Therapeutic benefits of journalling

I often recommend that people keep a journal, as a place to express how they are feeling or to do creative exercises and it’s a practice that I find valuable in my own life. I turn to writing when I feel overwhelmed by emotions and want an outlet to get it out my system, now when I write I often find my process goes from venting to finding a helpful response or resolution. I have also experienced the power of writing exercises, such as letter writing personally as well as working as a counsellor with clients. It is always an honour when clients share their creations with me, whether that’s a list of goals, life story work or poetry I have seen first-hand the power that can be found in sitting quietly and allowing yourself to communicate through writing.

There are all sorts of different reasons you might keep a journal. It could be events that happened, a creative outlet, or to process your feelings. You can set and track goals as well as a technique to monitor and challenge thoughts. Your journal can be used however you want to use it, the main thing is engaging with the process and figuring out what you find helpful.

The researcher Dr Pennebaker found that people who write about experiences with a high emotional charge improved their physical and mental health, even in the months that followed the writing exercise. In his research, Dr Pennebaker had participants set a timer for 20 minutes and write about emotional experiences. There have been numerous other studies to back up the benefit of journalling.

When you are writing your journal, you are the only person who will see it, so you don’t have to worry about your writing style, spelling, grammar or even if it makes sense. Allowing yourself to write as fast and uncensored as you can is a great way to allow your writing to become a stream of consciousness. Try not to stop writing, even if you don’t know what to say, you can always repeat yourself.

The benefits of doing this include:

·       It helps you to express how you feel, make sense of your reactions to events and identifies common patterns that come up.

·       Journalling allows you to take a step back and reflect on your responses, that could be identifying why you regret certain behaviour but feel compelled to do it in the moment or reflect on your thinking.

·       Can increase understanding and self-acceptance.

·       Creates a sense of distance and perspective.

Reflective questions

I love stream of consciousness writing because of its free flowing, uninhibited nature. It allows you to express how you feel uncensored which can offer you insights about how you’re feeling that may be outside your usual awareness. However, another common way people journal is to write around reflective questions – there are many sources for journalling prompts, some books and magazines provide suggested journalling prompts and you can buy preprinted journals to complete. Writing prompts help you look at areas in your life which you might usually ignore – I’ve noticed I often have go to topics in free form writing and using someone else’s structure allows me to think about other factors. I find that with this type of journalling, I am more introspective and consider my answers before I write them which changes the nature of the self-awareness gained.

Starter prompts:

Three things I admire about myself.

What do I say yes to when I would like to say no?

What do I say no to when I would like to say yes?

When do I feel the most confident?

What are 5 little things make me happy?

How do I relax?

What one regret am I holding on to?

Describe in detail a perfect day.

Other journalling practises

I have listed here two journalling frameworks that I have followed and found helpful – there are so many options out there that if you want to follow a technique with more structure you can play around until you find what works best for you.

Julia Cameron’s Morning papers exercise from the Artists Way is a great way to get into stream of consciousness writing. It involves first thing every morning writing 3 pages to start the day. Following this framework gives you a consistent, daily, journalling practice, doing something at a set time like this is a great way to form a habit and can be a good place to begin to experiment with writing to see if you find it helpful.

Gabor Mates Compassionate Inquiry as described in his book The Myth of Normal has been a journal exercise, I have been following recently. It has provided a set of questions that I have found helpful to allow me to examine my life from a different perspective which has greatly improved my self-awareness and has impacted my decision making and assertiveness. The 5 questions he asks allows you to consider where you are not saying no in your life where you would want to and how this shows up in your body and reinforces a story that no longer serves you.

Practicalities

You should consider how you are going to ensure your journal remains confidential, it’s fairly unlikely that you are going to want anyone to read what you have written and, in some cases, depending on your circumstances, if you aren’t sure a journal will remain private it could be a good idea to destroy what you have written.

While there are some benefits of writing your thoughts down on paper, such as handwriting activates brain areas associated with memory which helps you to process them. Overall engaging with the process of journalling is helpful, even if you prefer to type your entries, one benefit of typing is that you can ensure the privacy of your writing by locking a document on a computer or using a journalling app that offers this facility.

Creative expression

As well as free form writing you could do exercises such as curate story style entries, write letters to people or create poetry. Slowing down the process and getting curious about precise use of language can help you develop nuance as to what your really feeling, if you stick with umbrella terms like sad, angry, happy you miss layers of meaning, doing this might help you to understand yourself better.

Although this is slightly adjacent because this has been about writing, I also love using imagery and picture creation to express what is going on for me. Doodles, collages and cut outs can be used to add an extra layer of creativity. 

A journal can be used as a resource self-discovery, personal growth and really there aren’t any rules to follow. You don’t have to write daily; it’s something I go to when I want to work through something or when I want to get in touch with how I am feeling through images. As I am experimenting with different forms of creativity, I am finding that it a fun way to relax as well as giving me a greater sense of self knowledge and connectivity to my guiding inner voice.