Journaling Is a Valuable Mindfulness Practice
Old age is a great time for writing down your life. If you want to change your life, write it down
A writing teacher advised me not to make my posts my personal journal. He was wrong about that.
Now I realize I have been journaling publicly for nearly five years. My writing teacher said no one wants to read your private thoughts vomited out on the page.
But I have found that they do, if they’re well written.
In this essay, I’ll explore journaling as a mindfulness practice. I want to make clear that journaling is not meditation, in which you attempt to let go of your thoughts and focus on the present moment, leaving the past and future out of it.
To journal, you need access to the past and the future and to write about them in the here and now. You write down what comes up for you in the present. And you write it down without internal editing or judgments about what anyone will think about it. This is how I think of journaling, although I have never done pure journaling.
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But I have recently decided that my writing on Medium and Substack (the only places I write) is a kind of journal. They are not pure journals — completely uninhibited, unedited, and covering everything and everyone in my life in a free and uninhibited way. I do not publish in that way, and I don’t even write that way — in the way of a diary with a lock on it — for my eyes only.
I get very close to journaling in what I publish. But I don’t go all the way into my deepest secrets, my sex life, and the life situations of family members. I definitely do not write anything negative or anything that could embarrass my wife, my children, my sister, or my friends. I don’t cross that line into journaling as a kind of therapy.
That kind of raw, unedited emotion is pure journaling. And it is best done in private and kept under wraps.
It’s best to tell your therapist everything if you want therapy to work in the best way. But I would never write publicly the way I would talk with my therapist (I’m not currently in therapy).
But good journaling should be honest, and so should a good post on Medium or Substack. Good journaling should be genuine, as should online writing — people want to read that kind of writing. They want it real, raw, and uninhibited, as long as it’s well written.
When I began writing about old age, my essays became more genuine, more real, more like a journal or a regular column in a newspaper. I like writing like that — this is how I’m feeling today about being old. That’s essentially what I do here.
In a recent article about my writing, I mentioned discovering that I have been journaling every day. And I guess I still feel guilty about it. And one of my dear readers validated that for me and encouraged the personal journal aspect of my writing.
[Gary], I like reading your Substack because you DO write as if it’s a personal journal of sorts. I want to know what your experience of aging has been. I’m curious about all aspects of aging — what is most enjoyable, what are your fears, what are your strategies for dealing with difficulties, how do you surrender to the inevitable changes that aging brings. Please show us yourself and not just the scientific evidence and/or other people’s ideas. Thanks for writing your posts.
— Graciewilde
Gracie laid it out beautifully — and she gave me a valuable template for my writing content. Our readers are a wonderful guide as to how we are connecting, or not, with them. (If we’re not connecting, we won’t hear from them.)
Journaling is a good mindfulness practice, especially for people who want to meditate but find they can’t. If sitting cross-legged in a quiet room freaks you out, journaling is a good alternative mindfulness practice.
You can journal in a quiet room, on a train, or in a bar or a cafe. Journaling can be a journey of self-discovery. I have learned so much about myself from writing. Sometimes I don’t know what I think until I write it down. I have learned more about myself from writing than from anything else, except meditation.
Plus, the act of journaling is mindfulness in action. It’s a question: What’s going on right now? And it’s a quiet action — writing it down. Writing down your life before it slips away.
All it takes is a quiet place, a pen and paper, a cup of tea, and the courage to just let your thoughts spill out on the page as they will. Knowing that no one will ever read what you’re writing makes it easier.
If you want to change your life, write it down.
Gary
December 2025
I agree with you. Journaling is a great way of staying on top of everything especially as we get older. I disagree with your writing teachers perspective as like yourself, I’ve received nice comments on shared personal observations.
Well, first, imagine my shock to see my own words in your piece! And they are the truth. I enjoy your posts because you do write honestly and from the heart. I appreciate what you are learning along your path and can often either relate to what you have said or you give me something to think about, to add to my own experiences. I am grateful for both kinds of posts.
I have kept a journal most of my life, writing frequently , if not daily. There were some very busy years (in my 40's and 50's when the writing became more infrequent but that was life). These days I favor Julia Cameron's three pages and writing first thing in the morning. I sometimes have no idea where the writing is going to go but no matter. I sort my thoughts out that way. Sometimes the journal writing is the seed for some Substack post . Sometimes I am afraid that my posts are too whiny or too revealing. I might be trying to sort something out and there might be a hint of sadness or grief but I always try to frame it in a way that leaves the reader feeling more up than down. I would never write about complex family situations or anything that would embarrass anyone - that stuff isn't interesting to read anyway. I want to be constructive, encouraging, maybe a little humor, and, most of all, authentic in my posts. That describes you too.