what I learned from burning 6 years' worth of journals (part 1)

23 notebooks - marriage, divorce, dating, and beyond.

Jun 07, 2024

I debated including the backstory of this story. It’s long and personal; it touches on difficult parts of my life and the inner conflict of a moody, dramatic little Enneagram 4 human. And while it probably “looks” better to just share the wisdom gained from this whole experience, I find it much more honest, vulnerable, and real to include the whole journey. Let’s begin.

Watch out world, she’s a poet armed with a crayon.

My first journal was a marble composition notebook when I was just 8 or 9 years old. I could barely write full sentences back then, but I rhymed out scribbly verses under a drawing of flowers and rainbows.

I practiced cursive on the pages and fumbled through my first (cringe-worthy) stories. Notebooks soon filled with inner thoughts, and by the time I was 11, I had become a daily journaler.

Journaling was a place to brainstorm, record memories, scrapbook, and - my personal favorite - rant.

And oh, how I ranted.

Ranting got me through all the angsty teen years, and I filled journal after journal in this manner.

Then at one point, around the age of 20, I burned them all.

But that’s not what this story is about.

The Burning of ‘07 (approx) was more about quelling the terror that consumed me every day: that I would die unexpectedly, leaving behind over 50 notebooks filled with suuuper embarrassing thoughts.

(Yes, that is correct - 50 journals. That’s a LOT of embarrassment.)

So I impulsively burned them all one day. And while sure, I made it a ritual of sorts, the driving factor was fear, and the key takeaway was relief. I COULD NOW DIE IN PEACE.

Clearly, I don’t have much insight from that experience, so that’s not what we’re going to talk about. Today’s story is about the Great Burning of 2024. The one I did just a few weeks ago. The one that, even now, I know for a fact changed my life.

Let’s get into it.

The build-up, the breakdown.

In all honesty, I journaled much less during my 20s. I have no shame admitting why: I was madly in love with my boyfriend —> fiance. We spent a ridiculous amount of time together and then got married. We were young, confident, and had no doubts about each other. We had children right away, and I was busy being a mama. I started to blog after my first daughter was born, and looking back, that became my writing outlet. I did keep a few journals while I was married, but I didn’t write the same way that I used to. It was more memory-keeping of the kids, and I will cherish those books forever.

But near the end of our 10-year marriage, things got dicey. In 2018, I turned to my private pages to rant, vent, and cry again — but this time over much more serious issues.

I’ll spare you the details, but we separated in 2019 and divorced in 2020.

This was an ungodly traumatic time for me. We didn’t just divorce because we “grew apart.” It was not one of those sad yet amicable partings. It was beyond awful and agonizing. But I had several lifelines that helped me survive:

A rock-solid support system of my closest girlfriends and certain family members
A weekly support group of women recovering from similar betrayals
An incredible EMDR therapist who got me through some of my darkest days
Self-care, which on most mornings was simply journaling

Truth be told, I journaled A LOT.

As I moved out of my cute, tiny home and into an apartment with the kids, I wrote.

As I rebuilt my life, and actively healed, I journaled about it all. Everything.

As I entered the dating scene again after 14 years, I wrote about it.

As I learned one lesson after another, I wrote about it.

When I had my first boyfriend after the divorce, it all got recorded.

When I slept with someone for the first time since my husband, I wrote about it.

All the excitement, scary moments, confusion, insights, hurts, joys, frustrations. All the plant medicine journeys and Deep Imaginings. All the meditation healings, Divine downloads, and cosmic synchronicities.

I’d fill one journal and start another. I never looked through them or referred back for anything. When I got to the end of one, I’d just stash it away with the others.

Sometimes I wondered why I even kept them. I knew why I wrote them—it was a way for me to be honest and figure things out. It was a way to clear icky thoughts out of my brain and open up space for authentic ideas to come through. But sometimes I’d notice a nag in the back of my mind, a little tap now and then, reminding me that all these journals were just…sitting there…

And it didn’t feel great. It was less the fear that someone would read them and more the awareness of how much energy they held.

Yet I never gave it much thought. I only knew I wanted to hang onto them.
"What if I neeeeed them someday?”

I had no idea the need would come through in the way that it did.

Enter stage left: the sad protagonist.

In March 2024 (yep, just this year), I found myself in the hardest space I’d been in since 2019.

2019 was the year my whole world fell apart. Everything broke down and I could barely get out of bed some days. Before this, I had been quite judgy and never understood when people would be so down that they’d just lay in bed all day. Like, just get UP and start your day! But then it happened to me—and boy, did I get it. I felt hopeless and didn’t know how to move forward. If it hadn’t been for my kids, I don’t know how I would’ve pushed myself to carry on.

March 2024 was eerily similar to that.

Life felt like it had stalled, and admittedly I did too.

I came to terms with the fact that I was in a depression, with writer’s block — which, for the record, I also used to naively think was rubbish. Like, just write! Just get out your laptop or your journal and just write. Silliness!

But I now humbly know that’s not how it works. I felt lost without my voice, and yet I was too disconnected to find it again.

Out of sheer desperation one day, I forced myself to make changes.

I had opened my journal to try writing, but something snapped inside of me. I was so sick of this feeling and wrote nothing but the following:

“I actually don’t need to journal right now. I need to go clean something.”

I tuned into my energy, which felt heavy and numb, and I forced myself to create the opposite: light and alive.

I use the word force because that’s exactly what it was. Force is not often seen as a spiritual word. We prefer words like flow, surrender, trust, gentle, align, peace, love.

But let me tell you — there is something quite fucking spiritual about the sheer grit and determination of the human spirit. That forceful push comes directly from your soul. It’s called life force, after all, and I needed some. My soul was not okay watching me wallow.

There’s a time for wallowing, but that time had passed.

I had to get forward motion back into my life. I had to stop feeling so stuck. I had to direct my energy.

I knew the first step was to get rid of shit.

What followed was a ruthless spring cleaning.

For the record, I’m a pretty tidy person. I love empty space and order in my environment. Don’t get me wrong—chaos naturally happens (y’all should see how the clothes pile up on my bed for weeks before I put them away!) but for the most part, I don’t keep clutter around.

Still, I knew there was an opportunity here, so I put my head down and decluttered in the most determined way.

I went through everything — my closet, drawers, corners, shelves. Nothing was safe. Anything that no longer aligned with the life I wanted to create was gone. I sold some things, but I donated most of it. Plenty I threw in the trash.

I did this for days until the last remaining tote was all my journals from 2018 and beyond.

For the first time in six years, it felt correct to let them go too. I wanted to be free of all the stories and energy they carried.

I am much more intentional about things these days, so I went about this more thoughtfully than last time. A mindful ritual was definitely in order. I envisioned burning them all with love and gratitude in a big bonfire in my backyard.

But I wanted to go through them all first.

I wanted to make sure I wasn’t losing memories of the kids and deeper learnings from my spiritual journey. The plan was to read through every notebook and tear out meaningful pages.

So I sat down one day and opened up a journal from 2018. As I read the first entry, a tidal wave of raw memories smacked me right in the face. It was not pleasant. The entry was written during the breakdown of my marriage, back when I was in the eye of the storm. While of course I remember what happened, there were a significant amount of details I had forgotten. I could viscerally feel every single emotion on the page and in my body once again.

That reaction surprised me. I’ve healed so much over the years. But yikes.

I gingerly put the journal back.

“Actuallyyyyy…maybe I won’t read these first.”

For about a week, I debated how to proceed. I wondered if it would be healthy to revisit everything. Would I be opening wounds and re-traumatizing myself? I’m used to jumping right in with both feet. But this felt different. I was worried about setting myself back from all the progress I’ve made. My nervous system had been through so many shocking things, especially lately, and I knew I had to care for it above all.

That’s when I had a little lightbulb moment: hey love, you can do this; just regulate as you go.

So that’s exactly what I did.

Woman, ground thyself.

When I realized I had a couple of light days coming up in my schedule, I seized the opportunity. I canceled any remaining plans so I could devote the time I knew I needed.

This was going to take a lot out of me. Or at least it could if I wasn’t careful.

So I decided to be careful.

First, prior to starting, I made there was plenty of healthy, hearty food in the fridge. I tend to get so laser-focused on projects that I can forget to eat. Hours go by and I’m like, “Oh yeah…hunger…!”
I set intentions to remain in my body for the whole process.
I meditated and did gentle breathwork before beginning.
I smudged my whole house, myself, and all the journals before beginning.
I read through two journals at a time, and repeated that smudging step before each round.
The weather was beautiful, so I chose to sit outside in the fresh air and sunshine the entire time I was reading.
I brought a fresh glass of water + a squeeze of lemon + a pinch of pink salt with me for each round.

That’s how I prepared.

It set the tone for one of the most healing rituals I’ve ever done.

Want to read Part 2? Go here:

what I learned from burning 6 years' worth of journals (part 2)

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