Journaling guide and storyteller Antoinette McDonald joins the Day One Podcast for a conversation about slowing down, paying attention, and using journaling to orient through the year ahead.

Antoinette shares insights from more than a decade of teaching journaling workshops and retreats, including the metaphors and practices that help people feel more grounded, connected, and honest with themselves, especially in seasons that feel full or uncertain. The conversation includes her "Be the Elephant" approach, inspired by the wells elephants dig, and how those ideas can translate into everyday life through writing.

This episode explores journaling as a rhythm, the importance of remembrance, and a reflective end-of-year exercise that invites listeners to write from the perspective of their future self, offering a steady place to return to as the year unfolds.

Visit dayoneapp.com/podcast/episode-82-antoinette-mcdonald for more resources and links from this episode.

As we step into a new year, this episode offers a moment to pause, reflect, and look back. Over the past year, the Day One Podcast has been a space for thoughtful conversations about journaling: how it helps us pay attention to our lives, process what's hard, create space in a full world, and understand ourselves more deeply over time.

In this special New Year's episode, Kristen looks back on the first year of the podcast, sharing meaningful excerpts from conversations with writers, researchers, coaches, and everyday journalers. Together, these voices offer gentle reminders about why journaling matters, and how it can support us as we begin again.

Visit dayoneapp.com/podcast/episode-81 for more resources and links from this episode.

In this episode of the Day One Podcast, Kristen sits down with Katie Swanson, a yoga instructor and journaling guide who brings together movement, mindfulness, and writing in her in-person journaling workshops. Katie shares how her journaling practice began during extended travel, why yoga taught her how to face a blank page, and how slowing down can create space for insight and growth.

The conversation explores journaling as a companion through uncertainty, the role of breath and ritual in writing, and why community can transform a deeply personal practice. From restorative yoga and seasonal rhythms to creative blocks and returning to the page, Katie offers a grounded, compassionate perspective on what it means to show up—again and again—for yourself.

Visit dayoneapp.com/podcast/episode-80-katie-swanson for more resources and links from this episode.