On Balance: Should I read my journal aloud?

Online communities of women sharing their most personal thoughts and feelings are thriving. We look into the creators and commenters behind the trend, and ask whether this is a helpful tactic for healing or another oversharing fad we will regret. 

You have probably been recommended journaling at one point in your life or another. Whether that’s from a therapist or parent, friend or otherwise, the benefits of keeping a journal are tried and tested. Improved mental health, enhanced self-awareness, boosted memory, strong emotional processing, stress and anxiety reduction, and even a way to achieve your goals. 

As a powerful tool for personal growth and wellbeing, it also offers a way to improve your communication skills, reduce screen time, and serve as a time capsule for your journey through life. It’s a pretty personal activity – surely? All your thoughts and feelings are bundled into the pages of a book (or Notes page on your iPhone for the new gen), or even laid out as art in whatever form your journal takes. 

So what if you took yours, filmed each page of your *extremely* personal thoughts and feelings, and posted a video for millions of others to see? Yep, it’s got us a bit stressed out too. 

But there’s a new generation of women doing just that. All ages, backgrounds, and lifestyles are opening up their most valued secrets for the whole internet to see. It’s easy to think that it could be met with discerning judgement, but it’s quite the opposite. 

The thriving community of online diarists are narrating their traumatic schooldays, speaking about heart-wrenching friendship breakups, reciting their first heartbreak, expressing the grief of losing loved ones, and soliloquising the lowest points of their lives. From the mundane of how a cup of tea can change one's mood to moving countries and meeting a soulmate, women are curating a hub where others feel a sense of belonging, support, and understanding. 

Some, such as @tegan.marlow, share their funny childhood diaries of their first boyfriend, ushering the nostalgic viewers to giggle along, or empathise with these stages of growing up. Others are writing to their future self as a healing technique, sharing their writing tips with young women starting their journaling journey online. One successful creator and established writer/ literary agent, who goes by @betsylerner, is reading her entries from her 20-something-year-old self, around 30 years later, to share her lived experiences with the new generation. Comments on her videos – of which there are hours worth of scrolling through – range from “I feel so lost. This felt like a hug” to “wow I needed this so much” to “all of my entries like this, and I have felt awful about it every day. I’m hopeful to a fault, but I won’t give up. Thank you for sharing!”

There have been ways to digitalise your journal for a while now, from apps and platforms to Facebook groups and broadcast channels. I mean, comment sections almost serve as a diary in a way. But the physical act of writing and sharing, exposing the thoughts that were never meant to be seen to all, is different to this. It’s completely unperformative and is only successful when truly organic. If you write with the intention of pleasing or performing for those reading it, then you aren’t doing what this community wants. They are looking for the authentic, and the things that sometimes aren’t said aloud for a reason. It’s like therapy for the masses, through the vessel of one's extremely relatable lived experiences. 

Not only that, but sharing can bring a new perspective to an issue or experience, shedding light on something to help you heal. It can encourage communication on a different level, especially if this is something you struggle with in everyday life. It gives time – something we lack in day-to-day – to articulate and digest thoughts. 

This isn’t to say that the online diarists community is a completely safe space, as it is a hub of women that stemmed from a trend of showing off their journaling skills. Sharing these extracts does leave very personal experiences open to judgement , and we all know the internet can be a cruel place. Whilst for now the reaction is overwhelmingly positive, it is always good to be aware of why this may not be a positive experience for some. Some creators suggest looking out for those who extend trust, empathy and open-mindedness, and to practice sharing yours with those first. 

It must be said that through reading your diary aloud, despite personal opinions on the matter, we are slowly ushering in a new wave of artists and writers. Picking extracts and using the words in the name of art would seem to frame the direction these diarists are taking. I mean, we rely on art for freedom, self-expression, and pure catharsis – you may have been an artist this whole time and not realised. Like with art, the beauty of journaling lives within the everyday, and is subjective to each experience and how this is interpreted. There’s no right or wrong to what you have to say, as long as you're the one saying it. 

But it is to be remembered that journaling is a very private way to vent emotions. If you are reaching for the diary as a therapeutic exercise method, then it’s important to respect your boundaries in this instance. You have to remember that we all have a right to private thoughts and emotions, and pressure to share this should not feel like the driving force for keeping a journal. But if you have weighed up how you feel, and how you would feel sharing, then speak to those trusted around you about doing so and go for it. 

After all, some of the most famous pieces of literature have stemmed from journals. The Diary of a Young Girl, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, and The Diary of Virginia Woolf… to name a few. And who's to say you wouldn’t be next? Of course, journaling aloud comes with warnings, but if you find the right people, place, and time, what’s stopping you?