Journaling is one of the most powerful and helpful ways to express your thoughts, emotions and new ideas. The daily stress of life makes it hard to get even the smallest window of privacy and decompression. Through journaling, you can pause time for just a moment and allow yourself to let everything come to the surface without fear of judgment or criticism from others.
It’s difficult to feel like you have trusted people in your life who will fully listen to you and understand the hardships you are facing. Even with the greatest friends or family anyone can have, feeling like a burden for needing to express yourself whether through anger, sadness or both can cause more complications to unfold in your life. Using journaling as a way to vent and unpack all of your stress, whether it be from relationships, school, work or even outside stressors like the current state of our nation, your pen and notebook will always be there to listen.
Journaling can come in many forms and multiple methods of logging your day-to-day thoughts. As someone who uses both digital and physical forms of writing in a diary, both are extremely effective in organizing your current emotions and mental state.
When writing in a journal, it is always important to note the date and time when you are writing your entry. In doing so, you create a timestamp of your life and something that you will always be able to look back on to see how things have changed since then and the growth you have accomplished.
When writing in your journal, many people feel pressured to make it sound sophisticated and well thought out, but that is exactly the opposite of what a journal needs to be. I like to relate journaling to when we would be given a random prompt in middle school and told to free-write for five minutes. Whatever comes to your mind, whatever you feel the need to let out, you put it on paper and just let your ideas flow.
The art of journaling comes from the beauty of letting your mind be completely open and succumbing to the stressors your conscience tries to push away. Being vulnerable and unashamed of who you are in the present time, makes for real-life art.
Using journaling as a form of therapy can also be beneficial when it comes to self-awareness and healing from past hardships or traumas. You will learn a lot about yourself, and it will force you to confront any mistakes or personal challenges that get in the way of your happiness. In some situations, we aren’t able to recognize a pattern of repeating history in our lives, through journaling forces you to recognize certain adjustments you need to make towards things that don’t serve you in the most positive way.
Although journaling is a great tool to use to improve mental health and get to know yourself on a deeper level, it’s also just a fun hobby to have! Writing is the greatest creative outlet there is, and even better when writing for yourself and only you to see.
Coming up with fresh and exciting perspectives on your life by forming new opinions or ideas on your next steps toward the future can all be documented through journaling. Your dreams and ambitions, no matter how far out of reach they seem, can always become a reality if you believe you are worthy of it. Which you are! Journaling is a form of manifestation, and the more you think about what you want to achieve for yourself, the more likely it is to come true.
Don’t let yourself feel pressured or disappointed if you aren’t able to put aside time each day to write in your journal. This should be a stress-free activity, and sometimes life gets too busy to make time for yourself. Just know that if you are ever feeling the weight of the world get to you, your journal will always be there to lend you a hand and remind you that you always have a place to run to.