The Day One Podcast 82 - Slowing Down and Digging Deep: Antoinette McDonald on Journaling the Year Ahead
Jan 30, 2026
Antoinette McDonald, a journaling guide and author of Do the Heart Work, shares practices for slowing down and using writing as a steadying ritual. She describes the Be the Elephant metaphor, digging wells of remembrance, play, and presence. The conversation highlights rhythms like morning pages, future-self prompts, and how attention to nature and slowness reshapes a year.
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Journaling Is A Life Rhythm
- Antoinette frames journaling as a rhythm that builds self-awareness and resists autopilot living.
- She argues steady attention to life trains your heart and eyes to notice what truly matters.
Start With Awareness And Simple Tools
- Do use journaling to increase self-awareness by noticing without judgment and naming emotions.
- Try morning pages, gratitude entries, and building an emotional vocabulary to process thoughts and actions.
Name Emotions To Reveal Beliefs
- Try naming emotions often and map the thoughts attached to them to reveal underlying beliefs.
- Use tools like feeling wheels to build emotional vocabulary and notice how actions reflect beliefs.
