5 Benefits of Journaling and 5 Ways to Get Started

Until a couple of years ago, I never considered myself to be a “journaling type of gal”. Because I thrive in structure, the idea of free writing about my day or any topic in the world seemed like a stressful way to waste time. When someone mentioned the idea of journaling, all I could think about how was writing “dear diary…” and rolling my eyes. That was UNTIL I discovered that journaling could be more than “dear diary” / free-writing feat. I purchased a book of 365 daily thoughts, topics, and questions and began to put the pen to paper. Each day as I open the book, I’m forced to think, question myself, and grow through the different prompts. There are multiple ways to journal and no one way is superior to another. Different types of journaling work for different people.

Let’s take a look at 5 benefits of journaling:

1. Helps to clarify thinking and boost creativity: When you write your thoughts down, it makes them easier to sort through. Writing in a journal requires using multiple senses and different parts of the brain which can activate creativity.

2. Makes things more real: When you write down your beliefs, values, and/or goals, it keeps them at the forefront of your in mind and closer to consciousness. This allows you to view your emotions and thoughts on a page, causing you to respond on the outside in the same way it feels on the inside. By doing that, it makes things more real to you.

3. Enhances emotional fitness/intelligence: If you go back and read through your journal, you can look back and see how far you’ve come and it may bring up feelings of pride and relief. By exerting your emotions in a journal, you are able to feel them, and let them out as they come in. This keeps you from bottling things up only to explode later.

4. You'll learn about yourself: As you sort through your thoughts and put them on paper, you will most likely learn a thing or two about yourself in a way that you might not have the chance to if you keep everything inside.

5. Helps fight stress and promote healing: As you release in your journaling practice, you’ll find that translating thoughts and emotions into words, phrases, and sentences leaves room for self discovery and self awareness, leading to stress relief. The stress response in the body increases adrenaline and cortisol which have been shown to decrease the effectiveness of the immune system overtime. Chronic high levels of distress (opposite of eustress) can cause hormonal imbalances, inhibit your hippocampus and cause memory loss, increase risk of heart attack and heart disease, contribute to digestive issues, weight gain, and aging, and more. By easing stress, you may be able to decrease the risk of the aforementioned issues.

5 ways to journal:

1. Gratitude/Prayer journal: Write about what/who you are grateful for daily and write out your prayers and petitions. (This is my most favored way to journal)

2. Prompted journal: Find a journal with prompts or a separate book with prompts. OR, you can read our blogs and jot down your thoughts and the answers to the contemplative questions.

3. Goal journal: Write down your dreams and goals daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and/or yearly and beyond.

4. Ideas / stream of consciousness journal: Write ideas that come up in your head for whatever it is you like to do. Write whatever comes to mind, whether it’s about your day, emotions, or thoughts.

5. Education journal: Write down the things you’re curious about and learn the answers to your questions.

To make maximize your journaling, be sure to be consistent, forget grammar and spelling, or trying to make it sound good, just make it useful for you.

Keeping Up with the Joneses is EXHAUSTING.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day who was expressing how hard it is to feel “enough” - pretty enough, skinny enough, successful enough, healthy enough, happy enough- in this day and age. Since when did we as a society decide that everyone had to keep up with the Joneses? Back in the day, the Joneses were just that one family in the neighborhood... Now, the Joneses are every person you see on social media, around the world. But why do we feel the need to keep up? 

Why is is that even though we intellectually know that the standards and portrayals of “life” in society and on social media are fabricated, edited, and/or filtered, we still compare our behind the scenes to other people’s highlight reels. It’s like taking a rough draft essay written by an amateur writer and comparing it to a New York Times best selling novel. The rough draft is exactly that - a rough draft, it has yet to be edited, tweaked, refined, and polished, and the author may have less experience and formal training. Or, comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit, both are sweet and delicious, but, they are two different fruits - they’re consumed differently, they have different textures, flavors, functions, nutrients, colors, and DNA. It’s unrealistic, unhealthy, and unsatisfactory.

We compare ourselves to each other for various reasons and often times it’s a subconscious pattern. Because we’ve been doing it so long and so frequently, it becomes engrained in our minds as a natural function, similar to putting our pants on in the morning - we don’t think too much about it, we just do it. However, unlike dressing yourself in the morning, comparing yourself to others can be extremely detrimental.  When we “size up the competition”, we’re telling our brains that it’s okay to be above someone, or that it’s not okay when we don’t measure up to the “standard". (p.s. this is not unique to just social media, we do this everyday IRL too)

So, how do we break this habit and prevent ourselves from diving into a deep depression or skyrocketing into high levels of anxiety? 

The answer may seem too simple, but it really isn’t complicated… We must focus our time, energy, and attention on ourselves and our own health. What you focus on becomes your reality - if you constantly focus on how you are not enough, then you will never feel satisfied. However, if you focus on where you’re at in your life, all you’ve accomplished up to this point, every obstacle you’ve overcome, your progress, your goals, and your purest form of joy and fulfillment, then you will have a very different set of emotions. We must be content with ourselves, accept where we’re at in our journeys  and progress, and accept that who were are today is a reflection of our thoughts, emotions, and actions. This acceptance leads to true growth and becoming who we we’re supposed to be.

Our past does not have to be our present or our future. You have the power within you to enhance the quality of your life. Once you recognize that unrealistic expectations and standards don’t serve you, shift your focus and your level of joy and contentment will rise like the cream of the crop.

How Your Self-Image Can Wreak Havoc or Create Joy

How do you identify yourself? What are the words or phrases you use to describe yourself, your desires, needs, ambitions, and character? How you define and view yourself has a massive impact on how you act, think, and feel on a daily basis… regardless of your conscious efforts to prove otherwise.

For example, you may have that one friend who dates the same type of guy who breaks her heart in a million pieces over and over again. She cries to you through every break up saying, “Ugh! This always happens - I trust them and they break my heart, all men are the same! I always do so much for them and they treat me like shit!…”. Subconsciously, your friend chooses the same type of guy time after time because her narrative says that she’s the girl who dates the “bad guys” or the “emotionally disconnected” type of guy, etc. so her brain searches for familiarity whether or not she is aware of it.

Our brains are wired to protect us and when you define yourself a particular way and act the opposite way, your brain recognizes the new-ness and discomfort and slowly pulls you back to “safety”. 

Another may be the woman who sees herself as a “well-educated health advocate”, yet when she looked in the mirror, she'd tell herself “I don’t look like the epitome of what a ‘well-educated health advocate’ looks like….I need to get rid of this fat and lean out a little bit.”, and even though she'd done all the research, knows what works for her body, and consciously made efforts to drop those extra 5-10lbs, it didn't work. Why wouldn’t it work if she truly wanted it and worked for it?…. Because I subconsciously identified as someone who doesn’t “look like the epitome of what a ‘well-educated health advocate’ looks like”, and my conscious efforts to prove otherwise were not in tune with my subliminal thoughts. These thoughts sneakily turned into actions to better align myself with my (negative) subconscious identity and sabotaged my best efforts. Once I recognized this core issue, I immediately changed my belief about my self-image and gained a great sense of freedom and peace of mind.

Your thoughts become your beliefs, your beliefs become your actions and life experience. When we identify ourselves in a certain way, we immediately put ourselves in a mindset that can either empower us or enslave us. To break the pattern of negative self-talk, make a conscious effort to be hyper-aware of what you say after the word “I”. “I am..., I can..., I can’t..., I don’t.., I do…,I never..., I always..., etc.” Once you recognize the patterns of thought, begin to change your vocabulary to better reflect how you want to see yourself, and act in alignment with those new observations so that they become real and can run on auto-pilot to form an empowering subconscious identity.

It's Okay to not Feel Okay.

Contrary to popular belief, there’s nothing wrong with not feeling 100% and it’s perfectly healthy to explore your feelings, sit with them, and allow them to be. In fact, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel “off” sometimes.

In our current culture, we tend to distract ourselves from everything that has to do with the emotions we consider to be “negative”.  We put a band-aid on, eat some ice cream, pour a drink, or take a puff to avoid the pain or discomfort that we feel bubbling up inside or to hide it from those around us. When in fact, these avoidances only make the negative emotions worse in the long run, when what we really want is healing. If it’s a small paper cut or a large gash, what we are really searching for is a way to heal and be loved through our healing process.

To be able to sit in and work through our discomfort and pain is where growth and freedom really come from. Recognize that it’s okay not to feel okay all the time. Allow yourself to have a short period of time to feel the emotions and then allow them to flee as to not get stuck in a negative cycle. I once had a client who would set a timer and allow herself to get angry, sad, upset, etc. for a specific amount of time and once the timer went off, she would change her state and move on with her day. If the emotion or situation is something that reoccurs or lingers consistently, reach out to a trusted friend, family member, counselor, coach, or therapist so they can help you through the difficult time. Most of the time when people do not reach out for help, there tends to be a sense of shame that comes with the idea of admitting honest emotions. However, the shame only makes it worse and can prolong the pain and discomfort even more.

Be brave and ask for help when you need it, it’s okay to not feel okay.

Wanna Be Wealthy? Get Healthy!

In our society today, it seems that most people are striving for wealth, but in the meantime, they neglect their health. I’d like to suggest that true wealth is actually optimal health - mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual - because without it, we are only left with meaningless stuff. Health is wealth.

In the midst of a growing (mental) health crisis in America and other Western nations I encourage you to take the time this month to reevaluate what you are striving for and perhaps replace or add "Optimal Health" to the top of your list. We each have our own definition of “optimal health”, and I can almost guarantee that if you can define, seek, and pursue that, your life will begin to fill with the real wealth you ultimately desire. Take a look at all aspects of health, and seek the help you need to achieve your goals- whether that’s from a coach, trainer, nutritionist, spiritual guide, mentor, and/or other expert.

If you were to strive for optimal health, what exactly would that look like, feel like, and be like for you? Find a friend or loved one who will join you in this new endeavor, ‘cause community boosts your health tremendously and allows for accountability… and just like that, step one = complete.

Do You Neglect Your Mental Health?

When you break a bone, you go to the doctor to get it put in a cast or fixed with surgery. When you want to improve your skills in a specific sport or hobby, you hire a coach or teacher to train you. So why is it that when our hearts break we think time will simply heal? Although this may be true for some, why don’t we speed up the healing process by going a professional who can teach us how to navigate that specific time of our lives? A doctor will teach you how to heal your broken ankle: set it in a cast first, then they’ll put you in a boot with crutches, next they’ll remove crutches, remove the boot, and off to physical therapy etc… The mind also has a process of healing. When we feel broken, it’s important to learn how to mend and move forward.

It seems silly to expect to go to the gym once a year and be fit or eat one healthy meal and never get sick. We have to make it a consistent practice to achieve the level of health we desire. When we want to improve and get in better shape, we may hire a personal trainer or when we want to learn how to avoid disease and optimize our health, we might hire a nutritionist. We should approach our mental health in a similar way. Learning how to overcome roadblocks, manage stress, reach your goals, and improve your quality of life is equally as important as keeping your body in tact.

Your physical health and your mental health are directly related. There are several different components of the human anatomy, but they all work together for one body. Make it a consistent practice to take care of your one body.

Are your body and mind in optimal condition? Do you pay as much attention to your mental health as your do to your physical health?

Mindful Social Media Posts....NOT an Oxymoron.

Can you remember the last time you posted an image on a social media platform? if you’re like 88% of young adults, you engaged in social media yesterday and today, oh and you probably posted at least once within the last month. If you think back to that last post, can you remember what your intention was with posting that specific photo? 

Most of the time, if we (including myself) are being honest, the images that we post are what I call, a "fomo generator”- a don’t-you-wish-you-were-here inducing tool…A “humble brag” of sorts, intended to show something off that we normally wouldn’t blatantly shout from the rooftops (or maybe we would), or perhaps they're an incognito search for assurance, esteem, and/or confidence. On the other hand, sometimes our posts are meant to bring awareness to a special cause or brand, they serve as an advertisement, maybe plea for help, or a celebration of some sort. Not all posts have to have a special, profound message, but this is simply a call to be more mindful with your social media output.

If you’re searching for something deeper than a 'like', you will not find it on Instagram. You will find it in community, connection, and in-person relationships. 

Next time you put something out in the world, ask yourself: What is the purpose of this post? What response am I looking for? What am I trying to accomplish?