The value of reflective writing for psychological well-being

We live in a society obsessed with productivity, both collective and individual, in which the value of a person often seems to be measured in proportion to what they manage to produce. On paper it may seem like sensible reasoning, but in practice it risks making us forget something fundamental: not everything we do necessarily has to have a productive purpose.

Easy to say, right? and yet we sit down in front of a blank page and.. nothing, we don’t know what to say, how to say it and above all, if someone were to read it, what would they think of it all?

Personal journaling is there for this, it also fosters awareness. Putting down in writing what we are thinking or feeling forces us to stop and pay attention to the present moment.

Another benefit: being able to spot recurring patterns and behaviours.

Rereading what we have written, we can notice negative thoughts, situations that cause us stress or, on the contrary, the things that make us feel good. Some of these patterns might not be obvious in everyday life, and they become easy to understand only by devoting the right amount of time to our own self. How much that amounts to is impossible to know beforehand; writing might also serve to realise that we are not drawn to it, or that we can reach awareness in a way we had not considered until then.

Wattle was born from this, to offer the chance to take a risk on writing that stays private, where grammatical mistakes, confused sentences and a heavy mind are not a flaw, they are the first step towards redesigning the self we want for tomorrow.