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In the year 2000, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Since then, I have deepened my research into new avenues of healing and wellness and am still on the road to continual learning.
For years, I lived in a state of constant anxiety. It was so bad that I did not even realize it was anxiety until I started looking for help.
Then, I started journaling without any expectations or hopes for what it would do for me or anyone else around me. I only wanted my writing to be honest and genuine—and that is what it became. Things started to change for the better.
In my journal, I would write down everything that worried me and then examine what it meant. It got easier and easier over time to identify the true source of my anxiety. Once I knew what made me anxious, it was easy to deal with it without worrying about feeling like everything was falling apart around me.
I began writing about what was happening in my life at the time: how much time I spent alone because of unhealthy and broken relationships around me.
I'm always looking for ways to improve my mental health, and there are many ways, but journaling is one of my favorites.
The journal was like a lifeline for me.
It wasn't just a way to keep track of my feelings—it was also a way to look at the world through different eyes. When you're depressed or anxious, it's easy to see things in black-and-white terms: "I don't deserve it," "I'm alone in the world," and "Everything is awful." But when you have this book by your side? You can see all these things from a different perspective: "Wow, this is hard! How am I going to get through this?" The journal was my lifeline: It was one of the things that helped me get through those days.
So what is journaling?
Journaling is a way to express yourself and connect with others meaningfully.
Journaling is a simple, low-cost way of improving your mental health. It's also a great way to keep yourself accountable and ensure that you're taking care of yourself. Writing to your journal can be done in multiple ways: you can write out your thoughts and feelings on paper, draw them or create some artwork, or type them out on the computer.
Journaling has countless benefits: it helps with anxiety, depression, and insomnia, helps with stress management, helps with focus, helps build resilience, helps keep track of goals, helps boost self-esteem—the list goes on!
If you're unsure what to write about or how to start writing down all those thoughts and feelings that are bouncing around in your head all day long, you might want to start by answering these questions:
What was going through my mind right before I started to journal?
What am I feeling right now?
What was the last thing that made me happy?
What was the last thing that made me sad?
Why did it make me feel that way?
What is on my mind now?
Write down all the thoughts you have while thinking about these things. You'll get used to putting everything down in writing as soon as possible so that when you start journaling the real stuff later on (like what happened on your day), it won't be as overwhelming!
There are several benefits to using a journal to manage your mental health. A journal can help you:
-Identify how you're feeling and what triggers those feelings
-Explore your feelings more deeply and in more detail
-Develop new coping mechanisms for dealing with difficult emotions
One of the ways to deal with any overwhelming emotion is to find a healthy way to express yourself, which makes a journal a helpful tool in managing your mental health. Journaling can help you in ways more than you expect it could.
Stress Reliever
Journaling is an effective stress reliever as it can help you express yourself without feeling judged by others. It also lets you work through problems without talking about them with someone else immediately. Furthermore, this can be helpful when trying to figure out what's going on inside someone else's head.
Life Changing
Journals allow you to explore your feelings and thoughts without judgment. If you've been criticized for feeling sad, angry, or frustrated, it can feel like a personal attack on your character. But when you write about your feelings in a journal (rather than say them out loud), it is much easier for you to acknowledge your emotions without feeling attacked. When you write about what's going on inside your mind, rather than just reacting emotionally, it becomes possible for you to take action and make changes in your life.
It's essential to keep track of how often you journal. If you find yourself writing every day, that's a good sign that this practice is helping; if not, try writing more often or making adjustments in how often you write so that it feels comfortable!
I've been doing it for years, and I can't imagine my life without it. It's been a powerful tool in my healing process, and I'm so grateful to share it with you!
Where and how to begin
While you can journal in many different ways, using a template to start your journal practice can be helpful.
Spend some time each day and get the positive energy flowing in your busy daily life using this 7-Day Journal template, with different daily prompts. It will help you to write down your experiences and connect them to your inner thoughts and feelings.
If you've ever found yourself overwhelmed by the emotions of life, there are many ways to manage that. For me, one of the most effective is journaling.
Using a journal is a simple but powerful tool for keeping your thoughts clean and organized. And once you start writing down your feelings, it will be easy to be inspired by them.