The benefits of reflection are sometimes overlooked. In overlooking these benefits, opinion of self-reflection can lean into mockery of it. I have relearned how to ignore most of this mockery and I journal anyway; the benefits outweigh disdain, and in more recent years, I’ve found a bridge to journalling: voice memos. Those who have used old-school dictation devices might roll their eyes in unison at my newcomer status to such a helpful tool.

I think the reason I use voice memos as often as I do now is so I can clarify my process: I can more easily outline what I am thinking and currently feeling rather than having it at some point manipulated, misconstrued, or fed back to me in a way which sullies the truth of the matter.

It’s been a helpful aid in trauma recovery and processing, strengthening the speech and language regions of the brain which were impacted during trauma. I now reach for my phone to leave a voice memo so that I can capture what is overwhelming. It is equally helpful for capturing thoughts about current events; it’s a quick way to aid my processing, to solidify what I actually think and feel about it before it’s lost in the noise of the world.

I feel censored in some environments and around some people. There have been times where I’ve been exploited within these moments — where my version of events or sometimes the more accurate version of events have been erased. These exploitations have made recovery more complicated and more difficult to move through.

The voice memo has been a means of acknowledgement. Many people find this same benefit with friends or others they trust. I prefer to keep most things to myself, because I no longer feel like I have someone I can trust enough. It can feel in those moments that there is nobody left who is willing or able to endure the conversations that matter to me. I feel like those who do endure, feel burdened by me, and it seems that those who can endure, might be more inclined to betray me. So I would rather talk to myself, as the saying goes, but here we are: technology makes it possible to have these conversations with the self without quite so much of the stigma or ridicule.

I use the Voice Memos app on my iOS devices. It (mostly helpfully) transcribes my voice notes and ramblings to text which I can then use later in my journal or other projects, but even if I never wanted to revisit any of it, I’d still recommend it as a self-affirmation aid.

It is not just clarifying, but a way to more deeply align with the self, and I think these days more than ever, too many people try to tell us what to think and how to think, and how to be or not be. Influence and misinterpretation carries more impact than ever before and this counters that. It gives permission to literally have your say and listen to your own voice. It’s a way to reconnect with the self, and… it is helpful.

Featured image by Lucent_Designs_dinoson20 via Pixabay