 November 23rd 1998 written by me. I was nine years old here. I had a math test and I got an A and 36.5 out of 40. Smart kid. I never knew I was so good in math. I got the highest mark in the class. I was about to cry. I was so happy. Well it will be a few more years until I'm 43 and I have a job but soon I'll be reading this. What will I think and what will I do when or sorry what does it say? And soon I'll be 43. I have a job but soon I'll be reading this. What I wrote when I was nine years old. And here I am doing it. Let's go a few more pages in the future. I even labeled the pages. Neurotic Scott. It's going to be the year 2000 soon. And this is 1998 this entry. Do you think Scott has dealt with anxiety for his whole life? I think so. It's 1998 and I'm thinking about it's going to be the year 2000 in two years and I write soon. And if I write November 2000 I won't remember how to put all of the zeros. Well I will probably still be alive in the year 2030. I will only be 41 years old I think. Well that's all I wanted to say Scott St. Marie. How old are you when you are going to be reading this journal? I had eyes locked into the future and isn't that what anxiety is? So this journal this was my first journal. I got this I think when I was six years old and I've been journaling almost daily but of course there's some days, weeks, months that go by where I haven't journaled and I want to talk to you about things that I've learned from 25 years of journaling that may calm you, that may surprise you, that may bring some clarity into your days and weeks to come. So I had this all in writing. I have journals which are from every trip I go on, every backpacking trip, wherever I always get a new book and I journal through that just about the trip every single night and in the mornings and I have a journal here that I started this one started in 2012 when I put it all on the computer and this goes until this document is 93 pages all single spaced and it is a lot of entries. So in 2008 when I was diagnosed with depression you read that journal versus my journals before that versus my journaling after that and what you begin to see is every single thing my friends changes and passes. You know the classic quote this too shall pass it's so lame but it's so true. I got a I got a let's see this was in February 2nd 2012 a big episode of depression. Let's see here I am depressed I can't eat or sleep 10 pounds left me in the past weeks and I see no hope for the future. I feel utterly alone and heartbroken. I would trade my mental pain for any kind of physical pain in a heartbeat. I see people but not the way I want to see them. I wonder how they see me and how much pain I'm in in this moment when I walk by them. I want to tell them how I feel and that they're lucky to be feeling just okay or fine goes on and on and when I read this I look back at Scott and I'm like oh if only you knew if only I could grab you put you aside and be like it's gonna be alright buddy and we find ourselves in these pits in these ruts in these trenches we can't find a way out look to older people if you are lucky enough to have a dad or a mom or someone you can speak to that's been through things they will admit that in the moment yeah you don't see a way out but it will pass and it will change and things change without our permission to things change just by us living and going through day to day you know you just live with shoes on and before you know it the laces are torn up the souls are broken you didn't you just live day to day but they change right we were not doing anything but the weather just changes things just change and the meaning we put towards things changes because we change so the same thing can happen to you I can go through a terrible depression now and yeah it'll still be terrible but it's gonna be different than other ones that have experienced and it's gonna mean something different than it used to and I've gained this perspective over 25 years and I can look back every day and say man was I in pain there man did that suck man was my heart broken there was I lost there I couldn't find a way out there and oh I journaled four months later and I was laughing isn't that interesting the end of the world was never the end and that's number one everything everything passes and changes and number two when I look at these journal entries it's me writing out what happened and what I think about things and what I think of myself and what I thought of what happened and what will happen and what you realize is the mind the thinking mind is responsible for so much suffering in my personal experience the mind and thought is responsible for so much of the pain that I went through like now even in pain like I got a headache right now I get it I usually have headaches through the day and we're working on it we're really working on it guys and people are just like just drink more water have you tried vitamin B1 or B6 I'm like wow I'm past that but thanks for trying now if I look back and I'm looking at all these situations that I'm going through and even in pain what makes the pain worse is thinking that it's gonna last forever that you're you're stuck only if you stop and this is where faith really comes in and this is where proof from the past does help the thoughts of the future where it's not gonna last forever and I don't need to think that it will and I don't need to put myself in this pit of worry because that is literally going to do nothing for me and worrying about this is making me suffer and making myself suffer is not something that is kind towards me why am I being so unkind to myself about this thing why am I hurting myself deliberately by creating all of these scenarios and thoughts and overthinking this and you're worried about this thing so you Google it and you get into it and you watch YouTube videos about it and you don't let it go what are you doing to yourself in those moments today still full of crying sadness no appetite I can't even leave my room I can't scroll down even more let's open up like 2016 for you all you know I just have to tell you that everything passes no matter how hard no matter what state you're in right now it will change it will change and if you can relax the mind a little bit and not dive into scenario building and not plan too far into the future because things will so change along the way you know thinking about yourself like me as a kid what am I going to be like when I'm 43 oh Scott I'm not even there yet man I'm ten years away so if you cannot think ten years ahead even five years right now if you're going through a tough time the most you can think of is just getting through the day and if that if that three months into the future if that 90 days but thinking a year from now thinking five years from now thinking eight months from now come on back be kind to yourself and just focus on what you got to do now okay now if I go through the journals once again over 25 years number three is people what did I write down for you all people are the most important beings on earth and create the best memories I think some will argue with this about beings in our you know are we any better than animals beautiful deer and kangaroo and the insects and vegans may have a different view of this and that's totally cool in my experience in journaling when I have a really vivid memory of a place when I did my traveling the best memories I had was when I experienced something with somebody else those really stick with me because a moment was shared a moment was really shared and although they are experiencing maybe something different and and felt different things when you saw that certain thing or that happened around you or happened to you you were still in that space together and for some reason by feeling their energy and being with them and knowing that you're creating something that they'll never forget you'll never forget somehow it's it's embodied a little deeper and when I look at you know I don't have them because they're all you're all in in print they're in my closet in my parents house I I read them and I'm like wow did I have a good time when I wasn't by myself when I was part of a team when I was traveling with a group of people when we went to this event together those are the memories that really stick with you and what's unfortunate as we get older people and what I'm finding now to be honest everyone if you're on my age and 34 is people are creating their own lives you know you find your spouse and you go have children you get a house and a lot of people I know are then moving to the suburbs out of the city and there's distance and they're creating memories there but they're with people but the memories that I've really really had just soaked into my very fibers of my being are ones where I'm with like a big group like a community like a lot of people around and developing those relationships like if it were up to me I'd live I'd probably start some kind of cult and have a bunch of people living in some reserve some some community like it was those memories really stick with me so people the most important beings on earth and they create the most suffering you know that heartbreak that abandonment we all feel the loss that we feel when loved ones pass away human beings hurt us the most yet they bring us the most joy can't live with them can't live without them now a big one here number four is I worried for absolutely no reason because the thing I worried about never happened countless examples countless examples of all of these years of journaling where I'm my mind is just set on something bad that's about to happen what if I run into this person what if I feel this way forever it's it's just like the worry just in these pages I'm trying to find something for you you know and and it's interesting because in my journaling let's even from this 2012 I'm even rejecting that I'm having worry that I don't even want to admit that I'm really really concerned about something I always have tried to flip it to the positive just flip it just flip it like whatever I have to do to be happy that's all that matters I think about this I think about this but I'm not sure if I can control it all like this is what March 2013 and I'm just trying to talk my way out of a feeling even if it is worry what happens if you're worried if you actually admit that I'm worried about this thing let's just admit it even out loud even to yourself I'm really worrying that this is going to happen okay I'm really worrying that that's going to happen all right well that's what's going on right now for me and as you admit it and as you accept it and as you don't compromise with it but just let it be you can sometimes the layer of worry like it was under this kind of black curtain and veil and somehow you just kind of lift it and see what it actually is and be like how foolish is that I can't believe I was worrying about that and when you see the proof in all this journaling yeah man most of it never happened it's it's absolutely fascinating and the last thing I want to say number five is writing really helps that's one thing I learned writing out all of these things that I was going through the good the bad like everything that went on writing was such a tool it was such a tool to express yourself and to put actual things in writing because they just become cyclical in the mind and you have these ideas but you can't organize them they're like it's in a web almost but so disorganized it's cluttered it's not even stacked up and when you can put them on paper line by line bullet points paragraphs put a beautifully structured sentence and exactly what you're doing exactly how you're feeling exactly maybe why and what you can do about it it's like boom boom boom boom it's just in a list it's ready for you it's just ready for you and look I just scrolled down to a random October 5th 2013 10 33 a.m. I'm putting the times so it's been a while since I wrote the main thing I have to write about is this trip to Europe just thinking about it right now is a serious mind trip when I think about it and put myself back into one of the places I went to just by thinking about it I trip out I went there all alone I had a knapsack and that's it I'm so proud of myself for doing it too the amount of memories I've stored up is just unbelievable and the amount of people I've met just unbelievable there you go it's it's so much about the people wow and I wonder if you look back at your journals or you start one now and you look at it when you're 40 when you're 43 because I'll do that I'll read this baby when I'm 43 just to please you past child Scott I wonder what you'll think because you're not going to be the same person and you're going to learn so many things along the way and you're going to want to go back and change things you're going to be like I could have dealt with that so much better I know so many more tools and I have so many tricks now and I have so many different people that can help me now and so many different hobbies and things that I can escape into and you're going to find that and that means that you've grown and by me reading all of these things and how I didn't deal with things very well and then I thought very differently that's such a sign of growth because if I read these things and I'm like yeah I think the exact same way now and yeah I'm worried about the exact same things now and you know yeah I have the same opinion about that and that and that and this political thing and that and that it's like have I really changed have I really grown and the proof is right here so if you're a journal or is that a word if you want to comment on YouTube of maybe just one thing or five things that you've really learned about your experience journaling and how it's helped you how is how it hasn't helped you I'd be really curious to read those thanks a lot for joining everybody my name is Scott St. Marie this was done this video is done Monday February 26th because and it's 11 48 a.m. so let's see when I upload this hopefully it takes me just an hour it'll upload I'll edit some bullshit and then it'll be up because I procrastinated and here we are putting out a garbage video that wasn't that bad was it I've always wanted to do this video but procrastinate no more sometimes you I just upload something and it's like this is good enough it's not perfect it's not great but it's good enough it's good enough