Something I have noticed for myself is that I love to journal, but after a full day of sitting on my behind, at my desk, or on my meditation cushion, I’m ready for a change of pace. That’s why Voice Journaling is the key here.
It’s not just that I want to go for a walk, because that isn’t enough. I want to vent, I want to grumble, complain, and moan, I want to whine, and bitch. Yes, I want to journal, but I don’t want to sit anymore.
I have figured that creating voice memos (on the iPhone) or voice notes is a great way of doing this.
Whenever I am ready to go for a walk, I pick up my phone, my house keys, and go for a walk, with my headphones on. As I walk, stuff comes up that I want to speak to myself about. Things that I want to vent about or to untangle in my mind.
I walk and talk. And the more I talk, the less confused I feel. Eventually, after a 20–30 minute walk, I’m clear-minded again.
Getting Rid of the Sludge in Your Brain Through Voice Notes
The thing about our brain is that it’s great at many things, but not at culling and trashing the information that comes in. Thus, after a few days of not journaling, or not removing all of those thoughts from our head, our head starts getting full.
If you’ve watched or read the Harry Potter series, you know what I am talking about, when I say the Pensieve. It was what the headmaster Dumbledore used to store all of his extra thoughts. He would take his wand to the top of his head, and then slide a thought out, and place it into the Pensieve.
Brilliant, right? We don’t actually have a Pensieve in the modern world, but we do have Voice Journaling.
When you use Voice Journaling, you are able to do exactly the same as what Dumbledore does with his thoughts. We can take our thoughts one by one and then place them into the voice memo, thus, lightening the load on our poor brain.
As we go through our days, we accumulate sludge in our brain. There are a lot of useless thoughts, ideas, and experiences that pile up slowly into our psyche, subconscious, and conscious brains. We can’t do anything about our subconscious directly, except through meditating.
But we can start doing journaling in order to remove the sludge from our conscious brain.
Morning Pages Does Exactly the Same as Voice Journaling
If you’ve read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, then you know what I say when I mean, Morning Pages.
Morning pages are a long-hand stream of consciousness writing, where you wake up every morning and write down 3 pages of thoughts without stopping and without censoring.
It’s a form of Voice Journaling that works to remove the sludge from our brains as well.
This is important because as soon as you wake up, your brain starts whirring away. It starts thinking, ruminating, and worrying about everything under the sun. You got some respite when you were asleep, but as soon as you are awake, it’s back up again.
That’s why if you want to start off with a clean slate every morning, Morning Pages are a great way of doing that.
But my morning routine is extremely packed already, with yoga, meditation, pranayama, and other things. So, I like to leave my Voice Journaling for later in the day, when I have a few moments free, like in the afternoon.
If you have a morning where you can sit for 15-20 minutes and write down all of those sludge-like thoughts in your mind, then take advantage of the Morning Pages. And do them diligently. Especially on those days when you don’t feel like doing them – those are the days you need it the most.
You Might Never Read Your Journals Again – That’s Not the Point of Them
I have but rarely opened up my voice notes or journals to read them again. Maybe you are different. Maybe you are the kind of person who actually looks at the pictures that they take, and reads the journals that they fill up.
But most of my pictures go unseen, forgotten in the dusty corners of my phone, and the same for my journals and voice notes.
That’s not the point, though. You are not doing Voice Journaling so you can have a record of your life for that someday when some person writes your biography. No, that’s not it.
Although it could be used for that purpose, the main reason you are Voice Journaling is to get yourself cleaned up again.
That way you can start from scratch, from zero, from the great void.
Try It Out for Yourself – Do Voice Journaling on Those Days Your Head Feels Full Up
Again, don’t take my word for it. Do it yourself. On those days, when your head feels like a bowling ball. When it’s too heavy for your poor head to hold, go for a walk with your phone, and do a voice note or voice memo.
Just pour it all out into that voice note. Nothing is too simple, or mundane for it. Everything that’s bothering you, everything that’s sitting in your head, and everything that is causing you to be confused. Say it all out loud into the voice note. Let it be washed away through the act of speaking it out.
You will never listen to this whining, grumbling, moaning message.
So you can be free in your use of it. Just vent away. Get it all out. Take it all out of your head.
The more you do this Voice Journaling, the more you will notice that your head starts feeling lighter. It will start having more space in it. More room to breath. More space for new information to come in.
Be careful now. You might be so elated by the effects of this Voice Journaling technique that you might start putting new information into your head right away.
Don’t do that! Give your brain and mind some space to breathe. Some time to just be empty. To be sludge-free. You can do that, can’t you? Your poor brain needs it.
If You Are on the Go, or Don’t Have Much Space, Voice Journaling Is the Key for You
The great thing about Voice Journaling is that it doesn’t take up that much space. With journals, and papers and pens, you will need to carry those things around with you.
If you are a digital nomad, or on the go, a lot, carrying additional things is a major pain in the arse.
Also, if you are journaling on pen and paper, if you don’t have your journal with you, you can’t journal. But all of us ALWAYS have our phones on us. Think about the last time you went somewhere without your phone – we even take it to the toilet with us.
Therefore, with Voice Journaling, you never ever have to worry about being without a journaling tool. Wherever you are, you can switch on your voice app, and start venting, journaling, grumbling, and letting go of the past.
It’s super convenient, and highly rejuvenating. And it doesn’t require you to check any extra bags when traveling. Bazinga!
The Great Thing About Voice Journaling Is That You Feel Like You Are Venting to a Friend
To a trustworthy friend, I must add.
The problem with most people in our life are that we can trust them with some things, but there isn’t anyone who we can trust with all of our thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
There are some thoughts that we might be afraid to share with the people in our lives. It might be too personal. Too intimate. Too revealing.
If you have trust issues, then Voice Journaling is a way of developing a friend, to whom you can vent, without ever worrying that those secrets will someday be revealed to someone else. You can trust your Voice Journaling friends completely.
Unless you give your phone to someone else to use, there’s no way anyone can get into your voice memos. And also, who would think about going there in any case. Most people go to text messages first, or Facebook, right?
Thus, your secrets are safe with the voice notes. Your secrets are safe with your Voice Journaling technique.
In my opinion, it’s even safer than the typical journaling technique, because with a journal, even with a lock, you leave it behind in your room when you leave for work or school. But a phone is always on you. No matter where you go, it goes with you.
It’s also much easier to delete the contents of your Voice Journaling, rather than your paper and pen journal. Unless you burn your journal, you won’t be able to get rid of it. But with voice notes, all you need to do is select all and delete. Easy as pie!
Voice Journaling – the Fixer-Upper of the New Age Crowd
If you were looking for a journaling fix, but you didn’t want to use pen or paper, then this is it, my friends. Start Voice Journaling to get deep into your head, without expensive therapist fees, and without revealing your inner-most secrets to anyone else.
This is the way to do it in the new age of smartphones. You might as well use your smartphone to help improve your headspace, you use it for everything else!
If you liked the idea of using Voice Journaling, please comment below and let us know your thoughts on it.
