I have journaled on and off, with various degrees of success, since I was a child. I have many notebooks in my home that have five or ten pages’ worth of entries before being abandoned for a different journaling method or a fancier notebook.
Throughout the years, I have used metaphor and imagery to express myself. I have always found this way of capturing thoughts more powerful than just a simple description of what has happened or how I feel. Metaphors always gave me something more powerful to anchor my feelings to. However, it was a year or so ago, that this became a more structured process, and it really took shape following a trip to Prague in April 2025.
We’d been wandering around for the entire morning, taking in the sights and sounds. It was a pleasantly warm day and I was just appreciating the fact that I was able to travel and spend time with my best friend. I’ve not got the best physical stamina in the world, so we are forced to take frequent rest breaks on our trips. This is both a blessing and a curse because we do not get to see as much as we could do, but equally we slow down enough to see some unexpected things that we would otherwise have missed.
That day, it turns out, our rest break was going to bring me an unanticipated gift.
We had stopped for a short break in a little courtyard. My friend had his usual beer and I took the lightweight option with a Radler. As we were sitting there, trying to decide what to do next my eyes fell on a picture of a man, with piercing eyes. There was something about the look on his face that captured my attention. Alongside the picture was some writing: ‘Franz Kafka Museum ’.
I asked my friend if he knew who Franz Kafka and he did not. We began to speculate what he had done that was worthy of a museum. My friend agreed that there was something unique about the look in his eyes and we speculated what it might be. Then, with our annoyingly inadequate phone signal we started to look up information about him.
After a while doing this, we had learned a little about his life but had many more questions. Both of us agreed that our curiosity was great enough to make the small investment in time and money and go and have a look.
When we got into the museum we were greeted with vast amounts of information about Kafka and his life. There were also extracts from his writing. As we progressed through the museum, we both began to feel a deep sense of empathy for him. Both of us commented on how deeply his words impacted us emotionally.
Kafka kept extensive journals throughout his life. He also wrote fiction that was is rich in symbolism and often interpreted as allegorical. As I read about his life and encountered his writing, I found myself wondering how much of his inner world found its way into those symbolic stories. Whether or not that was his intention almost seemed beside the point. The idea stayed with me.
Anyone who has been to Prague knows that it is a deeply creative place. During my stay, both this and other aspects of the trip inspired me creatively. When I got home, I had a burst of creativity. I was churning out writing, artwork and journal entries at a rate that I had never achieved before. I had already bought some of Kafka’s work from the museum shop but ordered his complete works. The more I read, the more I felt a deep connection with some of what he had written. My friend, he tells me, had a similar experience.
When I left Prague, a question had taken root. What if journaling did not have to be a direct account of events or emotions? What if it could instead become a place to explore thoughts and experiences through metaphor and allegory?
Over the next month, my own journal entries started to include more metaphors than ever before. Eventually, I started writing my experiences as a complete allegory and found that the distance this created was actually helpful. I gave it a working name – allegorical journaling. From there, it became a regular practice. Over time, I began to prefer this type of journaling. I began to spot patterns and themes in my journal entries that gave me deeper insights into the workings of my own mind.
Ideas often arrive like seeds. They are so small when they first land that they are almost impossible to notice. That afternoon in Prague, one such seed settled quietly into my imagination. I left the museum believing I had spent an afternoon learning about Franz Kafka. It took some time for this seed to grow into a realisation that I had stumbled across a new way of listening to my own mind.