22 October 2025

Why Journaling Matters: Rediscovering Authenticity Through Writing

Journaling isn’t about perfection — it’s about truth. Discover how writing from the heart reconnects you to your life force, helping you live with authenticity, clarity, and purpose.

9:14pm. Sitting up in bed with my laptop for company. 

I’ve been working recently on trying to record a long form YouTube video about the power of journaling. It seems to be taking forever. I record segments, edit them, feel a level of satisfaction, then I watch them through and I don’t like what I see. They don’t feel good enough nor worthy enough of release. It is my desire and my aim to reach as many people as I can. Not because I want to make money from my content (although it would be nice), but because I want to help people to reach their potential.  Or at least, to know that changing life is possible.

Does it matter that my video is not as polished as it could be? What matters more to a viewer: a glossy and flashy looking video with an aesthetically pleasing background and visuals, or the interesting and thought provoking content? I think the latter, the content, counts for far more. It is the content that creates engagement. The aesthetics help, I cannot deny it, but all looks and no content cannot reach and sustain viewership.

Moving forward in life is like this I guess. We can wait for the right moment to appear, the perfect time and place from which to make a start. But it doesn’t happen like that. That is for the movies. Real life is nitty-gritty, messy and random. You can wait for the perfect moment but what if it never materialises? What then? Do you do nothing? Well, that’s certainly an option but not if you are serious about changing your life. If you want to truly change your life the answer is to just make a start. That first step.

I need to recognise the same in every endeavour. My video and my own life. For sure, this evening, in the gloom of an early evening New Zealand day, with dark rain bringing clouds blanketing the sky, I did not have adequate natural lighting to complete the video on journaling before the light began to fade. But I never used to have this issue. When I first began to record videos, I sat down in my living room and I simply recorded them in one take. I spoke from the heart, naturally motivated and inspired by my topic. I never looked for perfection, my message was too powerful to contain within me. I simply needed to get it out there. Näively, I never thought about hashtags, SEO descriptions and the like. My message drove me forward, the light of it too bright and powerful to contain. Where is that person?

I’m still here but it tells me something very important. When you are on the path of your truth and living an authentic life that is in synchronisation with your life force, everything flows naturally. You feel more alive than you ever have before. It’s as if life itself wants to burst forth from every pore, that it cannot be contained. Finding Your Light Within was born of this feeling. I felt that light every day, in everything that I did. I lived it, I breathed it, I became it. It was me and I was it.

Now, if that feeling is not as strong, it must indicate to me that I am no longer quite aligned with my life force. That raises the question: what do I do about it? Well, one solution is to get back to writing and to explore through my writing what it is that I need to do next. I’ve lived many dreams but there is always another. I was destined to become a teacher, that much was always clear to me–even though I may have denied it or waited until later in life until I accepted it as my truth. I’m still a school teacher but perhaps it is time to move on again. I’ve wondered that regularly recently and I know that if it keeps coming back to me, there is a reason. I cannot be hasty and I must be sure. It reminds me of March 2004, when I wrote a journal entry about feeling lost in life and knowing there was something else I needed to go and do. That journal entry proved to be profoundly prophetic. It took me almost two years from writing it until I was able to bring to fruition all that I wished for myself. But I did.

And I guess that brings me full circle and back to journaling. This has turned into a bit of a waffle but that is the whole point of journaling. It is not that everything you write makes perfect sense. It is giving yourself the opportunity to explore your innermost feelings. To converse with yourself and bring your true self to the fore and to make it real. 

So, what have I learned here. 

I need to record my video and simply talk through my findings in regard to journaling. To express it in the way I need to express it and not in some artificial way that I believe will appeal to people.

To be oneself.

Ah, there it is. The essence of this post.

The necessity to be at peace and harmony with your inner being. With your life force inside.

Be your own truth.

Be your own truth

Live with auth-en-ti-ci-tee

Life force purring

Life is stirring

Moving forward

Not waiting

Exploring options

Opening avenues

Go forward

Tick, tick

Clock and time

It’s short you know

Shorter than you realise

Seize it, live it.

Memory tells me I’ve been here before

Circles and circles again

Never ending

But life does

At least in this form

Until we enter another

And then..?

#Journaling #Authenticity #Mindfulness #FindingYourLightWithin #SelfDiscovery #PersonalGrowth #CreativeWriting #BeYourTruth #LifePurpose #InnerJourney