How Journaling Encourages Mindfulness

Kyla Denanyoh
Dec 23, 2025
6 min read

These are excerpts from an Interview with Heidi Sander.

Journaling is a powerful tool to gain clarity and insight especially during challenging times of loss and uncertainty. Writing can cultivate a deeper connection with yourself and provide an outlet for calmness, resilience and mindfulness. When my mom passed on, I found writing to be cathartic. When I read through my journal years later, there were thoughts that I developed into poems, and others that simply provided a deeper insight into myself. In this series I'm speaking with people who use journaling to become more mindful and resilient.

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kyla Denanyoh.

Kyla Denanyoh is the host of You Are A Lawyer podcast where Kyla shares stories of lawyers with exciting career changes and interests.

After graduating from law school, Kyla realized that many of her former classmates were working in non-traditional legal roles or transitioning out of the legal field. Kyla created You Are A Lawyer to share the exciting career changes and hobbies of law school graduates.

Kyla lives in Ohio with her husband and toddler. When she isn’t podcasting, Kyla is blogging and journaling.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS are in bold:

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! We really appreciate the courage it takes to publicly share your story of healing. Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?

I’m a proud Ohioan, a lawyer, and a podcast host. My childhood was spent painting, writing, being creative, and daydreaming. I started reading books around four and fell in love with words. I’ve enjoyed writing since I was young and would write notes to my parents or brothers when I was in trouble or happy about things. I really appreciate putting my thoughts on paper.

I've literally had my library card since 1988, and it is my most prized possession. I don't even take it out of the house anymore, which is okay because I have memorized the number as if it's an SSN.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about journaling. Have you been writing in your journal for a long time or was there a challenging situation that prompted you to start journal writing? If you feel comfortable sharing the situation with us, it could help other readers.

I’ve journaled for a long time, at least 15 years. I started journaling because I thought my life was interesting and I didn’t want to forget anything that I was experiencing.

How did journaling help you heal, mentally, emotionally and spiritually?

Journaling helped me heal emotionally because it allowed me to express myself when I was really lonely and going through a big transition. I was working in short-term jobs that I didn’t enjoy, preparing to attend law school, and scared about the new experiences I was encountering. I had recently left my job and the 2008 housing crisis hit and I felt really confused and lost about why I was working so hard to get things that seemed to be so temporary. Journaling was my safe space to vent unwind, express my disappointments, and “scream” on paper.

Journaling helped me heal spiritually and mentally by allowing me to express my thoughts and later share them with my therapist. The busyness of life makes me flustered and journaling allows me to record my thoughts and feelings in an honest way, which allows me to share those thoughts with my therapist and find healing.

I also like to take notes while meditating. I know that sounds odd, but I will keep a pen and paper with me when meditating if my my mind keeps reminding me of the same things or is persistent about an experience, I will place my hand over my heart, that myself for reminding me of this thing, write it down, then continue with the meditation. Your mind doesn't want to cause chaos and drama, but it is always working and if a thought or idea is persistent, lean into that, acknowledge it and write it down to ensure you will get back to it after your meditation.

Did journaling help you find more self-compassion and gratitude? Can you share a story about that?

Journaling has helped me with gratitude. In December 2021, I was unexpectedly fired and was lost as a new wife and parent. I’ve been working since I was 15 years old so this free time was a SHOCK. Although I was in a two-income household, I became severely depressed for a few months. I decided to buy a gratitude journal. Between the pandemic, no job, not contributing to my family, and idle time, I couldn’t get over my self-pity and find the energy to be grateful for my life. The prompted gratitude journal really helped me see everything I was missing. The journal includes inspirational quotes and questions that prompt me to write about things that I appreciate, enjoy or make my life simpler. After five minutes of writing in the gratitude journal, I often feel lighter and able to appreciate my life exactly as it is.

Journaling helps with self-compassion when I reread the entries, but I cannot read entries that are less than 8 years old. I need to be far removed from the memories to see them with compassion.

What kind of content goes into your journal? For example, do you free-write, write poems, doodle?

I free-write in every journal. I have a blank journal where I record the events of the day and two prompted journals. The prompted journals are the gratitude journal and a career journal, where I free-write based on the prompts or questions in each journal.

In December 2024, I began waking up early at 5:30 in the morning to meditate and journal, I would allow myself to do stream-of-consciousness journaling, where everything in my mind just came out, and that really helped me become more mindful. There would be sentences and thoughts written down that I never would've admitted to myself or others, yet they wanted to be reviewed and dissected today. Okay, let's go!

How did you gain a different perspective on life and your emotions while writing in your journal? Can you please share a story about what you mean?

I gain a different perspective on life or my emotions a few times a year. I became a parent two years ago and that has really changed all of my plans. Between losing jobs, no longer wanting the demand of former jobs, and having my attention pulled in 85 directions, I turn to my journal when I am frustrated and need to express myself immediately. I am learning to go directly to my journal because a few years ago, I would reach out to friends or social media to initially vent, then journal if I didn’t find a resolution for my issue. I needed mindfulness!

I never understood the value of mindfulness. Was it being present? Was it forgiving everyone? Was it smiling throughout the day when you felt like crying? Journaling allowed me to put my thoughts and feelings on paper, and the mindfulness practice occurred when I would reread what I had written and ponder my thoughts.

Turning directly to my journal allows me to start writing from a place of frustration or disappointment and after a few minutes of venting, I become relaxed and feel my perspective changing as I am trying to find the words to express myself. It’s actually amazing that giving myself the time to feel everything leads to a resolution faster than trying to pretend that I am okay and process things at a more convenient time.

In my own journal writing, I ended up creating poems from some of the ideas and one of them won an award. Do you have plans with your journal content?

I would like to use my journal to recreate conversations or scenarios in a fiction novel. I’ve lived through some hilarious situations.

Fantastic. Here is our main question. In my journaling program, I have found that journaling can help people to become calmer, mindfulful and resilient. Based on your experience and research, can you please share with our readers “five ways that journaling can help you to be more calm, mindful and resilient”?

Journaling can help you become calmer, resilient, and practice minfdulness because journaling is 1) deeply personal, 2) offers a chance to change your perspective, 3) gives you permission to express every emotion that you feel, 4) creates a record of your journey, and 5) allows you to process your feelings through words.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of peace to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?

I would love to inspire people to change their minds more. I had to give myself permission to change my mind about my legal career and change my mind about what success looks like and I would love it if other people allowed themselves to change their minds when their current decisions no longer served them well.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

I would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with Glennon Doyle. Glennon is awesome.