Are diaries sinful?

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If harboring negative feelings is a sin, does it become a greater sin for expressing it on? Could it be feeding your negative thoughts?
 
I don’t know about diaries per se, but journaling can be a useful tool to get out feelings and issues where you can face them. IF you were writing to augment or intensify adverse negative thoughts, there might be a problem.
 
In my experience expressing negative thoughts can be a good form of releasing them. It could possibly be sinful for people who experience the opposite. It’s really up to the individual.
 
I’ve never read her diary. I doubt she was calling people foul names who angered her.
 
Diaries are morally neutral. Writing negative thoughts in a diary is not inherently sinful either. For a lot of people, that helps them process and release those thoughts and emotions. Reading someone else’s private diary and then judging them for what they wrote is definitely sinful though.
 
I have a journal I write in just so I can get things out of my head. I can get really into my head and my thoughts – worries, or ideas, or drama during the day – can start to spiral and keep me from moving forward.

So I write and write and write… I sometimes call it purging on the page. 😖 I don’t care if I just keep writing the same thing over and over, or how ridiculous it sounds, I just write until I feel like it’s all out of my system and my head and heart are ready for a fresh start.

For me, my diary is not only not sinful, but it is essential to my well-being.
 
Writing down your negative thoughts in order to “get them out of your head” or think of a new way of dealing with them is considered therapeutic. It’s not sinful to write down bad thoughts when it’s done to help you deal with your problem or just get rid of the bad thoughts. Whether it “feeds negative thoughts” is up to the individual. I personally have found it easier to let go of a bad thought after I wrote it down so it didn’t “feed negative thoughts” for me, rather it did the opposite.

If you wrote the diary with the intent of publishing it on the Internet to slander or upset the person you’re writing about, then that would be a sin because your motive is to hurt somebody else, not just to work through your own problem.

And yes, St. Therese wrote a diary in which she occasionally expressed uncharitable thoughts towards her fellow nuns or towards some of her family members. She also noted in the diary how she tried to work through the bad thoughts and be more charitable, offer up her impatience to God, etc. Although she wasn’t writing stuff like “I hate so-and-so” or calling them names, you have to remember that she was a professed religious who was trying to be perfect, so ANY sort of lack of charity, even if it was just “I feel really uncharitable towards Sister X because she keeps making a noise and distracting me during prayer” was a big sin for her, because nuns are held to a higher standard.
 
Write an angry letter to yourself, then write a compassionate letter.

Why not keep Jesus company for fifteen minutes in a Rosary prayer, meditating on his sorrowful passion and his great love for humanity?
 
Sometimes I have taken my “spiritual journal” with me to talk things over with a priest or deacon. It has been very helpful to read to them what was going on and receiving help in how to face the difficulties. I have written or glued in some of the prayers, poems or songs that meant a lot to me or drawn pictures when I haven’t been able to use words. I prefer to use journals with blank pages rather than lines. And using pens instead of pencil so I can’t erase what I wrote earlier.

Reading what I wrote 5 years earlier, is very funny as I am in a totally different position today to be able to deal with the same questions. Following my reasoning is sometimes hilarious.
 
You already have your answer. It is therapeutic not sinful. I’m trying to think of scenarios that would make it sinful. They would more the exception than the rule:

Diaries that contain hitlists or terrorist plots you intend to act on.

Diaries that elaborate on fantasies of a disordered nature that cause you to continue to imagine them in detail.

Diaries that willfully dabble the occult or demonic things.

Diaries that serve to collect negative gossip about other people.
 
I am guessing that it is not a sin to write of one’s troubles. Best expressed in such a way that it cannot cause hurt to particular individuals, should the diary be read by someone, other than the author.

There is also something to be said for writing down good thoughts - the things which pertain to God: aspects of the faith, and one’s faith-life.

When a religious writes a diary, it is for a good end, being that all things experienced, good and seemingly bad, are offered up and are thus evidenced as steps in a journey towards perfection.
 
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Jump4Joy said:
If harboring negative feelings is a sin, does it become a greater sin for expressing it on? Could it be feeding your negative thoughts?
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I agree with the others. I don’t think that it is sinful. It can be really therapeutic to get your thoughts written down and to express them, and then to go back and read them and reflect on them.

The diary or journal is supposed to be for the person who is writing in it, and isn’t supposed to be for anyone else to see, unless they choose to share it with another person.
 
There ought to be a mountain somewhere, really high, thousands of metres up in the air, where people can place their diaries without chance of them ever being found - in fact, ‘Mt. Diary’, has a certain ring to it ⛰️
 
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I wanted to keep a spiritual diary for at least one month so I could look back and see where the ups and downs come from but never got started.
 
friardchips said:
There ought to be a mountain somewhere, really high, thousands of metres up in the air, where people can place their diaries without chance of them ever being found - in fact, ‘Mt. Diary’, has a certain ring to it.
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I rather like this idea! 😀
 
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