Journaling : Merian Webster
- A periodical dealing with matters of current interest
- A record of experiences, ideas or reflections kept regularly for private use
- An account of day to day events
Diary : Wikipedia
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date, reporting on what has happened over the course of the day or other time period.
I used to write in a diary many years ago now my sister keeps a journal. It is really just the action of writing down your thoughts and feeling at that moment.
I hate the phrase Journaling for Mental Health. This terminology is the link that came up on Google when I searched the word journaling. I have been writing down for years notes on actions and feelings about my anxieties and I really don’t like it being termed as journaling for mental health. I am not mental even though sometimes I may have felt it. Anyway rant over. Feel better.
There you go that is why writing in a journal is good for you, it relieves a lot of your pent up emotions and enables you to express totally how you feel without the worry of talking to another person. It is yours and no one will ever know what goes on inside the covers of your book. Unless of course you choose to show them. Writing is wonderful.
There is so much on line about journaling giving you hints and tips about how to do this simple task.
- Talk about your day
- Identify things you are grateful for
- write a list of your coping mechanisms!
- Describe a goal
- Write about how you would describe yourself to a stranger
- and so it goes on
One question really stood out for me – “How do I start?” Well you choose your style of notebook, get a nice pen/pencil and start writing on how you feel now, how you felt then, how you feel about a certain person, how you felt about incidents today or in your past. Oh anything and everything. Purge yourself of the pent up emotions. You will feel better.
I have just one more thing about journaling that you won’t easily find online. Once you have written your emotions down. Maybe dried the tears, read it over again but while you are doing this use the tapping sequence as you read.
Start any point you like, leaving out the the karate chop, and just tap around the points as you reread your notes. This really will release the emotions linked to whatever you have written and make you feel better. you won’t forget the incident you have written about but the emotion will have released. Just keep going till you feel better.
More to come.
Tapping 4 U 