By Books Author Denise Turney

Journal writing aids self-discovery because it’s a safe way to be curious about yourself. Yet, that’s not all. Writing in a journal is a form of personal research. Although you can just start writing freestyle. To dig deeper inside your psyche, there are certain types of journal writing that might prove more helpful.

Topical Journal Writing

Topical journal writing is when you identify a specific topic or experience that you want to write about. For instance, if you realize that you have developed a pattern of being attracted to jobs or people who leave you feeling drained and taken advantage of, you could write about this pattern.

Reaching the point of self-discovery calls for freestyle writing about the pattern. Keep your writing focused on the pattern. Ask probing and clarifying questions. Types of questions you could ask yourself include:

• When did I start feeling attracted to relationships, work and/or personal, that generate feelings of fatigue and abuse?
• Why did it take me so long to realize that I had developed this pattern? Am I trying to hide something from myself? What am I trying to protect myself from?
• Do I remember feeling fatigued or uncomfortable around someone when I was a kid? What was this person like?
• How can I start to interrupt then break this pattern while loving myself and others?

Self-Discovery Support

Should your psyche currently be fragile, consider working with an ethical, licensed and experienced therapist as you do this work. Also, pay attention to your dreams (more about dreams later).

Return to topical journal writing as you continue the art of self-discovery. This is not a one-and-done process. Instead, it’s a lifelong journey.

Age Stage Journal Writing Descriptions

Use your journal to create descriptions of yourself at different ages. As an example, you could write a description of the preschool you. Write about your preschool self until you feel there is nothing left to write. Other ages you could write about in your journal are:

• What you were like when you were in the third grade (Write about key experiences you had, friends and how you perceived yourself.)
• Middle school (What were the middle school years like for you? How smoothly did you transition from elementary school to middle school?)
• High school years (Looking back, were your high school years fun and exciting, a time of adventure? Did you struggle to feel like you belonged? Had you started to take smart risks or were you living on the edge?)
• College life (If you went to college, how did you perceive life while you were in college? Was this a time when you entered a serious romantic relationship? Had you discovered one or more of your passions by this time?)
• Adulthood (Within adulthood, you could write about your late 20s or what it was like to become a parent, if you have children. Other experiences you could write about include jobs you worked and why you choose those particular jobs.)

Link Between Family History and Journaling Self-Discovery

Learning more about your family is part of the path to self-discovery. Similar to the way elders once wrote family genealogy in the family Bible, you could use your journal to write about your genealogy. In addition to writing down your family tree, write about your relationship with family members you had close and distant relationships with.

As you continue to write, don’t be surprised if you find links between what you write about a certain stage in your life and a relationship you have with one or more family members. For instance, you might have spent a lot of time with your maternal grandmother during your elementary and middle school years.

Your grandmother’s courage and her work in the family and community, how she empowered others, might have had a great impact on you. Her smarts and the way she communicated with relatives, neighbors and other community members might have inspired the good works that you do where you live.

Fun with Journaling

The longer you engage in journal writing, the more you will notice how you’re changing. Continue to ask yourself probing questions. To get the most out of journal writing, be courageous enough to be completely honest with yourself.

Make writing in a journal fun too. Regarding self-discovery, there may be fewer ways to peek inside your subconscious than it is to write down your dreams. If you rarely recall your dreams when you wake, keep your journal and a pen at your bedside.

Jot down notes about your dreams as soon as you have them and start to awaken. When it comes to dreams that you recall just before you get out of bed for the day, take time to write down the full details of those dreams.

Lifelong Journal Writing

The more you write about the details of your dreams in your journal, the more you might recall your dreams. And you won’t just recall your dreams, you might recall greater details in your dreams. Once this happens, you might spot symbols, patterns and recurring themes in your dreams.

There may be fewer effective ways to watch your subconscious thoughts at work. Another benefit associated with this type of journal writing is the ability to become aware of future events. As surprising as it might sound, you could very well be your best friend, looking out for yourself, preparing yourself for the future.

By Fiction and Nonfiction Books Writer Denise Turney

Daily journal writing advantages aren’t just for adolescents and teens. Gone are the days when journaling is merely used as a way for teens to document intense feelings they hold for a classmate, a relative or a hidden crush. In fact, approximately one out of six people writes in a journal today, according to Psychology Today. Reasons for daily journaling vary.

Journaling Hidden Advantages

So too do the benefits. As an example, people journal to document their night dreams, track fitness progress and to capture major life experiences. Opportunity to work through hard emotions and “stuck” thought patterns are other benefits associated with journal writing. These advantages may be gained because writing offers clarity.

You have to focus and be more present while you write in a journal. Furthermore, writing activates the brain’s reticular activating system (RAS). Also, the frontal lobe part of your brain is activated while you write. As you write, you also activate your brain’s parietal lobe. But who thinks about the brain while writing? Those are hidden advantages.

More Daily Journal Writing Benefits

Here are more, less hidden, advantages that you may bring into your life after you start a daily journal writing practice. Some of these advantages could have long term impact on your mental health.

• Improved memory – Because journaling activates brain lobes, the act can find you focusing better, easier. As your focusing improves, so too might your ability to recall.
• Dream clarity – Writing down night dreams can help you to remember your dreams more. Try it. See if you don’t start to not only remember your night dreams but to also recall details in your dreams. On top of this, because dreams can hold keys to the future as well as guidance on what you should do now, recalling dream details can let you know whether you should take that new job. That, or details in your dreams could signal to you if a relationship is rewarding or dangerous. Those are just two examples of how journaling could prove helpful.
• Expanding communication – Keep writing, with or without journal prompts, and don’t be surprised if your vocabulary grows. Another takeaway that might not be surprising affects your overall writing skills. The more you write in a journal, the easier it may be for you to create pictures in readers’ minds, express emotions and convey important messages.

Capture Your History

This next journaling benefit snuck by me until I crossed paths with another journal writer. Our paths crossed during an Off The Shelf interview. During the interview, the guest shared that he not only wrote in a journal, but would occasionally return to former journals, re-reading passages.

He paid attention to what had been happening in his life when he seemingly randomly flipped to a page in an older journal. Another action that he took was to re-read journal writings, passages that he had written three, five or more years earlier, in order to spot patterns in his life.

Using journal writing to spot life patterns, including patterns that could be keeping me from goal achievement, had not before dawned on me. After that realization, I sat down and started looking through older journals, looking for hidden clues, patterns.

Honesty Matters

This is just one reason why daily journaling to capture your history can be beneficial over the long term. Pay attention to how you feel while journal writing, not just while you are actually writing but also how you feel days and weeks after you start writing in a journal.

As with other life practices, it’s important to be honest while daily journaling. The more expressive and honest you are while writing, the deeper the benefits could be. All of this is not to say that life will iron itself out or become easier after you start daily journaling.

However, expressing your thoughts, fears, challenges, successes and courage while writing in your journal could help you to feel heard. It could help you to better process experiences and perceptions. And, it can help you to capture your personal history, potentially spotting patterns, including patterns that have been holding you back.

Resources
https://www.bing.com/search?q=how+many+people+write+in+journals&cvid=b2eec6c462254972b27ac3f89a97c5db&aqs=edge..69i57j0j69i64.8144j0j1&pglt=675&FORM=ANNTA1&DAF1=1&PC=HCTS (Psychology Today)

By Fiction and Nonfiction Author Denise Turney

People living with a belief in innocence may find it easier to trust than people who have experienced trauma, betrayed trust or a string of disappointments. In part, this may be because people who have lived in an environment of collaboration, honest communication and cooperation have had proof that there are people in the world who they can depend on and trust.

These Experiences Build and Deepen Trust

Types of experiences that build and deepen trust always include honesty. You might not be told all the details related to a project, meeting, etc. But what is shared with you will be the truth. Furthermore, details that might be withheld won’t be withheld to use as leverage or to manipulate you.

A good example of this is when you tell a child that you’re driving to the beach on tomorrow to enjoy the day if it doesn’t rain. You might not tell the child how long the trip will take, which road you’ll be driving down or when you plan to stop to fuel up your vehicle.

If it doesn’t rain and you do, in fact, drive to the beach with the child and have loads of fun enjoying the ocean, warm sunshine and sand, you could build trust between the child and you. Do the opposite and the results could be devastating, especially if you make breaking promises a habit.

Why Courage Counts More Than You Might Realize

Now, imagine that you’ve put your trust in someone only to be disappointed. Even if you don’t want to doubt people, you could start to find it hard to trust. Not only could you find it hard to trust the person who broke her promise to you, over time, you could find it challenging to trust anyone.

As hard as this outcome is, it could be even more painful to use courage and invest trust in someone who betrayed your trust only to have this person fail to deliver on a promise again. However, it doesn’t have to end there. In fact, what if you could help restore betrayed trust?

For instance, what would you do if for vacation you drove to an area with miles of open land, a wide countryside, and, while on vacation, you happened upon a young man who clearly was distressed? Once you confirmed that the guy was clear of bad intentions, would you help him?

Or would you turn away from courage and leave the distressed man on his own? What would you do if you took this latter option and a day later read in the newspaper that the guy perished?

Are You a Bridge?

Whether you realize it or not, you might have countless opportunities to build and deepen trust. One way that you could do this is to gain firsthand experiences that require you to exercise courage by giving yourself the chance to trust another person.

Another way that you could do this is to help another person restore their betrayed trust. Back to the parenting example, if someone has repeatedly betrayed your child’s trust, you could be a bridge between your child and that person. That way your child wouldn’t have to deal with the person directly, potentially reducing or eliminating future harm.

Secondly, you could create more opportunities to build your child’s trust. Revisiting the beach example, you could spend an uninterrupted hour three days a week with your child engaging in loving, safe activities. Do this and you’d be keeping promises and demonstrating that exhibiting the courage to trust another person is not bad or unintelligent.

Help restore betrayed trust and you could be doing a great work. Don’t think so?

Will You Restore Betrayed Trust?

Consider the times when you lost trust in someone. Simply recalling how it felt to be disappointed and discouraged may be enough to see how powerful restoring someone’s trust is. To help restore trust, you might have to practice awareness.

In other words, you might have to look beyond the surface. Instead of seeing someone as being needy, afraid or aloof, you might be advantaged if you start to consider why and how the person became the way that he is. If you consider that the person might have had his trust betrayed numerous times, you could see a seemingly “inconvenience” (a person asking for help, a runaway hiding in your garage, etc.) as a great opportunity to restore betrayed trust.

It takes Clarissa (Escaping Toward Freedom) time to get here, to realize what’s in front of her. Yet, she does learn. Healing one another requires awareness and the willingness to restore betrayed trust with love, courage and patience. Look around. There are so many safe opportunities to restore betrayed trust.