The Power of Journaling and Reflection

How journaling has helped me thrive after cancer treatment and how it can help you too

• When I started journaling and how i felt.

I started journaling the night before I started chemotherapy. I had attempted numerous times over my teenage years to ‘start a journal’, but it never stuck for more than a couple of entries. I had a purpose to writing now, instead of the aimless commentary of my life. That's not to say that writing about your life is wrong. Writing in a way that doesn’t suit you or your needs is the only way to journal incorrectly.

When I started to write the night before I started treatment, I wanted to be able to try and express my thoughts and feelings, and at the time no one really understood what I was trying to explain. In time, journaling actually helped me express my thoughts and feelings to those around me and in a sense, I was able to help them help me in having conversations around hard to talk about topics.

It was a bit uneasy at the start. I always thought ‘what if someone else reads this?’ ‘Am I even allowed to write that thought down?’, ‘Do I have to go deep into myself in every single entry?’.

You will have lots of doubts when you start writing and the way I wrote back then, 3 and a half years ago, is different to how I write now, and will be different again in 3 years time. You have to give yourself time to figure out what works best for you. Much like working out your thoughts and feelings on the page. I tried writing every few days, but I found that didn’t work for me. So now I write every Sunday evening just after I finish planning my week ahead. I have also wrote only once per month at times, but now I’ve found my rhythm with journaling.

• How it helped with my racing mind and why you should start?

I am always thinking. Not neccesserily negative thoughts, but my mind is always going. Whether I would be focused on how does that certain drill work for the football team, to thinking of my opinion and stance on Irish politics, to things as mundane as how does grass grow.

Whenever I would eventually have negative thoughts and emotions, usually around thinking of my time in hospital and triggers associated with memories of having to get scans and get my bloods taken, they would spiral as I couldn’t grasp what I was feeling. All that clouded my mind in those moments were the feelings I had when a certain event happened, or that a certain event happened and after that meant I was really sick. Such as knowing that an MRI scan or blood test meant getting chemo and surgery.

This had subsided in terms of the effect of these feelings and emotions. That’s not to say they still arise, but because I can label and identify the feelings and prepare for those triggering situations I can handle those negative challenges better.

To give you one example. I had a follow up scan around 6 months after treatment had ended. I was with my Mam and my girlfriend as I knew these things could cause me to be upset, or at least had the potential to. I didn’t know that I had to get contrast dye injected for the scan. Everything was ok until I went to have the dye injected and I had to get a cannula. The nurse doing it asked why I was getting a scan and I told them I had cancer treatment earlier in the year. Looking down catching a glimpse at the cannula and my PICC line scar, all of the memories of being away in hospital, feeling sick, losing my hair, losing my identity as a sportsperson all came rushing back to me.

I couldn’t catch my breath, my eyes were full of tears and all I wanted to do was get the cannula out and go home to bed in the safety of my room.

I explain that story not for a pity party, but to explain to people going through cancer treatment or recovering that similar feelings are shared amongst everyone. I also share it in the hope that people trying to support people through treatment and recovery understand the emotions that person may have.

Journaling has helped me process those feelings and emotions and eventually now I can go to a scan and nearly fall asleep in the machine. I still have some nervous and anxious energy around going, but I know can label and identify what is happening and most importantly why it’s happening.

• The Psychological and Physiological Effects

Listening to a podcast recently about journaling and it mentioned a study that showed people who journaled had a faster healing rate that people who didn’t.

Now if that doesn’t show you that your mindset affects your body, I don’t know what will.

I believe a significant contributing factor of why I got cancer in the first place was the stress my body was under due to anxiety and the stress of not taking care of my body. Not eating nutritious meals and always playing catch up with my sleep. None of these things, while not ideal for a person, has a linear correlation to getting cancer and not. A combination of these things along with genetics and the pure chance of cells not dividing properly all contributed.

Realizing this during cancer treatment and working on it, has really benefitted my life. And I’m sure it can benefit yours even if you have had cancer treatment or not. I would especially say it would benefit you if you haven’t had cancer treatment but are looking after and supporting someone who has. As your energy will affect them too.

• How to start journaling?

There is no perfect way to start. Just like learning any skill or new thing, you have to do a bit of trial and error. As I mentioned earlier in the article, I tried writing every day, every month, a couple times a month, every other month, and after around 2 years of writing I have found a way and style that works for me, and will no doubt adapt and change as time goes on as I enter and leave different stages of my life. The biggest thing to overcome is allowing yourself to write whatever is on your mind. Whether that be a negative thought or feeling, or being able to show gratitude and pride in things that you have achieved no matter how big or small it might seem to somebody else. The best thing about that is that you are not somebody else. You are you and there’s only one of you that will ever exist. So make the most of it. Define what life means for you and what that looks like.

Journaling can help with that process of figuring out yourself. I learned this as I had to re-define my identity as a person. I understand that it is not going to be something for everyone. But that’s just like everything else in life. I would however ask that you give it a real go, and see if you feel any better for it.