Hello and welcome back to the road to mental wellness. This week we will cover journaling. As a kid as well as on and off throughout my adult life, I kept a journal. At one point it even had a name (Eva) and it was like I was writing to a best friend that only I had. When you were a teenager, you too might have kept a diary or a journal.
It was a safe place to confess your struggles and fears without judgment or punishment. It likely felt good to get all of those thoughts and feelings out of your head and down on paper. The world seemed clearer. You may have stopped using a diary once you reached adulthood. The concept and its benefits still apply to us as adults. Now though, it’s generally referred to as simply journaling. It’s writing down your thoughts and feelings to understand them more clearly.
If you struggle with stress, depression or anxiety, keeping a journal can be a great idea. It can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health. Journaling is a safe place for you to reflect on yourself and process emotions that may be heavily weighing on you. Maybe you are wondering what you should journal about?
It’s your journal; Write about your problems, fears, and concerns to allow yourself to think more clearly and overcome them. Anything that brings you joy, describing a time or place when you felt happy, ways to overcome your fears, daily affirmations, things that you are grateful for, goals and ways to achieve those goals, anything that is on your mind!
Journaling is a habit to develop, not something that comes naturally to everyone. At the end of the day, sit down and write a few lines in a journal. You can set a limit of 5-15 minutes or five sentences so you don’t get overwhelmed. Personally, when I feel like I need to get my feelings out but am unsure how to begin, I sit down with my journal and pen and write about the weather or something simple, then I continue to write about small things until eventually my feelings as well as my emotions begin to flow from me into paper.
This technique is known as “ Flow Journaling”. Write a little bit daily, but don’t put pressure on yourself if you miss a day or two. Be in the moment and don’t beat yourself up for what was, which can create unwanted stress. Junk journaling and collage journaling are a couple other ways to journal. Journaling can be rewarding and creative as well as fun!
If you want to start a journal there are many options and all are beneficial to your mental health. I’ve kept all of mine over there years and I like to go back and read past ones. I re-live memories that I had forgotten about, see (through words) how much I’ve grown as a person and the obstacles that at the time thought I’d never overcome as well as events I thought I’d never recover from.
Some people even keep their journal handy wherever they go! If you can think it, you can create it! If you want, you can look online at ways to journal such as the ones I mentioned above. I hope your week is an awesome one. Until we meet again, I’m Desert Rose signing off and I wish you all good mental health.
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