How to Keep a Journal Private

People are often afraid to keep a personal journal for fear that someone is going to find it and read it. I understand. Remember, you can have more than one journal at a time. Perhaps you’ll want a journal that is highly private and another one that is private but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if someone else were to read it. Here are ways I’ve found to be comfortable that my journaling is kept private.

Keep Your Journal (the actual book) Protected

Obviously, if they can’t find it, they can’t read it. Some people have told me they have a locked drawer or a secret hiding place behind a dresser where they keep their journal. No one even knows they have a highly private journal.

have a family agreement, And keep it

In our family, we have the agreement that we will not read each other's journals. I don’t read my husband’s journal. He does not read mine. I never read my kid's journals to find out what they were doing, and as far as I know, they never read mine. It was a rule in our home that we didn't invade each other's journals.

Add a Password

You may want to keep your journal digitally (on your iPad or in a Word document) and password protect it.

But even still, if you don't want someone to see what you've written, you may want to use cryptic language, so you aren’t actually writing what you want to remain private.

Don’t use actual names

I've found that I don't have to use actual names or places. I know what I am referring to. I can make up a name, add a fake setting, or make the woman I’m writing about a man. I might also just leave a blank space where I’d normally put in a name. Since what I am writing is just for me, I don’t need to include revealing details.

Use metaphors

I like to use metaphors. For example, when I write "the cat meowed," no one knows what I'm referring to, but I do. If I’m struggling with a particular situation and I want to keep myself accountable in my journal, I could write “a stray cat visited while I was out on the patio. I scared it away.” Or, “the cat came by again and I fed it.” Or “the mocking bird drove me crazy all night.” Or “the music was blaring so I walked out of the room.” You get the point.

Burn it

If you need to write very sensitive thoughts, consider writing them on notebook paper. Do the valuable work of getting your thoughts out of your head and onto the paper...it’s amazing how helpful this can be. Then light a match to it or put it in the shredder.

Or do what tolstoy did: let it be published after you die to show the tenacity of God

Leo Tolstoy kept a journal almost daily for 64 years, except for the first year of his marriage when he was working on several books including War and Peace. His wife read his journals which could be explicit and they brought her grief. At one point he wanted his early diaries destroyed, but then he changed his mind. They were published, except for parts that were “too intimate a nature” for publication. The person appointed to publish Tolstoy’s diaries writes in the introduction:

Tolstoy himself desired that this Diary should become known to the public; concerning this he made a definite statement in an entry posted in his Diary on March 27th, 1895, which has already appeared in print: "I pray that the Diary of my single life be destroyed after anything worthy of being retained has been selected from it. I pray that the Diary of my single life be destroyed, not because I wish to hide my bad life from men—my life was the habitual worthless life of young men devoid of principles; but I express this wish because my Diary, in which I have entered only that which tormented me with a consciousness of sin, produces a false, one-sided impression and represents . . } Well, never mind; let the Diary remain as it is; it will show, at least, that in spite of all the banality and vileness of my youth I was not deserted of God, and that in my old age I have, at least to a certain extent, come to comprehend Him and to love Him." (The Diaries of Leo Tolstoy, xii)