So Emma, obviously I know you quite well Can you just explain. What a journaling is. If someone is never heard of journaling before, how would you describe journal?

I think, the best way to describe it is as a pen and paper, brain dump, an organized pen and paper brain dump. I think the. The point to it is to not be too sort of structured, so not to get too involved in that brain dumping and just kind of let the pen and the paper flow, it's your connection to your thoughts that you might not even realize was in there.

Fantastic. I love that. So it's just a put everything down on a bit of paper, out your mind.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's the best thing that I love about journaling is there is no rules. There's no rules to it. There's no right, there's no wrong. You can't get it wrong. And you know, you've not gotta follow a certain way or method or anything like that. You can literally just do whatever you want on the paper. Most of it's prompted or can be prompted. But I also journal literally on pieces of scrap paper if I feel I need to empty the mind at any time. If there's pen and paper's there, then it, it goes on the pen and it goes on the paper, and that's, that's it.

Sounds interesting. It's, but I've done a little bit of journaling, but I suppose I'm too busy. That's my problem. I just

Never too busy for a journal Kev. Never too busy.

Well, that's probably, that's probably what it is, isn't it? Because you're too busy. It's like, why am I too busy? And that would be then to

It would be the reason. Yeah, absolutely. Would be the reason. I mean, I, I started journaling, God, it must be four or five years ago now. What started, probably, probably would've said exactly what you've just said. I've done a bit and I did a bit then, but I'm too busy. And, and then, and then it kind of went out my head again and then it came back and it was actually in. The first lockdown in 2020 that I really looked at it because I couldn't sit still, like I couldn't go to work and I couldn't sit still. And that was it. I was like, I need to do something. I need to learn something or I need to do something. And that's when I became a journal therapist. That's when I did my course. Okay. Um, and I've used it religiously ever since then because I learned so much on that course. The psychological connections and everything, it just blows my mind. it feels like. Wow. Um, but yeah, I was exactly the same as you. No time. There's never any time for this. And now I journal, in a morning and the evening. I do it twice a day. My evening journal is three minutes that. three minutes before bed, on a, a completely clean sheet of paper. Nothing on the, I used to do it with prompts when I first started cause I found that easier. Basically answering a question. But basically now I'll just dump down on in three minutes and I'll just give myself a page and say, write, write whatever comes to your mind. And then, and that's it. I turn it off and go to sleep. So. Hmm.

So what's the benefits of sort of like journaling in general, I suppose, because we're gonna talk about your book in a little while, but what are the benefits for journaling?

Your key benefits really is problem solving, organizing your thoughts and. Getting yourself to a perspective where it's almost, once you really get into journaling, there's been times where I've written on, I've written and I'm writing and writing and writing and writing and writing, and then I'll read back and I'll go, wow, did I really write that? it's almost like you, you are brain is kind of, cuz you, obviously you've got your left and your right side of your. And you're left's doing all your problem solving and your right's, doing all your creative stuff. So journaling will allow you to do either. So it depends on what it is that you're looking for really from it. But some of the biggest benefits from it is your reflection, because then that's where your growth comes from.

You know, so when you are, you are doing something or you are in something, when you are in that. You're not able to view yourself from an outside perspective because you're in it and you're doing it, so there's no reflection there. There isn't room for it because you're in the action. and your brain can't deal with the action and the reflection of the action at the same time. So quite often when, because we're human and this is what we do, and we don't have time, like Kev said, that we get so involved in the action and we move from that action and we move to the next action, and then we move to the next action and we move to the next action. And before you know it, you've not reflected on any of those things that you've done throughout the day, the week, or what have you. And actually the action can become ineffective if it's an ongoing action that you're gonna try and achieve. So for me, the biggest thing is being able to, to reflect and then grow from that because you soon work out and you quickly work out where your problems are, and then you can move on to then how do I solve this, and where do I go? Then you can use your journal as a goal setter. So you can then set your goals based on your reflection then, so that you can move on. I think the, what I've got, one of my favorite quotes now I'm gonna have to try and remember. This, is from a guy called Peter Drucker. He's like a, a business, entrepreneur type of guy, but he is, he does a lot of education stuff as well. And his quote was, this is gonna, I'm gonna how am I gonna get this right? follow effective action with quiet reflection from that quiet reflection will come even more effective. Action.