How do you start a journaling practice as a system?

When I first started therapy as a young teen, my therapist asked me to keep a journal. At the time, I thought it was not only useless, but a stupid idea. I had enough going on, and I couldn’t remember (let alone think about) putting my thoughts to the page.

Yet, as we grow older, we’ve tried it- over and over again, with different methods, materials, and strategies. It’s difficult, especially as a system, to keep anything consistent, especially a journaling practice. However, as we eventually learned, it has a wide breadth and plethora of benefits.

What are the benefits of journaling?

Your journal is a place to put memories, goals, and anything you find interesting.

A journal doesn’t have to be a perfect, pristine slab of your feelings. It’s a place to jot down anything that happened during the day that you found important (good or bad). As systems, we usually have a hard enough time remembering things, especially as they happen to us, so I will often whip out my phone to take quick notes of things. Sometimes these things make it to the journal proper- sometimes they don’t. That’s okay.

Memories can come up from any sort of trigger in our environment (again, good or bad), and particularly important ones we like to record in our journal. Things we’d totally forgotten about, or things we’d like to make sure we remember, or lessons learned from past experiences.

Journals are not only a great place to put ideas and goals, but also literally anything you like. A list of anime you want to watch with your partner. A quote from that funny youtuber. A picture of a pretty vase in a museum that reminds you of your grandma. A journal can become anything you desire it to be.

You can use your journal as a way to help your therapist/health care provider.

By monitoring your symptoms every day and writing them down, you will have consistent and marked proof of the things you experience, which will only help your therapist or health care provider understand better what you’re going through.

Even if you don’t log your symptoms or write every day, having a dated journal of when things are experienced can help you in your therapy sessions as you go through what things happened and how you reacted to certain situations, or even how certain treatments are working.

Your journal can be a form of creative expression.

It can be a place you practice typography, creative writing, scrapbooking, or just a place you like putting pretty stickers and writing in various different colours! A lot of our alters like physical journals simply because they can then use various stickers they’ve accumulated and their metallic markers. Other alters like our digital journals because they’re easier to decorate with photos and images.

Your journal can be used to release pent up emotions.

This is probably the main reason our therapist wanted us to explore journaling, and it’s something we doubted actually happened. However, as strange as it may seem, it feels like magic, almost, to write about something that’s troubling you. We personally feel the energy and tightness in our body from the emotions we’d been carrying leave us.

This is especially good if you need to vent to someone, but have no one to vent to (or the subject matter is just too sensitive). Talk to your journal as if they’re a personal friend of yours, even if it seems silly. Get it out of your head and out of your body, and you’ll feel considerably better.

Your journal can be used to help you figure problems out.

Oftentimes in order to find solutions to problems or issues that are plaguing us, we just need to slow down enough to think them through. By giving ourselves the space and time to sit down and genuinely process through an issue, we can find clarity as we write and ‘talk to ourselves’. Even just putting a question at the top of the page and letting whatever words come to the pen can have surprising results.

Your journal can help you get to know yourself – and your selves.

Perhaps a big part of why it’s important to journal as a system is to get to know how you, yourself tick. As you journal, especially if it’s a public journal to your other parts, your headmates will get to learn about you. And, if they journal, you can learn more about them, as well.

Through this process, you can also have tangible proof against self-doubt by looking through your journal and pointing at all of the things you wouldn’t write or say. It’s helped us a ton in the past when we inevitably question ourselves.

How do I get started?

Pick a medium that's right for you!

Journaling can be as easy as writing things down on a scrap piece of paper or tossing thoughts in an empty discord server. While we have done these things, we suggest something more permanent.

Physical Journals

For us, we’ve tried and failed to utilise physical journals for anything other than lists and notes, but lots of people enjoy them for the freedom they provide. From lined to dotted to completely blank, there’s a lot of options for any particular use. We like having small, pocket sized (A6 or so) notebooks to take quick notes when out and about. We also like having larger notebooks for cleaning to-dos.

The best part about physical journals is that, because of the nature of them, you can do so much that you can’t exactly do with digital. You can draw and write as you please. Rip pages out. Tape in cut outs from magazines. Use cute stickers and washi tapes, highlighters, gel pens, and coloured pencils.

While these sorts of things can also distract from the purpose of the notebook to begin with, the versatility is immense.

Digital Journals

Digital journals are what we currently use in a variety of ways. We’ve tried all sorts of notetaking apps over the years, but the ones below are the ones we like, recommend, and have used.

Discord

Didn’t we just say not to use Discord? Yeah, yeah. But if it works for you, it works! Utilising a bot like Pluralkit allows you to proxy messages to post as different alters.

Having a private system Discord is great not just for taking quick notes, but also good for keeping system info in one place and in-system communication. You can set up channels and threads however you like, spoiler messages and images, and use the search feature to go back and look through old posts.

Just don’t use it to store files and images.

Obsidian

Obsidian is a free notetaking app that has a surprising amount of customisability. It uses markdown much like Discord does for its formatting, and all of its files are simple text files saved on whatever device you install it on. It doesn’t sync naturally (there’s a paid service and a free, if fenangly work around), but it works offline, which is our favourite feature.

Obsidian has a lot of plugins that allow you to easily make tables, create a daily note to journal with, and templates aren’t difficult to make and set up for your own use. There are themes to customise the fonts and colour scheme, and it’s easy to link pages together to connect thoughts, link to alters, or create a personal wiki. You can even insert images and embed YouTube or Spotify in pages!

Notion

Notion is a free website and app that is extremely customisable. You can have a database with all of your journal entries and have them show up on a calendar you’ve created, sort that database by alter or by a certain tag, or search for words in the title.

Not only that, but you can make it pretty with images, embeds, and different colours. While it can take a while of getting used to, it’s not difficult to learn – and there’s a plethora of templates available to use.

We ourselves have made Notion Templates specifically for Systems with their needs in mind. If you're interested, you can find them here!

How do you be consistent?

Make it a ritual.

Make it fun and something you like to do! Make yourself some tea or coffee, or maybe get a little snack you love and bring it to your journal station. Light a scented candle that you only light during journal time. Listen to some music that isn’t too distracting. (We usually listen to psychedelic rock, but we listened to ‘Coast to Coast’ by Scorpions on repeat as we wrote this!)

Stack it with another routine.

Pick a time to write that’s already a routine for you! Maybe it might feel good to get out some ideas and thoughts right as you wake up or after you get home from work or school. We like to do it after we finish dinner or right before we go to bed.

Schedule it and set an alarm.

It might help to have a specific time or hour every day you write and block it out in your schedule. Set an alarm so you (or other alters) don’t forget!

Make jumping into journaling as easy as possible.

Maybe on Mondays you write specifically about memories, or on odd days of the month you write about your symptoms. Not having another thing to get in the way between you and your writing can make it an easier habit to stick to.

Another thing we find helps is to have Guided Journal prompts or a quick template that allows us to just answer some questions! You can find out more about this below in the last section, including a freebie you can use!

Make sure the medium excites you.

Whether you pick physical or digital, make sure whatever you decide on excites you, brings you joy, and/or inspires you. Get a pretty notebook and some nice pens (we get ours at the dollar store, so it doesn’t have to be expensive). Make your Notion or Obsidian pretty with different colours or neat organisation. Maybe even look up a monthly journal challenge to give you something to look forward to every day!

How do you make other alters stick to the practice?

Make them aware of it.

Alters won’t know what to do unless they’re made aware! Make sure they know about the journaling practice and where you’re doing the journaling. If it’s a physical book, also let them know where they should leave it so you can find it again!

Make them aware of the benefits.

You can scroll up to find our list of benefits, but make them especially aware of the benefits you experience. Lead by example, and make sure you make this a practice before you expect your alters to take part.

Remember that you can’t (and shouldn’t) force your alters to do it.

Sometimes, alters for some reason or another can’t or won’t take part in journaling. While this can be frustrating, try to be understanding, and realise that you certainly wouldn’t want to be on the other end of being pressured to do something you don’t want to do.

What do you actually write?

Free Writing

Sometimes, the best way to start is simply by opening up a blank page and letting the words come from you in a free flow state. Trust yourself that something will come, and something likely eventually will.

Ask a Question

Putting a question that’s bothering you at the top of the page can help spark more words to flow from you. Asking more questions just to answer them can help you work through an issue you’re facing- or at the very least help get your thoughts out about it.

And who knows? Maybe another alter might have an answer.

Dialogue

As systems, it can be a particularly good use of our time to try to use journals as a way to have a dialogue between ourselves and our alters. Asking alters questions or trying to get their thoughts and opinions about something can be extremely enlightening, and if internal communication isn’t working very well, external communication through journaling can certainly help.

Guided Journals

Guided Journals are simply prompts specifically tailored to help you think through certain issues you’re having. They usually have a focus, like working through anxiety or self-love. They can feel like a guiding hand to ease your way through difficult problems and thoughts and find solutions from within yourself.

We could talk about journaling practices all day, but more importantly, we want you to start your journaling practice today! If you’re using Notion, you can click here to get access to a freebie for our Brain Download template! This template will help you organise your thoughts and give you space to put all the things you keep tight in your noggin down to hopefully relieve some mental fatigue.

Good luck with your journaling journey!

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