May
2007
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May
2007
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Of Like Minds is now Mood! Over 175 articles on: Help support Mood -- ©Mood,
2008
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Keep a journal to
discover, grow and heal
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Have
you read these? Essential information
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Journaling can be a path to discovery. It allows you to express troubling thoughts and emotions, examine your options for problem-solving, track your personal growth and gain insight for self-improvement. Negative thinking results in negative moods. Writing about your thoughts and behaviors allows you to do reality checks and adjust your response to what's happening in your life. "I can be my own worst enemy," said Ellen. "I start thinking about my mistakes and my failures, and what I think other people think about me. Then I get really depressed. When I write it all down and read it over, I can see that I've really exaggerated a lot of it. I realize that some of it just isn't real, or that I'm not looking at the whole picture. When it's in writing, I can see how I twist reality. And, then I feel the cloud lift." A journal provides a place where you can express feelings, questions or concerns that you can't share with anyone else, or aren't ready to share. "It can be a place for people to talk and be honest with themselves in a way that may be difficult under other circumstances," writes Phil Rich, Ed.D., MSW, author of The Healing Journey: Your Journal of Self-Discovery. "And journals can allow people to get in touch with parts of themselves that are hidden under the surface. "I get angry," said Mike, a Portland welder. "I fume, inside, about my jerk of a boss, about freeway idiots, about a lot of things. I scribble out my rage in an old, beat-up notebook until I've gotten it all out. Then I turn the page and I don't look back. I'm done." In The Artist's Way, author Julia Cameron encourages us to write three pages, without thinking about what we're writing, every morning as one way to be more creative and to rid ourselves of limiting beliefs, fear and self-sabotage. If you're working
with a therapist, journaling can help you review issues that come up in
a therapy session or record thoughts or events that you want to bring
up with your therapist later. |
The Healing Journey: Your Journal of Self-Discovery and The Artist's Way series can be found in the Mood Bookstore. |
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Going
back over your writing can help you see patterns in your thoughts and
behavior. You'll also see how you've made progress and solved problems.
There may be other times when you simply want to vent and then don't feel
the need to review what you've written