Journaling provides us with a space to confess our feelings about almost anything and anyone in the world. It gives us a free space to express our feelings and emotions in the form of words. It gives us a written expression to our emotions and this exercise helps us with processing the myriad of emotions we are feeling. It’s simply writing down your thoughts and feelings to understand them more clearly and if you struggle with stress, depression, or anxiety, keeping a journal can be a great idea. It can assist you in recognizing and regulating your emotions and improve your mental health.
Some of the key benefits of journaling are that it can help us prioritize problems, fears, and concerns. It also helps keep a track of patterns and triggers whilst allowing space for positive self-talk and identification of unhealthy behaviors.
Steps to Keep in Mind:
- Try to be regular and consistent.
- Make sure there’s an easy flow of thoughts.
- You can even draw, doodle, and write poetry or any other forms of expression.
So how do you start a diary? There are three simple ways. First, you can write to somone who is no longer with you, a grandparent, parent, friend… Tell them how your days was, what you did, how you felt…
Second, you can write about your day as if it were a story. Think of yourself as a character in one of your favourite movies or TV shows, and write… about that character.
Third (you may eventually turn to this when you get comfortable… write about yourself, how you think, how you feel, what you want, what you dream about. It is not easy, and putting things down on paper might be scary. But we urge you, give it a shot… and keep at it.
