One might wonder, why journal?  Why not journal?  Journaling is suggested, recommended and done for many reasons.  Journaling allows you to document what happens in your life, it can help validate your existence, offer a better understanding of a situation or repeated experience, helps purge pain and anguish that you are feeling, gives a space to release what is inside of you- somewhere, somehow. As Maya Angelou has shared “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”  So many of us bottle up emotions, feelings and experiences, thinking if we can just push it down or push it aside it won’t need to be dealt with anytime soon, if ever.  We know how that plays out, don’t we?  

Things start to bubble back up to the top; maybe through small reactive expressions, frustration, anger, lashing out, sadness, pain, tiredness, headaches, lack of patience or drive, deep dread, weight gain or weight loss, sorrow, stress, interrupted sleep patterns, unhealthy choices, etc.  

 

“A journal is your completely unaltered voice.” -Lucy Dacus

 

Wherever you go, there you are.  So no matter how fast you try to run, no matter how many times you try to get away, no matter how you try to busy yourself, no matter if you think you are reinventing yourself, it will always be with you.  Waiting for the time to surface, to be worked through, unpacked, released, weight lifted and healed.

 

You can use your journal in so many ways, write just to write, have specific things you want to focus on, a way to share your experiences. Author Natalie Goldberg suggests writing what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about.  Be willing to split open. Could you find peace from what you are most scared of revealing?  What if there was freedom on the other side of that fear?  Would you allow yourself to go there?

 

Journaling can have many benefits like; reduce stress and anxiety, track goals, show growth and progress, work out conflicts internally before you take it externally, possible improvement on communication, understanding issues or concerns better, to find inspiration and to have more gratitude in your life.  An example of gratitude, if you write in your journal each day in the morning or at the end of the day of things you are grateful for, when you look back at it, you are surrounded and bathed in blessings, love and things to feel good about.

 

If you don’t know where to start, you can try “Flash journaling”.  It’s just putting pen to paper and writing.  No editing, no thinking twice, just connect to the paper and share yourself.  Write until you can’t write anymore.  Write until you see where it takes you. Allow your writing to be a voyage to the interior of your soul. If you want, you can also ask yourself questions and just write your response- connecting with your heart and your body.  Start somewhere, see what happens.  Allowing yourself a space of pure honesty, real expression and full vulnerability.

 

“Start writing, no matter what.  The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” -Louis L’Amour