Making Room for Meaning: Journaling with Conflict Resolution Expert Grande Lum
Journaling helps clarify what matters for the director of Stanford’s Gould Center for Conflict Resolution and former head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service
The Navel Gazette’s “How I Journal” series asks journalers around the world how they sustain a personal writing habit. Today’s edition features Grande Lum, whose journaling practice helps him keep a clear mind in high-stakes conflict resolution.
I first discovered Grande’s enthusiasm for journaling when he replied to my LinkedIn poll about the best time to write. (Most common answer: “Whenever my mind is spinning.”) Although I had served as his editor on America’s Peacemakers, a chronicle of the DOJ’s Community Relations Service (CRS), the topic of a personal writing practice never came up.
As it turns out, like me, this national mediation leader and Stanford Law center director has been scribbling his thoughts in notebooks since he was a teenager. That vital habit ran in the background as he led the CRS under President Obama, co-founded the Divided Community Project at Ohio State, and joined the Rebuild Congress Initiative as a senior partner.
It was a treat to get this behind-the-scenes look at how journaling supports Grande’s clarity of thought.
Read on to see how he uses the practice to calm mental chaos, surface unexpected insights, and shape a life worth remembering.
“Why don't you write something down for yourself?”
Navel Gazette: I'm so excited to talk with you about journaling! You know, Grande, I've been journaling obsessively since I was 11 years old.
Grande Lum: Oh, I'm not as regular, but it has been incredibly important in my life. It’s a place to go when things go really well, or when things go really poorly. It’s an outlet in that way. It’s funny you never mentioned it.
NG: The thing is that by its nature, up until recently, it was something I did in complete solitude. And I felt like I had to keep “woo” things like journaling separate from my professional identity. But I think as a society we’re now acknowledging that being in touch with your internal experience is going to help you make better decisions. And especially in the age of AI, I am so enthusiastic about ensuring that people have that ability to discern what they individually think and feel.
GL: I definitely have been reflecting on how AI is taking away our need to think. Whereas writing helps you figure out what you think, right? It's the process of writing that gets you to an answer.
As one example, recently a law student was struggling with what job he should take. And I remember, with that first job, the decision feels like life or death.
So I said, “Why don't you write something down for yourself?”
I didn't say, journal. I just said, “Why don't you write?” He came back and said that was really helpful, because he had been in his own head, spinning around and around.
It reminds me of a Quaker tradition [clearness committees], in which someone presents a problem and the people around them support them by asking questions. They can only ask questions, and the person responds.
That’s really what I do with journaling. It’s a clarification process.
When did you start journaling?
Gosh, I would probably say high school. Possibly earlier. Initially, I would write when something bad was happening, or I was really struggling.
I don't think I ever consciously thought, “Oh, this is a great tool, this is good for me,” but I just would keep coming back to it.
I was shy and introverted, growing up. There were certain things I didn’t feel I could share, certainly not with my parents or my brother, or even with friends. So it just felt like my journal was a place to get those things outside of me. I would have this chaos in my head, and writing it down forced me to make sense of it.
I don't think I ever consciously decided, “Oh, this is a great tool, this is good for me,” but I just would keep coming back to it. It was something I did purely on my own. If any of my friends wrote, I don’t remember any of them saying so.
That’s awesome — so you were making your thoughts transparent to yourself, beginning to order them, getting past those mental loops. And it looks like it was also a space of sovereignty for you, a space that no one could touch.
Yes, I think that’s right. Growing up in my household, I had a very strong mother figure who was directing my life. I didn’t feel in control of things. It was hard for me to even come up with thoughts like “I hate this” or “I love this.”
You used the word “sovereignty,” and I think there’s something to that. Even now, there are so many things in life that require approval, consultation, negotiation. Whereas the journal is purely mine.
Even if I didn’t write the thought down, at least it made it to my conscious mind at that moment. It still brought clarity.
I did worry, back then, that my journal would be read, so I remember self-censoring quite a bit. But even if I didn’t write the thought down, at least it made it to my conscious mind at that moment. It still brought clarity.
I haven’t heard that before. Even if you didn’t feel comfortable writing something down, just being in the mental space where you can allow a thought to arise and register your awareness of it — that’s still valuable. Even if it doesn’t get recorded.
And that clarity starts to form something less chaotic and more linear.
Did journaling have a similar role in your professional life? I’m wondering if it supported your ability to stay calm while navigating high-pressure conflict resolution.
Definitely. I remember in the midst of Ferguson and the Michael Brown tragedy when my staff and I were faced with a lot of pressure from a variety of stakeholders, the benefits of writing my mixed thoughts and feelings down were immeasurable. There was something about taking that step from having all of that inside in my head and transferring it onto paper that took a load off.
When I reflect back on those situations now, I see journaling as a clarifying process, one that helps me see what matters, what I can act on, and what I might let go. Sometimes journaling helped me make a decision, and sometimes it just took a little bit of worry or weight off me. Having to write complete sentences helped slow my mind down and reduced all sorts of intruding thoughts. Sometimes it helped me get out of a downward cycle.
Having to write complete sentences helped slow my mind down and reduced all sorts of intruding thoughts.
Because, yes, there’s pressure from other people. In those situations, it could come from external parties, internal parties, colleagues, managers, and allies. But journaling helped me come to terms with the fact that the stress that’s hardest to deal with is the pressure I place on myself. Yes, it may emanate from others around me, but it’s how I take in others’ words and actions that really affects me. Journaling helps me separate that out.
I’ve been thinking how self-reflection really is a critical human function. We all need to perceive not just what is happening around us but also how we are thinking and feeling and reacting and what we’re saying to ourselves.
It’s interesting, I recently watched a TED talk about finding meaning in life, and there was one point she made that surprised me: the importance of storytelling.
But it makes total sense — we are telling a story about ourselves constantly. We change the story we tell about ourselves throughout our lives. At different points in our lives, and in different settings or groups, we rewrite our stories.
What about the story we tell ourselves about ourselves? That’s what journaling is, I think. You’re trying to figure out your own story.
I’ve noticed that, over time, that reflection process has been shifting for me.
In the beginning, I would write when I was sad or anxious or angry. But as I’ve gotten older, I’m more often coming to the journal when something really positive has happened. When I’m in that moment of joy, I just want to capture it for myself. Because it dissipates, and then it can be hard to remember.
When I’m in that moment of joy, I just want to capture it for myself.
It’s been the same for me, and actually all of the journalers I’ve talked to. At first it’s a way to make space for difficult emotions, and it still is that, but after some time we also start using the journal to consciously amplify our positive experiences.
It’s necessary because I will say, as I get older, there’s just so much that has happened and I cannot remember it all. So I want the ability to recall these moments when something feels really special. Photos do capture some things, which is why we all take a lot of photos! But there’s something distinct about capturing what goes on inside of you.
That’s how you tell yourself the story of yourself, isn’t it? It’s made up of memories, and we can choose which ones we keep. I love your strategy of writing down the joy, so that it becomes part of the story.
Final question: What advice would you give to people who want to journal more?
Okay, I have two ideas. One thing that worked for me when things were really busy was writing myself emails. I would even do that on my phone. Just write an email to myself about whatever happened and how I was feeling.
The other thing I tried was during the pandemic. We were all cooped up and for something active to do I started shooting free throws. In my journal, I would track how many I shot and how many I made every day, and then that was something that would reliably bring me to my journal.
So it might help to have something to track that gets you writing each day. Great ideas! Now I have to ask, how many free throws did you make?
I made 100 in a row three times. And I made 1,990 shots out of 2,000, so 99% accuracy.
Wow, I never would have suspected that was your secret talent. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with the Navel Gazette!
I don’t think I’ve actually ever talked about journaling before. It was fun!
Loved that it was a place he could safely house his negative experiences. I'm intrigued that the positive emotions are what showed up later. Not how I thought it was going to go.