Sensitivity Journaling, My Experience, and examples.

What is sensitivity journaling?

Sensitivity journaling is a tangible form of sitting with your feelings.

This practice is journaling about a particular feeling in order to better understand it and develop a healthy relationship with it.

Your relationship to your feelings is the same you have with people; it's knowing what you appreciate, what you'll accept, and what boundaries you have.

In sensitivity journaling, you choose a feeling, name it, describe its sensations, triggers, and how you'd like to respond to it.

My Experience

This is NOT categorizing a feeling as "good or bad"

I ask and ponder over things like:

Do I fear it?

Does it cause an impulsive reaction?

Do I leverage it?

How can I be friends with it?

What is this feeling here to serve me for?

Example: "Swump:

For example, in this entry I named a feeling "swump" AKA "power-saving mode".

It feels depressive but it's not depression.

It is low energy and low motivation that comes and goes.

During a swump, I strictly mind my priorities and let everything else be.

The clear ink here is in the negative connotation of "swump".

Anyway, the swumps used to bother me before I started actively questioning them them.

I worried that something was wrong with me because I had a happiness-addict type attitude.

A swump is valid state. It is okay to be on power-saving mode and only run essential apps.

I might just play The Sims instead of engaging in over-achiever activities.

(My example is quite meta, it skips over describing the feeling itself and goes straight into describing the attitude around a feeling).

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(Expand for a quick sidebar on "happiness addict".

Before journaling inquiring on swumps, I worried something was wrong with me because I assumed happiness should be my default state... But that's unnatural and unnecessary.

I feel much better when I just let myself be.

I'm a human, so human feelings are going to happen. I do my best to not be a happiness-addict, always chasing the next thing to make me feel "up".

I know "happiness addict" sounds weird. Who wouldn't want to be happy?

Isn't life all about chasing happiness?

The issue, for me, with always having to be happy is that it implies that all other feelings are a problem. Plus, I much rather be okay with ALL of my feelings, not just select ones.

So, I personify them and I assume they are all trying to do me some sort of good, even if I don't understand what that is yet. At the very least, I can appreciate their effort (even when misguided) and then gently takeover from there. That's why sensitivity journaling is spiritual integrity in action.

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They're just feelings.

I didn't gain this attitude overnight. It took some work.

I'd say therapy helped. Not because I did a particular kind of therapy, or because we focused on naming and analyzing feelings, but because I was physically in a place where feelings were allow the right to be present without ridicule or judgement.

Where else are they granted this?

There was no reaction of "oh no" toward my feelings, short of them causing me harm (e.g. skipping work or treating myself poorly). But, that's about BEHAVIOR, not the feelings.

Sensitivity journaling and curiosity are partners. They're brave around fear.

If you're willing to ask about something, that's demonstrating bravery.

Usually when we are afraid of something, we want nothing to do with it. We just decide it's threatening and that's it. We get avoidant, rather than inquisitive.

If you want a low-stakes way to feel less threatened by feelings, try sensitivity journaling.🥰

What did sensitivity journaling do?

With the swump entry, I embrace power-saving mode. I don't fight it, argue with it, or question it.

It's okay to limit my output to priorities.

When it comes around, I name my priorities. When I feel guilt surrounding my rest, if I judge the feeling, I say to myself I'm on power-saving mode and deliberate on if that "app" really needs to run.

(E.g. Is it procrastination if it genuinely doesn't need to be done right now?

Is my world going to implode if I don't do this today?

Are my goals still being met?

Am I still taking care of my body?

Do I need to spend time with friends / family? Do I need a self-date?

What would serve me best right now?

Am I avoiding or is this really restful?

Is this a productive pause or am I being lazy?).

Basically having an internal this-that session.

Sensitivity journaling has made me interact with feelings and plan for them with compassion, non-judgement, and discernment. 💗

Being in Your Body

Grounding techniques are commonly related to senses (finding things you can hear, see, touch, smell, or taste). Your body is always sensing, and journaling somatically invites you to not only to pay attention to them through grounded, but it also you to analyze them deliberately by pondering over it. You're not just grounding, you're analyzing what that is doing for you.

I believe sensitivity journaling has helped me to be in my body. Because I am getting in touch with something real.