Michelle Tubman
Jen, welcome to the Mindful Weight Loss podcast. I am so excited you're here.
Jen Laffin
I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much for asking me, this is going to be so much fun.
Michelle Tubman
I'm so excited to have you and here's the reason, I fully believe wholeheartedly and completely that journaling is an essential piece to weight loss. I don't even think we can accomplish it sustainably without journaling as a piece of it. It is something that we do every day inside our programming in Wayza Health. So I am super thrilled to have an expert on the topic here to confer what I know already. One of the things that we love to talk about on the podcast here is the science behind why things work. So I thought that would be a great place to start for us. Because we've talked about this before and there are legitimate reasons why we should be journaling and what's kind of happening on the inside when we do it. So, can you give us a little bit more on that?
Jen Laffin
Sure. Well, first of all, I knew I liked you for a reason. I'm so excited to hear that! Yes, I am a huge advocate of journaling, not just in weight loss, in every area of your life where you're struggling. I think that there are things to be discovered that can only be discovered through writing and journaling. When I'm talking about journaling, I am talking about journaling by hand, not digital journaling because they have found there are a lot of benefits to writing by hand. First of all, they have found and by they, I mean researchers have found that when we write by hand we actually are able to activate more parts of our brain than we do when we're just simply typing or when we're just simply thinking because a lot of times we will tell ourselves we don't have time to write. We don't have time to journal. I'm just going to think about it and unfortunately we get very surface level results from that. So that is a definite benefit of taking time to get out a notebook and a pen and kind of explore your thoughts. So activating more parts of the brain is one of the benefits. Also, they have found that there's a stronger connection to the words you write because your brain is more focused, because it must slow down than when you're writing by hand. When you're typing on a computer in a digital journal, you don't have that benefit of that slow thinking that really helps you access much deeper parts of your thinking and your consciousness. It's just really a benefit. Also, researchers have found that the rhythmic motion of writing is very calming and that the tactileness of the pen on the paper and your hand moving across the paper has tremendous benefits as well. So, that's why I'm a huge fan of journaling by hand.
Michelle Tubman
Yeah, there's all sorts of reasons why we should be journaling by hand and I love that you brought up the rhythm piece because I've been reading a lot about this lately about how humans are meant to be in these rhythmic motions right from birth, even before birth, you know when we're swimming in the amniotic fluid and then we're wrong things. It's very soothing and I've always found myself feeling a little bit agitated when I do a digital journal and calming right down when I get out the pen and paper. Like I never made that connection before, but that's exactly the reason why.
Jen Laffin
I'm sure there are benefits to digital journaling as well. The speed helps us capture ideas maybe that we wouldn't be able to capture because of our lack of time. Like I take my phone with me everywhere. I will be out on a walk and if idea comes to me, I don't pull up my notebook and write it down. I open up my phone and my notes app and I type it in there or I even speak it in there to be able to keep it for later. So there are you know good things about digital using digital devices as well. But I think to truly, truly reap the benefits of journaling. You need to be doing it by hand.
Michelle Tubman
Is there a difference between journaling with a prompt versus just free writing or doing a thought download?
Jen Laffin
Well, I think prompts are a great way for people who are new to journaling to be able to access journaling because a lot of times they'll say, I don't know what to write about so I'm not going to write. So if you have a prompt it gives you a way in. There's also tremendous benefit to doing something that I call anytime pages, which is based off of Julia Cameron's morning pages concept, where Julia in the artist way talks about morning pages as being three pages, handwritten, first thing in the morning, just a stream of consciousness. I changed it a little where I encourage my writers to do it at any time of the day because sometimes mornings aren't a possibility, but also it is that stream of conscious, whatever's in your head goes out onto the paper. The important thing that I like to remind my writers of is whatever you put on the paper is perfect. You don't judge it because that's the other thing, a lot of people won't experience the benefits of journaling, because they’re stuck in their writing history that maybe was not so positive that maybe involves a lot of red ink or involved a lot of five paragraph essays. I used to be an educator so I know a lot of these things that people carry with them, unfortunately. But if you just give it a try and give yourself permission to just play, you would be tremendously surprised by what comes out.
Michelle Tubman
Right and with the understanding that there is no right way that you're not exactly rated, that this is a tool that you're using for yourself. Nobody else even ever has to see it again. I love what you said also that writing activates different parts of the brain and one thing that I've been doing, I'd say for the last three months or so, is journaling before I go to bed, and I write down very specific things. So I start with a gratitude list from my day and then I write some wins from the day. Then I write a takeaway, like one key thing, that I learned from the day and then I write about what I think my wins are going to be tomorrow. I’ll tell you, I was skeptical. I think I read that in the book The Gap In The Game, he recommended it and I've noticed that when I write down my wins for the next day, I seem to get them, something happens there. I've always thought about it like it's just always been kind of part of my bedtime routine as I'm brushing my teeth and things to think about my next day and I'm convinced that writing it down, and this takes me five minutes, maybe at the most likely. It kind of makes this huge difference and you know, certainly when it comes to weight loss, the key thing for a lot of that process is gaining some awareness of what's going on inside our thoughts when we're emotionally eating or reaching for food when we're not really hungry. So we have a journaling process involved with when we're eating when we don't really want to be and their clients will say time and again there is a difference between thinking about it and between getting out the paper and and writing it down. One of the things that I often suggest is that they set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and just write freely, whatever comes to mind. This was something that I learned in a course for other physicians actually a couple of years ago when I was setting this timer. And sure enough, just before the timer goes off, that's when the really important juicy thoughts seem to come right in sight. So I guess my question is, is there value in writing for a longer period of time versus a shorter period of time? Do they accomplish different goals and what do you recommend for people who want to start a journaling process?
Jen Laffin
I think that anything that you can put into the journaling process will benefit you whether that's 5 minutes 50 minutes. Anything that you do will benefit you, that's like the beautiful thing and going back to what I was talking about before like one of the reasons people I think are so hesitant to embrace journaling is because they think of it in terms of a grade because the writing that they've done, most of the writing they've done in their life, has been teacher directed and has received a grade and this kind of writing is not. It's completely self directed. So once you can make that shift over and realize, Hey, I'm doing this for me, you can reap the benefits in just five minutes. There are plenty of times when I just sit down and just scratch out a list even on a piece of paper if I don't have my notebook there. Just because stopping and then taking a breath and writing it down just activates something inside of me that helps me organize my thoughts and just get a clear plan. You were talking about how you at night journal about what your wins for the next day are going to be and I think that is so smart because that is one of the things that I talk about in my journaling workshop is how our primal brains are constantly searching out for whatever's familiar. If what you're doing is not familiar, it's gonna send up like all these warning signals in the form of thoughts that will try to drag you back and keep you in your comfort cave, I call it and doing what you've always done because that makes the primal brain settle down when you are giving yourself permission to play in your notebook and just pretend that this is what I want my day to be like, This is what my wins tomorrow are going to be. That actually calms the primal brain down enough because it's not going to be its first exposure when you actually go to bring that plan to life.
Michelle Tubman
That makes a lot of sense.
Jen Laffin
Yeah, it will have already had a little bit of exposure to add a little bit of experience and then it will be like, Oh, wait, we've been here before this is now familiar. Okay, now we can make this happen. So that is, you know, again, giving yourself permission to play so like let's say you are going to be going to a family party and you know, there's going to be a lot of food there. Okay, spend some time in your journal journaling about how you want to show up. Right? What do you want to think? What do you want to say, where do you want to stand in relation to the food? What do you want to do when you see it? That way, when you get to the party, your brain will be like, oh, yeah, I know what to do. I've already planned this out. Now I can take action,
Michelle Tubman
For sure. And we often do visualization exercises, you know, very similar to that. But is there extra benefit to writing it down? Instead of just visualizing?
Jen Laffin
Well, again, visualizing is just thoughts, writing it down, accesses those deeper parts of the brain I would say like, I'm not a brain scientist. I'll be completely honest. But I'm just gonna say like, the deeper you go, it's like scratching the surface versus like, raking through the surface. It's gonna get in there a little bit deeper.
Michelle Tubman
Right, right, for sure. And then another question I have for you is, I did your workshop and one of the things that you had us do was write out a list of 50 things that bring us joy. That was not easy, like 20 was easy and then like it was a stretch to get the last 30 and what is funny is the things that came to mind first, were not necessarily the things that brought me the greatest joy. They were the easiest things, right? Like, you know, snuggling with the dog and cups of tea, you know, things like this. And by the time I got to the end of the list, I felt like I was really reaching the things that brought me deep joy, like more than what a cup of tea can ever give. Had I not pushed myself to get to that list of 50 I don't think I would have gained you know that awareness about myself. And how can you fully use the tool of journaling to bring you to that point? Because I am guessing a lot of people are just going to stop after a couple of minutes before they've actually gotten to the point where those deeper thoughts come through. Is this just a matter of practice?
Jen Laffin
You know, it is a matter of practice. It's gaining comfort with it. It's being able to turn off that judge in your head. That's telling you, you're not a good writer, you have nothing to say and then maybe like you never follow through. Then it's gonna start like the personal attacks, right? We've all heard that voice before that self judgment. Um, so it's important that once you gain comfort with that you will be more comfortable with writing longer, start small, work your way up. You can do things such as set a timer, and say, I'm going to write, even start with two minutes. I'm going to write for two minutes and I'm not going to stop my pencil like I'm going to keep it going. Even if I have to keep rewriting the same word over and over and over. Doing that, believe it or not, will unblock you. That activity I did in the journaling workshop where I said, come up with List of 50 things because I knew the first 20 are going to be your superficial thinking brain responses. Whereas if you're like well darn it now I have to come up with 30 more you have to really dig deep for those right. Those are the ones that are not as obvious to us, but that probably are the ones that are screaming for the most attention because they are not surface things. I used to do this activity with my students when I taught fourth grade whereas I would say tell me everything you know about the Revolutionary War and we would write a list on the board, giving me all these like details or whatever. Is there anything else? Does anybody have anything else to add? And they would say no, and I'm like alright, let's come up with 10 more things. By doing that, they had to dig much deeper and make those much deeper connections than just the surface level. So, but it's again, being gracious with yourself to say I can start small. I'm not going to fill up the whole journal on my first sitting. Anything I do is okay. You know, the more you do it, the deeper you go, and that's your goal, but as you're starting, don't let that be the reason why you don't do it. Right because you're afraid you'll never get to that point.
Michelle Tubman
And you said something in there that I want to emphasize as well and that it's okay to even just write the same word over and over again. We have our clients inside my program do these thought downloads every day. And few clients will say, like, it's just predictable, I have nothing to say like my brain is empty. I tell them, just write that, I have nothing to say, my brain is empty and keep writing that and maybe the thoughts are gonna come to mind. You're just gonna get on note, maybe make some observations and if you keep going, thoughts are going to come and that's really the power of this. And I learned that the hard way as well because you know, I was always the grade a student and the teacher's pet, always and I was the one that needed to get it right. Like when I started journaling, I thought in my head that I was writing for somebody else and so that pressure would have me having that same thought, I have nothing to say. So I would actually write that down, where I have a page of “I have nothing to say,” written over and over. And here's the funny thing initially as I thought I had to write in full sentences with proper paragraphs and all of this thing and you know, I gave myself permission to just jot in point form and that works really well for me, but it took me a while to give myself that permission. But once I was able to write freely, even if it was only that, I have nothing to say, the thoughts always end up coming.
Jen Laffin
I almost think of it as like you're having a little tug of war with your inner writer or something like you're thinking I have nothing to say and then the other person is like, well, but we do have stuff to say oh no, we don't have anything to say oh, no, but I do have stuff to say and like pretty soon you're gonna let that voice speak and get that stuff out. So by writing that last thing, you're absolutely right, like what needs to come out will come out, but you cannot judge what you write. Be very aware of comparison and trying to compare yourself to others. If they're doing it right, I'm doing it wrong. No, because my other thing is you are the boss of your journal. You get to decide what goes in it. How you put it in there. Who gets to see it, if anyone. I am a huge fan, like you mentioned, bullet journaling. I will write lists in my notebook, I will write just fragments of thoughts in my notebook, do a table where I like, do columns and stuff, whatever I need, is what my journal is. If someone else was to look at it, they'd be like, What the heck is this? This is not a journal. It is what works for me and I love it. I also am a huge fan because I love creativity. I'm a huge fan of just breaking out the markers and the stickers and the washi tape. I mean, as a former teacher, you know I've got a natural love for stickers. But make it something that brings you comfort because it can truly be your best friend, if you let it be.
Michelle Tubman
And this is what's so unique about journaling and I'm thinking of a particular client of mine who loves it and she considers her journal her creative outlet as well. So she has a beautiful journal with a collection of pens and stickers as well and she actually treats her journalists as a good friend. I love that description.I have got others who will journal on a scrap piece of paper and all of that is perfectly okay.
Jen Laffin
Totally okay, because you're the boss of your own notebook.
Michelle Tubman
Right? And one thought that, I would have never anticipated this, but this comes up often with my clients, is they'll spend money on beautiful journals and then not want to mess it up.
Jen Laffin
I hear that so often and you know what? I totally get it because I have a closet full of those beautiful journals, but I will not write it because I just don't. But you know what? It's okay like it really is. If you are going to be writing something that's hard for you, something that maybe you don't want to have to stick around for a really long time, and by that I mean like it is totally okay to destroy your journals when you're done if that is what makes you comfortable. Like I have taken morning page journals that I've written on a spiral notebook because I knew I wasn't going to be keeping it and I have tossed them into the campfire like right and let it burn and that to me was also like a setting free of my of my thoughts as well as destroying evidence. Because I do see my journal as an extension of me. So you're the boss.
Michelle Tubman
So what I tell people now, is buy the beautiful notebook if you want and then also buy a cheap coil scribbler and use what feels right. I can't tell you how many times I have done this myself, that I've you know, went and spent money on a beautiful journal and I've decided I'm going to start you know, some new writing project and it goes for a day or two and I've decided that my words my journal just don't match up right and off. It goes into the garbage and I start again and I don't know if that's a perfectionistic thing or if that's a woman thing or, or what it is, but now my advice is I tell people you know, go ahead, buy the pretty journal, just buy a cheap notebook, as well because what's more important is that you sit down and do the writing.
Jen Laffin
I'm very particular about my paper, like I have been writing long enough where I want paper that feels good. Like it has a good thickness to it. Like seriously, you can tell I've been writing for probably too long if I'm picky about my paper and I'm constantly using my ink Joy gel pens. So I've got like my tools just like an artist has their tools, that I might not have had when I first started because I didn't you know I wrote with a big pen on a spiral notebook. But yeah, again, you get to decide, but don't let it keep you from starting.
Michelle Tubman
Right. Absolutely. And now, I just want to pivot a little bit Jen and I imagine you've coached a lot of people through the process of journaling. Do you have any stories of people or women in particular who have noticed big changes in their lives and it doesn't have to be weight loss, of course, but just any big change at all that has come from their habit of journaling?
Jen Laffin
Absolutely. One of my clients, because it's part of my coaching, my life coaching, I include journaling as a component of that because I want my clients to carry through with the lessons that we've been talking about and really practice them. And one of the beautiful things about writing that is completely unexpected, which makes it so fun, is when you are able to access that deeper thinking and you come up with a total aha moment. I love when I see my clients have their aha moments as a result of their journaling. One of my clients was doing some journaling and the prompt that I gave her to consider was, what else could be true? So here she was taking a look and examining her thoughts and asking herself what else could be true and I'm not going to tell you like what she came up with because of confidentiality, but I'm going to tell you that the result was when I asked her how does it feel like how are you feeling now that you've done this? What else could be true work and she's like, I never realized I had options before. Yeah, like my brain was just telling me it's got to be this one way and now I see that there are other options. And she would never have come to that conclusion to sit and think about it because again, like very surface level thoughts versus deep dive writing.
Michelle Tubman
Also, when we're sitting and thinking about something, we're often just ruminating on the same thoughts, right? They just kind of cycle through and circulate over and over again different iterations of the same thought or the same scenario and when you sit down and put pen to paper, you're right we access those deeper part of the brain and deeper parts of the brain and we're able to to access these these other thoughts and I love that question that you asked her, what what else could be true? That is brilliant! Oftentimes when we just let our brains do the thinking, when we kind of brush up against something that feels a little bit uncomfortable or a little bit foreign, just like you said before, right? Our primitive brain is going to want to keep us in a safe, familiar space. So we're just going to go back to those same old, familiar thoughts and journal just provides a safe space to maybe explore other ways of thinking about things.
Jen Laffin
Yes, again, if you're not judging, if you're just giving yourself permission to show up authentically to the page, knowing that that page was like an extension of you and just being like, you know what, whatever comes out is gonna come out, and it's gonna all be okay.
Michelle Tubman
What I love is now that we are about four months into our first group coaching program inside Wayza Health and now what often happens at the end of coaching calls is clients will say, I'm going to go journal about that, like, this is a new a new instinct that they have because I think it becomes very obvious to anybody who starts journaling, the positive effects that results from it, and you know, Corinne Crabtree calls it paper thinking. And I love that phrase, because the way you think is completely different when you're doing it with pen on paper, versus just going for a walk and sitting with your thoughts, which of course does have its place. But if you want real transformation, I think putting pen to paper is such an essential tool for that.
Jen Laffin
I believe it was Flannery O'Connor, who said, I don't know what I think., until I read what I write or something along the lines. I'm probably misquoting that, but I don't know what I think until I read what I write. There are so many times where my writers will say to me, I need to go write about this. I need to journal about this. I need to process this through my writing and I can tell those people have embraced that deep power and rejuvenation that writing can give them. Until you experience it, you're going to have no idea what it is. But once you experience it, it's going to become your go to. It's really cool.
Michelle Tubman
Lovely and so if we have listeners right now, who are maybe a little hesitant to start journaling, Do you have suggestions on how one can get started? In a gentle way?
Jen Laffin
With a general journaling practice?
Michelle Tubman
Yeah.
Jen Laffin
Okay. Sure. I have a journaling practice that I do every morning and it's very simple. It's the three G's. It's kind of similar to what you were talking about before. I sit down every morning and I write out my gratitudes, the things that I'm truly grateful for, the things that the universe has given me that it didn’t have to. Then I write down my goals and the reason I write down my goals is because I'm declaring to the universe this is going to happen, okay, I'm not writing them down as a reminder to myself, I'm writing them out as a proclamation of, I'm coming for this kind of thing, right? And then the third thing that I write about is good thoughts. So I will write out affirmations or thoughts that I want to remind myself throughout the day to keep close by because I carry that I actually have an agenda and that's where I'm writing it in. So the three G's gratitudes goals, and good thoughts.
Michelle Tubman
I love that.
Jen Laffin
And it can be done in like five minutes. So if we identified minutes or 15 like it again, it's up to you how much detail you want to put into it.
Michelle Tubman
That's a great place to start, just writing down your goals for the day, your gratitude list, and the good thoughts. So it's funny, I instinctively do something very similar in my mornings. So I have this morning routine. I get up, I get out of bed, I have my shower, I do my morning meditation, and then I plan out my day. So I have a day timer. I use the full focus planner from Michael Hyatt and so on the left hand side of the page, it allows me to have an agenda for my day. Then I write down my top three things and so I write down what I want to do for my energy, what I want to do for my mindset and strategy. So one practical thing I want to accomplish that day, and a space for my to do list, which is where I just write anything that comes to mind that has to get done at some point. It just goes on that list for me to worry about later. Then on the right side of the page. I start with, I guess what would be your good thoughts. So mantras for me, for how I want to approach my business, my favorite phrase, trust the dominoes will fall and that just reminds me to take the small steps and trust that the dominoes will fall down the line. Then in a previous episode on the podcast, we talked about the WOOP process which was developed by a neuroscientist who studies motivation and WOOP stands for wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. So I take what I want to accomplish that day. I write down why it's going to benefit me, like what the true objective is, right? That's usually how I want to feel kind of at the end. What obstacle might get in the way of me accomplishing that and then what how I'm going to plan to get around that obstacle. And I find, journaling on that and anticipating ahead, was going to screw up my day, kind of plan around it. I really liked journaling on that in the morning, and it must come down to what you said before that it's, it's kind of practicing ahead of time. So when I encounter it, it's not the first time my brain has encountered it. So it all just feels a little bit easier. So I'm just intuitively doing all of these things that you're teaching, which I find fascinating because there really must be something to it.
Jen Laffin
As you're talking I'm sitting here thinking of a really simple prompt, for your listeners might even be something like, how do I want to show up for myself today? And just three sentences. This is how I'm going to show it for myself today. I'm going to drink 64 ounces of water, I'm going to take a walk at lunch, I'm not going to trash talk myself. How do you want to show up, planning ahead of time, helping your brain settle down before it even gets out the door, kind of thing.
Michelle Tubman
That is brilliant, because what my clients do is they make their plans 24 hour plans, we call them for what they're going to eat for the following day. And in that, are questions like, how do you feel about the plan you made? Are you ready, willing and able to follow through? And I love adding that thought, that question of like, how am I going to show up for myself today? That's brilliant. That's such a lovely way. People struggle with journaling, if they haven't done it before for all the reasons that you know, you mentioned earlier on so I actually made a journal full of journal prompts that I give them when they sign up for my program, and I find having journal prompts can be quite helpful. So I recently purchased for myself Glennon Doyle's journal that goes along with her book, untamed, which has lovely prompts in there as well. Are there other books out there or resources where people can go to get prompts if that's what they feel called to do for their journaling habit?
Jen Laffin
Well, I think we've got a whole internet full of journal prompts with a simple Google search. Unfortunately, that can lead you to go down the rabbit hole of distraction, but if you were to Google like self care journal prompts. I think a really good habit would be even if they take like your journal prompts and a highlighter and highlight the ones that speak to them, because not every prompt is going to speak to every writer and so having it highlighted or creating a list in the front of their journal of prompts or developing like I have like the three G's, where you you write about the same things every day, you establish that routine. Those are all helpful things. So I would just say like a good Google search can get you an awful lot!
Michelle Tubman
I think for some people who might have some resistance towards journaling, using prompts to get started. Might be a nice way to go. Or even just like there's so much science behind writing a gratitude journal. So even if all your gratitude or all your journaling practices is just, you know, writing down a list of things you're grateful for, that's probably enough to get you started to see the effects of journaling as well.
Jen Laffin
I would almost say like The simpler you keep it in the beginning, the better because you don't want to get overwhelmed with too many choices. Like we want simplicity. We don't want to freak our brains out. We want simplicity. So yeah, absolutely.
Michelle Tubman
I love it. All right. Well, Jen, do you have any last words of wisdom to share with us?
Jen Laffin
Oh, my goodness, last words of wisdom. Let's see. Start writing. Don't judge yourself. Whatever you write is perfect.
Michelle Tubman
I love that. Thank you so much.
Jen Laffin
Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful.
