By Self-Help Books Author Denise Turney (www.chistell.com)

Journaling can yield deeper personal understanding, peace, reduced anxiety, and improved mental clarity. The benefits appear so simply that, if you’re not paying attention, you could miss how much you’ve gained from journal writing. This may be what happened to me.

Journaling in a Diary

When I was a kid, I started writing in a diary. Back then, it seemed as if diary writing went hand-in-hand with being a young girl. My paternal grandmother might have been the first person to give me a diary. Straightaway I started writing about crushes I had, TV shows, and fun I’d had playing outside with my siblings and friends.

Later, I wrote about track races I trained for and competed in.  Looking back, I wish that I had continued writing in a diary and, even more, that I’d had kept the writings. If I had, I would have insight into my childhood that is more accurate than memory.

Fortunately, a colleague would give me a set of journals for Christmas years later. That’s when I started journaling with intent and commitment. Because I’d been given the journals as a gift, I told myself that I had to write in them.

Benefits Gained from Journaling

More than 20 years later, I’ve filled in well over 25 blank journals. Dreams, challenges, life changes, vacation experiences, and relationships have been written about in my journals. More than filling out blank journals, I’ve gained far reaching benefits. Among these benefits, there’s:

• Insight into what’s coming (this has often come through writing down dreams)
• Ability to express uncomfortable emotions (e.g., fear, jealousy, anger) without blowing up on anyone
• Opportunity to record personal history (this single act can help me to spot harmful habits, behavioral or thought-based, and start to work to release the habits)
• Strengthen my writing skills
• Improve self-confidence which, in turn, improves communication skills and personal relationships

You could tap into these and other benefits too. According to Healthline, journaling helps you to understand your needs. Other benefits include lowering stress and improving the perception you hold of yourself.¹

Journaling and Depression

Psychology Today shares that regularly writing could help to keep depression at bay.² If you’re seeking to stabilize emotions, writing in a journal might pay off. As you continue to write openly and in freestyle fashion, your creative juices might also start to flow.

Once this happens, ideas about a new novel, photography project, crafts assignment, or communication strategy may surface. Here are more advantages that you could gain after you start writing in a journal regularly:

• Improve your memory – Psychology Today shares, “Keeping a diary can help improve your memory, as you can reflect on past experiences and remember details that may have been forgotten. Writing stories down can facilitate memory and serve as a reminder of the meaningful things that happen in your life.”²
• Manage mental health – Writing challenges and concerns down is an effective way to release worries. Once you get what’s been worrying you into your journal, you no longer need to keep the experience “secret”. This doesn’t mean that you tell anyone else what you’ve experienced or what you’ve been thinking. It means that you’ve freed yourself from suppressing the experience in your own mind.
• Increased energy – The former benefit raises another plus. After you free yourself from the effort of suppressing, you can access the energy that you’d been using to keep the worry “hidden” and use that energy to do love-based work.

Linking Hints About the Future to Journal Writing

Since thinking and action require energy, writing in a journal to give yourself access to increased energy is a far-reaching benefit. In turn, access to increased energy could give you a motivational boost.

Even if you don’t become keenly aware of the benefits gained from journaling, as you continue writing in a journal, you can consciously or unconsciously spot positive shifts in yourself. On the other hand, if you’re in the habit of practicing self-awareness, there’s a strong likelihood that you will link certain benefits with journaling.

Should you receive prophetic dreams, visions or strong intuitive guidance, writing these experiences in your journal could provide clues to what’s coming next. For instance, you might notice that one or more dream symbols (e.g., a specific animal, plant, word) appear in your dreams weeks before a job change, residential move, or relationship shift.

What About Trauma and Journaling?

There may be no way to fully tell you how advantageous journaling is. Not only might you gain clues to coming events, as you look back over prior journal entries, you may come to understand yourself more fully.

Psych Central also shares that journaling could help you move through trauma. More specifically, Psych Central reports that, “a 2015 research paper explains that consistent expressive writing may help reduce PTSD symptoms. It also suggests that writing at length about a traumatic or stressful event can help manage PTSD symptoms.”³

However, if you do use journaling to work process through trauma, consider reaching out to an experienced, licensed, and ethical therapist, especially if the journal writing proves to be triggering. After all, the point of journaling is to heal and become more fully aware of the “real” you.

Types of Writing Journals

Although we’ve shared numerous journaling benefits, you might discover more advantages linked to journaling. If you’re wondering how to get started with journaling, the process is simple. All you need to do is get a blank journal. You might use a digital journal. Should you choose a digital journal, remember that you could lose what you’ve written if the electronic device you journal with breaks permanently.

Yet, in today’s electronic world, a digital journal could prove to be a great fit for you. Retailers, bookstores, and crafters design and sell blank paper journals. These blank-page journals are designed with brilliant, clever, and beautiful covers.

Consider choosing a journal with a cover that inspires, encourages, and motivates you to keep writing in the journal and that also inspires you to continue to practice self-awareness, share love, and awaken. Next, determine how often you’re going to write in your journal.

Getting Started with Journaling

For example, are you going to journal daily or weekly? Or are you going to write in your journal after you have a dream or while you’re working through a difficult shift?

As a tip, the more you write in your journal, the more you may capture what you’ve been thinking, feeling, and experiencing. Again, it’s a combination of these three that can help you come to know your authentic self more fully.

Try it! See if you spot positive inner growth after you’ve been journaling for several weeks or for several months. Also, if you do write your dreams in a journal, don’t be surprised if you start remembering your dreams (and in greater detail) more frequently. It’s a great way to know what your subconscious mind is focusing on! It’s a great way to begin to heal.

Resources:

1. 15 Benefits of Journaling and Tips for Getting Started (healthline.com)
2. 10 Good Reasons to Keep a Journal | Psychology Today
3. The Mental Health Benefits of Journaling | Psych Central

By Motivational Speaker and Books Writer Denise Turney (www.chistell.com)

Image by 성원 조 from Pixabay

Each day offers you the opportunity to receive a miracle. Don’t think so? You might be overlooking the good that’s nearby. Here’s an example in the form of a question. When’s the last time that you saw your nose?

In Your Face

Now, this is not to demonstrate that being aware of your nose is a miracle. Instead, it’s to show that there are fortunate happenings right in front of you that you don’t notice or pay attention to. Furthermore, not only might you overlook miracles, you could take a blessing for granted.

Check out these everyday miracles that you might be overlooking. If you don’t overlook these fortunate experiences, you might diminish their worth, seeing them as ordinary or expected events.

• The right name popping into your mind seconds after you try to recall the name of a friend, neighbor or relative you haven’t seen or spoken to in years
• A friend calling or visiting you within seconds of you deciding to give up and their telephone call or visit serving as the event that led you down a fulfilling life path
• Agreeing to take a later flight to accommodate an overbooking and receiving a free airline ticket that you have up to a year to use.
• Speedy recovery following an accident or injury
• Clear signs that you will benefit from resting and enjoying life instead of pushing yourself to complete another work project
• Dreams that offer guidance on what you should do now to advance on your life’s journey
• Genuine smiles and care that you receive from friends, family, colleagues and strangers
• Your favorite song suddenly playing on the radio just when a pang of hopelessness came over you

Sharpen Up

Clearly, just because you don’t notice them, that doesn’t mean that miracles aren’t popping up around you. Therefore, as a first step to open to more success and greater good, sharpen your awareness. Here’s a way to do that within seconds.

• Count three events, sounds or scents at your living space each morning
• Walk through your living space and count each light source, including windows
• Pay attention to how often plants or pets thrive while they are with you and vice versa
• Become aware of how many different foods and beverages your body digest absent discomfort every day

Another way to sharpen your awareness is to listen to the sound of a speaker’s voice, picking up the slightest inflection. It also helps to actually listen to people while they speak with you. Even if someone tends to repeat a phrase, when you actively listen to that person, you might hear what they are saying for the first time.

Check Your Miracle Beliefs

In addition to sharpening your awareness, to open to more success and greater good, check your beliefs. For instance, these beliefs could make the path to opening to success challenging. If you believe that you must work hard or long hours to receive success, this could lay out a hard road (something that isn’t necessary).

Also, if you believe that you have to do everything yourself, it could take longer to achieve success. Had you believed that you could trust others, you might have built a reliable, experienced team and cut the time that it took to open to more success in half.

Regarding beliefs, be willing to approach success plans in small actions. This could keep you free of stress and burnout. To avoid stress and burnout, take regular breaks. Actually plug an hour of relaxation into your day.

Daily Motivation Tips

It might not look like it, but adequate rest and relaxation are key success components. So too is motivation. For you, motivation might come in the form of a song, poem, book, discussions with a friend, camping, swimming or nature walk.

Read motivational quotes when you start feeling like success will always be out of reach. And count those seemingly small miracles. After all, like your nose, success can go unnoticed, but that doesn’t mean that good isn’t right in front of you, which brings up a final point. Recognize your forward steps, celebrating the completion of each activity that opens you to more success, greater good.

By Premium Writer Denise Turney (www.chistell.com)

Consider your passion. This is an activity that you absolutely love engaging in. Could be in the creative arts, business, technical, scientific, social or educational field. For instance, you might love spending hours working in a dark room, developing new photographs. Even if you made a lot of money from your passion, there may be no bigger reward than the joy that you feel while you’re deeply involved in your passion.

Avoid The Trap

No amount of money may center you in that type of joy. If you already pursue your passion, you probably are familiar with this. Yet, in this world, you could miss this fact and start chasing external approval, awards or titles. Even more, you could start seeing your passion as primarily a means to bring more and more money into your home.

For certain, you wouldn’t be the first to do this. As much as I don’t like to say it, I fell into this trap, lingering in the trap for several years. If I didn’t sell a lot of books, I told myself that it wasn’t worth it to write a new book.

Fortunately, I shifted out of this trap. After I was out of this snare, I realized that the more important thing was to “do the work”. Makes good sense to me now.

After all, without the work, there are slimmer chances of getting to the book sales success that I want. But, there was another lesson that was birthed in the realization that “doing the work” was the more important goal.

It’s So Simple

And, that other lesson was the importance of valuing how engaging in my passion helped to open me up to joy. Spend five minutes in joy and you might come to see that there’s no better feeling than joy. Add to that how easy it is to get into joy simply by engaging in your passion.

Talk about your passion being a blessing. For this reason, be encouraged to return to your passion. Should you not return to your passion, you could rob yourself of a lot of joy and satisfaction. Let that occur and no amount of work, food or sleep might feel like enough.

Sounds simple.

However, it’s not always so simple.

Stop Avoiding Passion

This is a busy world, full or responsibilities, deadlines and distractions. Get distracted or caught up in other “safe” or “comfortable” pursuits and years could pass without you even thinking about your passion, let alone engaging in it. In fact, you might even convince yourself that you just don’t have time to pursue your deepest passions.

Should this be where you are right now, consider pausing. Think about the power and the importance of joy. There’s a wealth of power in joy. Then, start to search for activities to spend less time with, making room to engage in your passion. Of course, do this with love. In other words, don’t cut down the time that you spend with your family.

Find The Time

Instead, carve out “meaningless” activities, things that you do merely to fill up time. Take this rediscovered time and focus on what you truly love to do. The payoff might be greater than you could ever imagine.

You have to make the shift though. It really is true that you won’t know what could come of your passions if you don’t work them. What you do could bless you, those around you and generations to come.

Here’s to finding the time to pursue your deepest passions.