Journaling Your Way to Clarity
Journaling starts with a clean page and sometimes ends up filled to the brim with heartfelt hopes, amazing moments and maybe a frustrated scribble or two. You see them everywhere; leather bound, notebook form, handmade and hand crafted pages.
Writing as a form of self-care is so wide spread there are now themed journals focusing on goal planning, gratitude and even daily writing tasks.
So why keep a journal?
It offers a cathartic effect of safely releasing thoughts and emotions that may be inappropriate to voice or act out. It keeps a real-time record of your own challenges and triumphs and those of the people around you. Reading back on where you were just months ago can often encourage you to keep forging ahead when the latest adversity seems insurmountable.
This is the reason to journal. To be open and raw and honest in a place that is just for you, allowing that inner dialogue to flow, allowing the clarity of your true self to be a gift to motivate positive change.
We only have to look back through the years to understand how important keeping a journal can be. Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf and Anne Frank are just a few whose mindful ponderings became relatable reading to so many of us.
How then did recording the day’s events and its corresponding feelings become the tool that it is recognised for today? Often an accessory to cognitive behavioural therapies and a method to chart the inner workings of the psyche, a daily journal practice is recommended by many therapists and life coaches.
Where to start on this self-care journey of writing?
The beauty of journaling is found in its simplicity. The right way to write? There is none! There is no judgement on such a personal matter. Stick to facts, play out fantasies, uncover truths and even set goals, a journal or diary will open new horizons and give you a true understanding of yourself and your position in the world you inhabit.
Hold yourself accountable for where you want to be tomorrow. Pour out your sorrows when you feel you can’t say them aloud. Plan a better future for yourself. Be the first to gain insight on who you really are and what you want for yourself.
Understand that the magic happens within the process. Sure, you may be writing about the pressures of your daily job, but somewhere along the way you might find yourself wondering why you never went for that promotion and uncovering a core self-belief that you now know isn’t true.
You can release that and move on, to being more empowered, more clear, more certain of the future you deserve. It’s through daily or even weekly journal practice that you will truly uncover the parts of yourself lying dormant.
Get to really know the inner dialogue of your sub-conscious and nurture those positive aspects of yourself that need your attention to be fully realised in your day to day life. So, keep a journal. It’s the journey of becoming you.
About the author:
Combining spiritual guidance therapies, meditative practices, hypnotherapy and various other modalities, Brooke works to gently guide clients using her highly intuitive and developed understanding of both the human body and the energies emanating from it.