AI Summary
5 min readWhen Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with leukemia at 22, she had no desire to do anything, let alone write in a notebook. But she knew she needed to stay in conversation with herself, so she made one rule: she had to show up in the notebook every day. It could be three pages, a paragraph, or a single word. If she wrote one word, it counted as journaling that day — and it was a win. On this episode of NPR’s Life Kit, host Marielle Segarra talks with Jaouad about how journaling can help you through hard moments, why it’s worth the effort even when it feels pointless, and how to keep the barrier to entry low enough that you actually do it.
Why journaling works during hard times
Jaouad, who wrote The Book of Alchemy: A Practice for a Creative Life, has kept journals since childhood. She describes the journal as “a sacred space and a rare space where I got to show up as my most unedited, unvarnished self.” During cancer treatment, that space became essential. “The journal is the space that I go to to make sense of what has happened to me, to record the realizations, many of them painful, that come with having a scales falling from the eyes moment,” she says. “And the opportunity to reflect and to figure out how I’m going to choose my response.”
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Introduction: The Fear of the Blank Page** - Host Marielle introduces the episode and the guest, writer Suleika Jaouad, framing journaling as a tool for navigating difficult moments.
- 2 (02:52) **The Key to Consistency: Attach Journaling to a Non-Negotiable Habit** - Suleika explains her method for making journaling a daily practice by pairing it with an existing routine.
- 3 (04:49) **Journaling as a "Hiding Place and a Fighting Place" in Hard Times** - Suleika explains the unique value of journaling during life's most difficult moments.
- 4 (06:17) **The Trap of Self-Judgment When Re-Reading Journals** - Host and guest discuss the common discomfort of looking back at old entries.
- 5 (07:36) **Takeaway One: Give Yourself Permission to Start Without an Audience** - The core advice for overcoming the fear of starting is to remember there is no audience or required format.
- 6 (09:42) **The Power of Lists as a Journaling Form** - The host and guest share how list-making became a vital, low-energy form of journaling during their cancer treatments.
- 7 (12:01) **Takeaway Two: Practical Strategies to Lower the Barrier to Entry** - Suleika offers specific techniques to bypass the inner critic and get started.
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