday next week, I bet she'll put a selfie up on Facebook - taken in the bathroom of some cheap hotel - skirt up to there...wish she would just grow up. Yes, one can be childish, bitchy, selfish, naughty, angry, anything in a journal. All the things one doesn't usually bother with in a diary. 

It's a bit more like baring your soul and really not the stuff you particularly want your loved ones to find whether you're just out for the day or at worst, dead. I'm serious about that because the stuff that happens in a journal has the potential to hurt people (not always, but what I'm saying is that it can be filled with stuff that is raw - anger, frustration, madness!) and none of us would want to hurt our loved ones by letting them inside our heads on a bad emotions day, surely! Bad enough what we let ourselves say sometimes!

So, my journals, a sizable stack of them, were filled with 'that' kind of stuff and I lived in constant fear that someone would find them and read them and be heart-broken (or just plain shocked - it's not always nice inside my head, even for me, which is why I choose to write and get it all out of there). Of course there were also pages I'd printed of inspirational writings and the occasional emails to and fro that I wanted to keep track of in non-digital format. Often I'd come across personal development activities and would do the work in my journals (frighteningly embarrassing and confronting at times).

I was afraid to let them go.

 Given just how vulnerable I made myself in my writings, and given that essentially this was a massive journey of self-assessment, berating, soul-searching and rebuilding, it is reasonable to wonder why I didn't burn each page as it was completed. I have held onto them for years. Why?

I thought that it was going to be important to me in the future. I wanted to be able to draw on what I went through in those journals to help other people. I believed I could write and save others from going through the same struggles, or at least give struggling people someone to identify with and perhaps to feel less alone. Surely our journeys and struggles constitute some value in that way. 


Also, some time ago, my darling mum had burned a collection of letters I had sent her while travelling; when she told me I had cried for a day and a half without respite*. I was so afraid that I might feel the same if I destroyed my journals which were, essentially, letters I'd written to myself in order to understand who I was...to become myself...a record of a different kind of travel. I was scared to let them go!

Then a week or so ago I got the box of journals out and started reading. Not in chronological order but somewhat randomly. I've read them before, of course, and have revelled at how much progress I've made and how I've changed along the way. In the past it has been a positive experience to read back over them. This time it was different. I read for hours and hours until I had read them all. And then I fell into a dreadful funk that lasted at least a couple of days. I realised I wanted to shred them all but I was so terrified of doing that. How could I do that? It took me a few more days to give myself more reasons for shredding them than I had for keeping them...and here they are:

5 Great Reasons for Shredding My Old Journals

1. One day someone else will find them and read them. It is possible they will think the writer is or was insane or they might be dreadfully wounded by what they read. Things can be taken out of context and greatly misunderstood. It's just not worth the risk.

2. Reality is, I believe, that we all have a 'dark' side. We all entertain 'dark' thoughts at times, whether we are open to admitting it or not. I would prefer to reveal my 'darkness' to others on my own terms, selectively and only in company I absolutely trust. Or not at all. 

3. If I am going to write to help people I will do it better from who and where I am now. I have done the learning I needed to in that time. I trust myself to remember and to share from the heart what I know is important to share. 

4. The value of revisiting times of struggle by immersing oneself in old thinking is unlikely to be helpful beyond a certain point, if at all. It can lead to feelings of pain, despair and deep sadness to experience in that way old perceptions and beliefs. 

5. It is symbolic of freeing oneself from the past. Life is better when it is lived in the present. It can be cathartic to shred those pages and know that they will  no longer be evidence of long days and nights of anguish, It is freeing to know that I won't ever read that stuff again. It is gone. The work is done. I am me. I am free. I honour myself by letting the old stuff go.

No tears, just relief.

Love to all.
Happy New Year.
Let it go.
Be free.
Don't say I made you do it!!

Kerry x

*Mum, I forgave you ages ago, was just using it to make a point.