Hello Traders.
Now that the holidays are over - and I hope you all had some great down time! - we can get back to the beginner blog posts.
T-Model Trader - Blog Post 6
The Journal(s)
The eminent
essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emersion once stated that in relation to his
young son’s death, that he could not “hold it any closer to his heart”. He was
saying that to the best of his ability, he was attempting to feel the intensity
of this experience to the fullest. The key to this statement is that he was
“actively engaging” in ways to find the means to feel it more so. He wanted the
anguish and sorrow to not just disappear, but to penetrate as deeply as
possible in order that he could allow the emotion to reach the greatest of
depths. What he didn’t want was to push this emotion away and banish it from
his personal experience.
As we all know, trading
can trigger a vast array of emotional responses. Successful trades trigger
emotions that we are all too happy to allow flood our being. We like this
feeling. Losses on the other hand, would be best if the accompanying feelings
could somehow disappear over the horizon.
This is where the
journals are a great asset.
Firstly, I
attempt to see what took place on the chart. This is the technical journal and
the practical side of trading. The questions are asked… “What did I miss”…..
“Was there in retrospect, certain factors that would have tipped the balance
and stopped me from entering that trade”…… “Did I miss a trade management
point”….or…. “Was it a good loss and just part of the trading paradigm”? If it
is a successful trade, then it is a matter of analyzing what I did correctly by
asking the mirror image of those questions… “What did I see that was correct”
etc. If it is a successful trade then try to emphasize this correct procedure
within me.
I do this part of
the journal writing these days by placing a folded piece of paper over the
computer screen at the point of entry so as to block out “everything” to the
right of that trade in my following morning review. On that piece of paper I
have written down several questions. Although I know what unfolded after the
trade entry, my attempt is to go back and relive that moment of analysis to
discern my thinking, beyond what I wrote down at the actual time in the live
environment.
This first set of
questioning arises out from the trading plan. It is fundamentally an analytical
undertaking and in a perfect world, should be without emotion involved. These
responses go into my technical journal. Although I now know these questions off
by heart, it is good for me to see them again and again as these questions are
continually driving home some very fundamental points about trade set-ups.
The second aspect
of my review writing is to probe my feelings and I do this mainly at the café and
in a separate journal, so I am away from not only the computer (no trade
screen) but also out of the house completely. I find this different location to
be truly valuable in gaining some clean emotional air.
This is the hard
part really. Like Emersion, I want to get as close to the feelings as I
possibly can in this part of the journaling. Questions like… “Do I feel like a
failure”…. “Am I just destined to screw this all up”…. “Why can’t I get
consistency” and so on are usually on the menu. I don’t have these questions
written down like the other ones, but in a similar way, they are all highly
familiar and repetitive.
These emotional
reactions are usually lacking in perspective and fall into a doom and gloom
reality very quickly. I know that it is important for me to get inside of them,
because it can feel like a thick fog and a total black out. But like all foggy
mornings, a beautiful blue sky (insight) usually awaits the clearing.
If it is that I
have a voice within me stating that I am a failure, then I really want to go
about exploring what that actually is. In my experience, the more that I
question these “self- defeating statements” usually the less impact that they
have. But in order to do so, it is necessary to get as close to them as
possible. So now, regarding losing trades, I go do an “Emerson” and don’t push
the feelings away.
One of the great
fallacies people have regarding coming to a counseling/therapy session is that
someone is going to provide them with a magic formula that will instantly
remove the issue at hand (Oh yes, that Holy Grail thing…again). The reality is
that the closer the troubling emotion can be held within, the less impact it
will have. There is that saying about “keeping your friends close and your
enemies even closer”. It is the exact same thing. I try to keep those emotions
related to losses as close as possible. .
I would also
suggest that this aspect of the journal be written by hand. I have seen this
over and over that those who write by hand seem to be able to connect with the
feelings better. I can only speculate and my thought is that there is a
physiological/somatic relationship in the action of handwriting, hence we all
have highly unique styles. Regardless of the “why”, I know that I can express
my feelings better when I hand write. When I type at the computer, my
brain/mind function kicks in more so and likes to play editor. Pen on paper is
non erasable. It is more primitive an action, which I believe has a greater
connectivity to the emotions. It is also more non-linear, in that we can change
the size of the writing easily, emphasizing certain words, writing on angles, drawing
pictures and so on.
Over the last
month of 2016, I literally saw my trading account go up and down repeatedly
that it appeared to be jogging on the spot. Frustration was one of my great trading
companions during this time.
Yet, if I step
back a little, I can also acknowledge that when I have had some losses, I have
also been able to rebound promptly and recoup my account. This in itself is a
truly worthy point to “hold as close as I can” inside me, as I can feel the
development of trading resilience taking place. Although I can be tossed about
in that trading storm, I can now see that I’m able to keep my head above water
and not drown. This is really important as I know I can easily fall prey to
intense doubt over my ability to trade successfully.
I had read many
times the need and benefits of a trading journal, yet it took me around 7
months or so to truly begin to use this medium wisely. However, I also see that
this is a part of a natural evolution and now take comfort in the progression taking
place.
In looking back,
the first half of 2016 journal entries were indeed quite thin in expression.
They were all rather lacking a depth of feeling. It was around October last
year that the journal writing began to find its groove and fell into place.
I have pondered
over this change that took place, as it is quite evident from the journal
entries that there was a major shift. I would attempt to describe losses in the
first half of last year as thou wearing a protective anti-contamination suit,
trying to get in and out as quickly as possible to avoid contact with the reality
taking place.
Then something
changed. I became more involved with each entry. I took more time. Maybe like
Emerson, I can only say in retrospect that I allowed those losses to sit within
as I attempted to find the words to describe the feelings.
A few weeks into
this stage I realized something highly important. I could see that my writing
volume had increased simply because I was seeing so much more on the chart.
There was no Ah-ha moment as such, but just a steady accumulation of insight
based upon the number of hours spent watching those candles form. With each and
every trading day, I had also been participating emotionally as well and the
signs of repetition were beginning to show. It was during this month that I
began to realize that I had taken yet another step in an ongoing deepening of the
trading experience. It is a time and interaction outcome.
The following
took place about 5 years ago.
I was attending a
Loss, Grief and Trauma counseling workshop/training. As part of the week long
process, we would do these interactive sessions with people, who were all past
clients of the workshop facilitator. They would come in, introduce themselves
and briefly explain the situation that they had experienced. As a group we
would take turns in creating a counseling scenario.
From the general
chatter afterwards, we all thought that we were doing ok. Then the final client
arrived on the last day.
She sat down and
introduced herself and continued with the following….. “Several years ago I got
into my car to go do some shopping, reversed out of the driveway, running over
and crushing my 2 year old son to death”.
At that moment,
it was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room as everyone
struggled to breathe. There hung this silence that no one had any idea how to
penetrate.
Thankfully….. the
facilitator stepped in.
This session
didn’t turn into a “demo” counseling, as they went on to explain how they went
about working through the loss, grief and trauma.
The women then told
us the singularly most important thing
that took place between them in those sessions, which also happened to be the
very first thing that the facilitator had said to her. That was…… “Tell me
about your son”.
What the
facilitator was doing was allowing the women to hold the experience of her son
as close as possible. It wasn’t about erasing. Nor about pushing the memory
away, but creating a space in order to “hold as close as possible her son”,
even if that memory is linked with pain. The woman stated that it was a truly
profound and life changing question to be asked.
A trading loss is
obviously not in this category, however it is still a loss and emotionally
impactful, especially in the developing times. The closer I get to these losses
the more I can disarm the emotional content that goes with it.
When I open my
big thick emotional journal, it is like I hear the words asking me in a similar
way…. “Tell me about the trading experience”.
The better I can
get at doing this battle in my journal the less likely I will do it on the
trading chart.
Till next time…
T-Model.
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