I am always amazed at the impact of journal writing. I was at Barnes and Noble with a friend the other day. We were talking about how sometimes problems keep going around and around in our head. This causes us to become stressed or lose sleep. But, once we write down our problems or the conversations we are having in our head, we can go on with our life.
With the loss of my son, I journaled out my feelings every day. I feel angry that… I feel sad that… I feel guilty about… I feel fearful about… Grief can also put you in a mind frame where you go mull over certain things over and over and over. I find once I emptied it onto the paper, my mind let go of it. A very freeing feeling. I have been journaling since I was 13 and believe it kept my sanity more than once.
Other benefits of journaling:
- Self-awareness
- A life history
- A place for dreams and goal-setting
- A place to list your gratitudes
- Improve your focus
- Shows you patterns in your life
- Identifies your values and what is important to you
- Shows you where you need to improve your boundaries
- Can be fun and a stress reliever
- Helps you make decisions
- Clarifies problem-solving
- Helps you go through problems until you reach other solutions
- Awakens your creativity
Here is a great article on beginning your journaling. It tells you how to choose your journal, where to write and how to get started. If you want to kick start your writing here are a year’s worth of journaling prompts
What is on your mind?
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Photo by Shorts and Longs
Beth, you’ve always taught me that journalling empties my busy mind. I still have that one red journal – it has less than a quarter full but it’s all at stages of my life when I needed some stillness 🙂
I’ve recently started regular “Morning Pages” – three pages of stream of consciousness writing first thing in the morning. (As advocated and made popular by Julia Cameron in her book, “The Artists Way”.) I’ve been surprised how much stuff was circling in my head, and how much the act of sitting down to make myself write first thing in the morning – even when I think I don’t have anything to write – has made my days SO much calmer. Writing / Journaling is such a healthy practice. Thanks for the encouraging reminder.