Journaling is like talking to a psychiatrist - Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

What is Journaling?

Benefits of Journaling:

•       It releases stress and anxiety by writing your thoughts down. There is something magical that happens when you put your thoughts to paper, It’s as if the mind is holding on to many thoughts and ideas and when you write them down, it relaxes and feels that these ideas will never be lost in the fast paced rhythm of our modern life that is constantly demanding things to be done.
•       It helps us express any suppressed emotions that we may have held back to be polite or whatever. By just writing them down, it allows some sort of expressing and releasing of these feelings instead of having them lurk in the back of our minds and cause us anxiety.
•       It allows release of negative behaviors like envying for example; if someone is envying another and writes about it in their journal and fully allows themselves to express this envy without judgment, soon they will see it’s only hurting them and not benefiting because writing things down allows one to see exactly what they are engaging in and everything becomes clear allowing release for such negative behaviors and feelings.
•       It helps us know ourselves better and discover things about ourselves we didn’t know they were there.
•       It kind of helps us love ourselves and accept ourselves unconditionally because we are basically expressing what’s on our minds without holding back and that’s a form of self-love and acceptance.

Okay so how do we actually journal?

•       First of all, it needs to be done in a place where it’s quite and no one will interrupt you and in a time when you feel most relaxed and don’t have to do anything. I prefer right before sleeping so you clear your mind and your heart about the day before to you go to bed. Choosing the right place and the right time is necessary to help yourself really empty your mind without holding back.
•       It’s preferable to actually write using pen and paper because it feels more expressive but if you prefer digitally, by all means do it.
•      Write whatever comes to your mind without judgment no matter how silly or negative it is, just allow yourself total freedom to write it. Don’t be concerned with grammar or spelling or style; just write it’s for you and you alone, no one else will read it.
•      Keep writing as long as the pen flows, don’t stop yourself for any reason.
•      If you tend to suppress your feelings and emotions, you may find yourself experiencing some uncomfortable feelings and may even cry; that’s okay it’s just those suppressed emotions being released.
•      Make a note or a memo of things, we call it prompts, you come across in your daily life that you would like to explore in your journal. This helps when you decide to write about something but when it’s time to journal you completely forget what it was you wanted to write about.

Some Journaling prompts (or topics) to help you get started:

1. What do I really want? What will I do if money and time were not an issue?
2. What do I love about myself?
3. What are the things that I think I should do but I don’t really like to?
4. What emotions or feelings am I not allowing and trying to numb?
5. What are the things that make me feel good right away?
6. How am I feeling today?