Journaling to me has served as a powerful life tool. Journaling is an ancient tradition, one that dates back to at least 10th century Japan. Successful people throughout history have kept journals. Our forefathers (and mothers) did know a thing or two. I have throughout my life have done my own journaling. My doctors recommended that I continue journaling after my stroke. There is increasing evidence to support the notion that journaling has a positive impact on physical well-being. The act of writing accesses your left brain, which is analytical and rational. While your left brain is occupied, your right brain is free to create, intuit and feel. In sum, writing removes mental blocks and allows you to use all of your brainpower to better understand yourself, others and the world around you.
Begin journaling and begin experiencing these benefits:
How To Begin
Journaling will be most effective if you do it daily for about 20 minutes. Begin anywhere, and forget spelling and punctuation. Privacy is key if you are to write without censor. Write quickly, as this frees your brain from “shoulds” and other blocks to successful journaling. The most important rule of all is that there are no rules. Through your writing you’ll discover that your journal is an all-accepting, nonjudgmental friend. And she may provide the cheapest therapy you will ever get.
100 Benefits of Journaling Stress reduction:
Reduces the scatter in your life
Increases focus
Brings stability
Offers a deeper level of learning, order, action and release
Holds thoughts still so they can be changed and integrated
Processes your stuff in a natural and appropriate way
Releases pent-up thoughts and emotions
Empowers:
Disentangles thoughts and ideas
Bridges inner thinking with outer events
Detaches and lets go of the past
Allows you to re-experience the past with today's adult mind
Healing:
Heals relationships
Heals the past
Dignifies all events
Is honest, trusting, non-judgmental
Strengthens your sense of yourself
Balances and harmonizes
Recalls and reconstructs past events
Acts as your own counselor:
Integrates peaks and valleys in life
Soothes troubled memories
Sees yourself as a larger, important, whole and connected being
Leverages therapy sessions for better and faster results
Reveals and tracks patterns and cycles
Know yourself and your truth better:
Builds self confidence and self knowledge
Records the past
Brings out natural beauty and wisdom
Helps you feel better about yourself
Helps you identify your values
Reads your own mind
Aids in connecting causes to effects
Reveals the depths of who you are:
Reveals outward expression of yet unformed inner impulses
Creates mystery
Clarifies thoughts, feelings and behavior
Reveals your greater potential
Shifts you to the observer, recorder, counselor level
Reveals your processes - how you think, learn, create and use intuition
Creates awareness of beliefs and options so you can change them
Self-discovery:
Reveals different aspects of self
Helps you see yourself as an individual
Connects you to the bigger picture
Is a close, intimate, accepting, trusting, caring, honest, non-judgmental, perfect friend
Accesses the unconscious, subconscious and super consciousness
Finds the missing pieces and the unsaid
Helps rid you of the masks you wear
Helps solve the mysteries of life
Finds more meaning in life
Personal growth:
Enables you to live life to the fullest
Is fun, playful and sometimes humorous
Expresses and creates
Plants seeds
Starts the sorting and grouping process
Integrates life experiences and learnings
Moves you towards wholeness and growth, to who you really are
Creates more results in life:
Explores your spirituality
Focuses and clarifies your desires and needs
Enhances self expression
Enhances career and community
Allows freedom of expression
Offers progressive inner momentum to static unrelated events
Exercises your mental muscles:
Improves congruency and integrity
Enhances breakthroughs
Unfolds the writer in you
Maximizes time and business efficiency
Explores night dreams, day dreams and fantasies
Measures and tracks what is important
Easier problem solving:
Eases decision making
Offers new perspectives
Brings things together
Shows relationships and wholeness instead of separation
It’s flexible and easy:
Can be applied to clarify any issue in your life
Takes so little time to stop, pay attention and listen to yourself
Meets your needs, style, processing methods
Caters to left and right brained people
Has no rules - messiness, typos, poor writing are all OK
Is often self-starting and motivating and supplies its own energy
Enhances intuition and creativity:
Improves self trust
Awakens the inner voice
Directs intention and discernment
Provides insights
Improves sensitivity
Interprets your symbols and dreams
Increases memory of events
Captures your life story:
Teaches you how to write stories
Soothes troubled memories
Captures family and personal story
Stimulates personal growth
Improves family unity
Best of luck on your journaling journey!
Have you tried journaling as a coping mechanism?
What other coping mechanisms would you recommend?
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