I wanted to open something up for general dialogue:

What does "meaningful" journaling mean to you? How would you define "meaningful"? Would it mean MORE journaling? Would it mean putting more emotion in to your words? Is it about pouring out your heart? Documenting the details?

What makes journaling "meaningful" to you?

To me, the most meaningful journaling comes when I simply write what I am feeling. When I stop worrying about who might read it or what they might think and just write what's in my heart. Usually I find myself wording the journaling as though I am speaking to my boys. I have tried journaling in other ways, but to tell the story to my kids just seems most natural to me and so that's what I do.

I used to feel like I didn't put enough 'details' about the photos etc in my journaling, but then I decided that's not really what's important. Not to me anyway. I think that my story is best told if I just write what I feel is most important about the photo or memory. If I had those thoughts and feelings written down for me from my own mother it would mean alot more to me than knowing every when/where/who of the photo.

So basically I try not to worry about sounding like a fool lol, and just write. When I remember to do that is when I feel like I make layouts that really tell the story.

I try to say what I am feeling. It doesnt necasarily mean more writing just so long as what I am thinking/feeling is expressed.

To me it is writing from the heart and expressing true honest feelings. But there have been pages too where I just write a little bit about what went on that day or little quotes my kiddos have said. I think that is meaningful too because in years to come I will forget those things.

When my oldest was a baby I documented EVERYTHING on our blog. The first time he said all his words, when his teeth came in, first foods... everything. To me looking back on all of that information is meaningful and I certainly did not remember everything I had written. I wish I would have been better about that with my 2nd son. But I like to go back and look at my old entries on the blog and use the information in my journaling.

I have been thinking about this so much lately. I am usually stumped for words and feel like I am writing the same thing over and over. Just this week I sat down with my oldest daughter and we drug out the old 12x12 scrapbooks from my paper scrapping days (man were those things huge but that's a whole other thread). Anywho, we were going through them book by book and there were so many times where I was like, "I wonder what day this was" or " I wonder what was going on here and what I was thinking and feeling." I am pretty much a chronological scrapper but I still never dated my pages and I just have a rough guess at the month on most and I saw where so many were just lacking in the good details of the story, if that makes sense. It really has made me stop and think about my journaling and some things I want to change. I want to be able to see and feel those moments twenty years from now as if I were standing in them on the actual day.

Pretty much what everyone has said--this is from-the-heart, raw, i-don't-care-if-i-look-like-a-fool journaling. I did a page on my relationship with my brother and the whole time I wrote it I was inwardly shaking, because I don't talk that way to him. It's journaling that whoever reads has the capacity to hurt you. It's being vulnerable and open and just letting go of the need to "look good" and "sound smart"

I think a concise but deeply felt sentence can trump a page of ramblings any day. Having said that, I tend toward the rambling, forgetting certain details that I'm sure I'll want to remember later on but somehow miss focusing on. To me, meaningful journaling would erase time and put me back in a moment, either experiencing an event with my children or reliving how I was feeling at the time.

Oh tell me great ones, please tell me that you'll teach me how to do that. LOL