The power of the pen

Looking back, I didn’t consciously realise I was changing.

I didn’t wake up one day and think, Right, time to overhaul my entire mindset.

It happened slowly. Quietly.

Through small decisions that felt like better choices.

And over time, those choices started to change me.

I've come to realise one of the first behaviours I changed was my ability to self-reflect.

I’ve mentioned before how journalling helped me — but I haven’t really shared what made it so powerful. There were a lot of conversations with friends, my therapists and family that really stick with me as turning points. Whether nuggets of wisdom were shared or conversations led me to realise where I've been stuck, these face-to-face chats were always helpful.

The most powerful thing, though, was what came after.

I've been journalling since I moved back to Scotland in 2022. Like a lot of us, I first heard about journalling through a podcast about manifesting - a wholeee other side to my personality by the way - the host wanted me to write down my 10 wildest dreams.

I searched for a piece of paper and came across an old notebook I'd bought in Bristol. Its pages were mainly filled with pro / con lists and budget sheets for why moving home was a good idea - there was some logic to my erratic move after all. But I flipped to the first empty one I could find and started to write.

My 10 wildest dreams were:

• Meet and fall in love with my soulmate

• Forge a high-profile career in wildlife TV as a producer

• Buy my own house

• Buy a Mulberry bag

• Buy a landrover

• Travel the world

• Become a successful author

• Have three children

• Buy my granny's old flat and use it as a holiday home

  
  

I know, absolutely wild. Like, c'mon, couldn't I have said I wanted to fly to the moon?

But, in all seriousness, I do remember feeling each one deeply as I wrote it down with my pen. A smile formed across my face when I thought about it coming true and how deeply happy I'd be if it did.

From that moment, I realised, the possibilities with my pen were endless. And writing out a dream life for myself quickly turned into deep, introspective conversations between my brain and the page in front of me.

After conversations with friends and family, I’d turn to the page. A space to unpack the day, reflect on what lifted me up, what didn’t, and why. I wrote about what lifted me and what knocked me, the moments I felt triggered, jealous, overjoyed, or everything at once.

Every time my pen touched the page, my consciousness poured out of me. Sometimes uncontrollably, sometimes measured and aware.

I credit my commitment to writing as the first behaviour towards improving my relationship with my mental health and confronting anxiety.

Because it's between the pages of those journals where I did exactly that: confront my anxieties, my insecurities. It's where I challenged negative thoughts and unearthed limiting beliefs. It's where I wrote things like "I'm not good enough" or "I'm scared of being alone" for the first time. Only to ask myself a couple of sentences later: Why do I believe that? What evidence is there for that to be true?

So when I think about what helped most on my journey with anxiety, it’s this:

The first behaviour I changed wasn’t dramatic, it was simply learning to sit with myself, pen in hand, and actually listen.

I never forced myself to do it... I think we lose some of the magic in drilling ourselves towards doing something. I don't subscribe to this whole "sit and write for three pages" before 5 am. And, as a beginner to journalling, that's incredibly difficult. Somedays it would be no more than a few words, and that would feel like enough.

It meant I just kept showing up. Because I wanted to.

And it was there, in ink and honesty, that I stopped just surviving my anxiety — and started understanding it.

Finally, I've written a bunch of journalling prompts out here - why not take a scroll through and see if any inspire you to pick up a pen?

Thanks so much for reading, it always means the world.

E x