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