The creative Power of a Journal
Why journalling is such a powerful practice for sparking, supporting and strengthening your creative voice.
I’ve been journaling in some form or another most of my adult life.
For me, journalling is part self-discovery, part therapy, part creative expression. It allows me to connect to a deeper part of myself, the part that tends to get lost in the noisiness of life. And to this day, journalling remains my most important creative practice.
Why?
Well, I’ll start by sharing a few reasons why journalling is such a powerful practice for all of us when it comes to sparking, supporting, and strengthening our creative voice. But then I’m going to share with you what happens when I journal and why I love it so much (which I warn you now — it’s going to sound weird)!!
The Creative Benefits of Journalling:
1. Creating space for openness and honesty
Journalling invites a raw, uncensored kind of self-expression, one that encourages truth-telling without judgment.
2. Releasing self-censorship
By allowing thoughts to flow freely, journalling helps loosen internal filters and self-editing habits, the ones that quietly, but powerfully, stifle creativity.
3. Cultivating active awareness and curiosity
It requires us to turn inward, pay attention to what might be hiding in plain sight, and get curious about what we find.
4. Encouraging self-exploration and discovery
Writing becomes a magnifying glass, revealing patterns, insights, and questions we didn’t know we were asking.
5. Tapping into the subconscious
As words appear on the page, the deeper layers of the self begin to speak permeating our consciousness
6. Reconnecting with intuition and inner wisdom
Journalling strengthens the bridge between instinct and insight — the quiet whispers of our creative voice.
7. Turning inward and listening deeply
It teaches us to notice the quiet voice within and gives us practice expressing it outwardly.
8. Offering creative freedom
There are no rules on the page. This openness nurtures experimentation and the kind of imaginative risk-taking we rarely allow ourselves.
9. Exercising and strengthening the imagination
Like a muscle, imagination grows with use. Journalling is a gym for big dreams, bold ideas, and those quiet inklings that want to be put through their paces.
10. Sparking, supporting, and strengthening self-expression
Journalling helps us clarify what we want to say — and then find the words to say it. In other words, it helps us discover and strengthen our creative voice
My favourite part of journalling, though, is when something really cool happens, and this is the weird bit.
Without intending to, without knowing when it happened, I’ll look down at my page and see that my language has shifted. The word “I” has quietly transformed into the word “you.”
A very cool collaboration is taking place. A dialogue between authors.
Without consciousness, certainly without intention, another voice begins to emerge, mine but not mine, familiar but foreign, from me, yes, but somehow from somewhere far beyond me too. That’s the weird, voodoo kind of magic I experience when I journal. And it’s the same kind of magic I experience when I’m in a deep state of creative flow, a transcendence of self that is both a departure and an arrival.
And so my job becomes a simple one: To listen closely and take notes.
A creative prompt to get you started
If you’re new to journalling and want to give it a go, a good tip is to start with a question and then simply, start writing. And then, just keep going. Let whatever wants to come up, come up. Don’t censor, edit, or correct yourself. Don’t judge yourself. And whatever you do, don’t try to control the narrative. Use this practice as a beautiful opportunity to surrender that control.
Remember, your only job is to transcribe what you hear.
And to do that, all you need to do is pay attention.
If you don’t know where to start, feel free to use this simple but supercharged question:
“What do I want to create?”
or
‘Where am I holding back creatively and why?’
Now over to you.
Happy Journalling!