This week’s article is about how journaling can change your life. As you may have noticed by now, I use journaling regularly as a technique in my coaching practice. I’ve experienced many positive changes in my life and in the lives of women with whom I have worked. This article provides some ideas using your journal as a catalyst for changing your life. I’d encourage you to try one or two of the exercises this week, with the expectation that you will see some degree of change.

Have a creative week!

TEN WAYS THAT JOURNALING WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
by
Lael Johnson
Whether you have been journaling for a long or short time, you’ve probably noticed that your life has changed.  When you examine your life, as you go through the journal process, your newfound awareness will nudge you to react by changing yourself or your situation or by leaving your situation just as it is.  Journaling is a dynamic skill. It’s a both a catalyst for change and challenges each journal person who chooses to explore its tools to change.  Here are my observations about how journaling regularly will change your life.
RELIEVING STRESS:  When you’ve had a long day, are going through a challenge, experiencing a loss or just feeling lousy, it’s nice to know that you can write about it in your journal at anytime of the day.  I call this process venting, which I will discuss in more detail later on in the article.   For now, venting is about writing your current feelings and experiences in your journal.  Just the act of writing an entry will begin to relieve your stress. Here are a few tools that you can use, in addition to using regular journal writing:  creating dialogues with different parts of yourself or a situation and writing unsent letters, then keeping them or throwing them away.  You can also write lists, write with your non-dominant hand, write from right to left, upside down, in all capitals or small letters.  It’s more important to write your venting out that it is to choose the perfect journal tool to express your emotions.  It will help you feel better. It will also help you prepare to problem-solve later on.
DECLUTTERING YOUR LIVING SPACE:   Whenever I write regularly in my journal, inevitably, I will start decluttering my living space. It works every time. It may not happen right away, but it will happen. When I journal I start to declutter my interior space.  I start letting go of old stuff, while making room for new stuff. I experience some degree of loss as I let go of stress. I may not openly weep, but I might be a bit irritated over a some trivial matter, that isn’t that important.  My point is that at some level I’m aware that I am letting go of something familiar, without knowing today, what will I receive to replace it.  Just a reminder that if you think you might be going through a loss, something less obvious than the loss of a loved one, make sure that you take very good care of yourself. When you are feeling irritable, take the dog out for a walk or go to the park with your kids. Taking a bubble bath or reading a good book is also high on the list of ways you can renew and refresh your soul. It’s important that you keep on taking care of yourself, while your body and mind are healing.  This will help you maintain the proper balance between receiving and letting go.
HELPING YOU VENT:  Unique emotional expression can reveal itself in physical movement, conversations with God, self or others and writing about dreams and disappointments.  As you let go of your emotions, you will also let go of a lot of energy, which you’ve been carrying around inside of you for a long time.  As this happens, you will be creating room for more creativity, laughter and stability in your life.  If even the idea of talking about your emotions scares you, then relax.  You can start very slowly, so that you won’t scare yourself.   For example, pick up any available pen and some paper. Write the first word that comes into your head when I say “feeling.”   Did you do that? Now, put your pen down and put that paper in your pocket. I don’t want you to read it until you are ready to write again tomorrow.  What did I just have you do? I asked you to write one word down and put your paper away.  How did that feel? Was it scary?   Alternatively, was it easy?   If it was easy then you can repeat the same exercise tomorrow and the day after tomorrow until you start writing a sentence, then a paragraph then, well, you will know what to do after that.  Everyone journal person started in the same place.  They may have had more words to use than you did, but they all had to choose to write at least one word down, before they could grow any further in their writing skills. It’s your choice to continue writing one word until you are quite comfortable writing more.
CELEBRATING YOUR SUCCESSES:  I firmly believe that you should celebrate your successes.  We seem to spend so much more time hashing over the negatives, to the point where we forget to look for and acknowledge the positives.  What is a success? Any activity that you have done to motivate yourself or others to move in a more positive direction.  For example, you might have smiled at someone who was feeling sad this morning.  You might have agreed to see an old friend after a long period of silence. Finally, you might have received an amazing work review, one that even exceeded your expectations. It’s very important that you tell yourself the positive truth as well as the negative truth.  Our emotional muscles need to be exercised as often as our physical muscles. So go workout!!
PERCOLATING AND DEVELOPING IDEAS:   Ideas take time to develop.  Your journal is a perfect place to chronicle the whole process of a creative idea, from birth to completion.  Some creative people use one journal for each of their projects.  It makes it that much easier, for them to focus on different parts of the project, as needed. They also can be sure to saving any extra material or new ideas that occur to them in the shower or wherever.  You can use all of the tools I”ve mentioned in this article, plus others.  Create enough room in your journal so that it can hold everything that you need to have around you, while you are working on a specific project.  If you need more than one journal or a journal of a different size then purchase it. It will be a great place to turn to later on down the line when your project is coming closer to completion.
EXPRESSING YOUR GRATITUDE:  Giving thanks for blessings or abundance in your life will restore your energy and balance your perspective.  It will also lighten your load and teach you how to focus more on the positive, rather than the negative in life.  Many spiritual disciplines, including those in the recovery movement recognize the power of gratitude to heal and restore individuals and communities. One way to practice gratitude is to write one gratitude sentence each day.  Just as you described your successes earlier, now focus on one incident, character trait or person that you are grateful for and write about it.   This is an especially powerful tool to use when you are experiencing struggles.   It is a statement of hope for you.  You are saying to the world and to yourself, that you won’t be overcome by your struggles.  Instead you will walk through your struggles with deep and abiding hope that change is coming just around the corner, it’s just a matter of time.
DECLUTTERING THE REST OF YOUR SPACE:   In reality, decluttering your space(s) will overlap in most areas.  It’s hard not to take a trash bag out to the bin, both from the kitchen and the living room, because it’s on your way to do so.  I mention these areas separately just to remind you to be aware of where clutter might suddenly appear again.  Recently, in my personal writing, I discovered that my procrastination list had grown extremely long.  It caught me by surprise. Prior to writing that entry, I was sure, at least for a few moments, that I was finally putting some of my procrastination behind me.  Guess what? I have more to learn about this area in the future.
EXPRESSING YOUR CREATIVITY:  Your journal is a perfect place to express your creativity.  It’s also a great place to keep a record of your progress, by project or in some other order.  I’ve mentioned before that some creative people choose one notebook for each project.  This really comes in handy when you are working on multiple projects.  For example, I have a file in my book folder for extra information. I use this file to store words, phrases, and ideas that I deleted from earlier chapters.  I don’t want to throw this information away yet, as it might come in handy in the process later or might spark several new writing ideas for me.  A journal is a great place to that store that extra information until you find a use for it later on. While acknowledging and practicing your creative skills, you can also try on different personalities, try new and challenging steps that you might not be ready to present to an audience.  You can step out of your comfort zone and look at a situation from several different angles.  Your journal is a great place to surprise yourself and enjoy cultivating your creativity.
PURSUING YOUR DREAMS:  What do you really want to do, that you haven’t done yet? What is one of your dreams, goals or intentions? It’s important to keep your dreams alive and to keep working toward fulfilling them, even when you are very busy with daily concerns.  Write that dream down in it’s amazing detail, making sure to date and title your entry today. When you are finished, date another entry for a year from now.  Write a second entry, assuming that most or all of your vision has come true.  Remember to include the details and anything else that seems pertinent to you.  Now, I want you to put the future entry away in your calendar so you won’t be tempted to read it.  Put your focus on the present journal entry and start preparing to realize your vision.  Choose your own ritual that will guide you through this preparation time.  In a year from now, reread both entries the current and the future ones.  Write a final entry detailing all of the changes that have occurred since your original first entry.  When you’ve finished writing, take some time out to celebrate what you have achieved in just one year.

I hope that you will find some of these tools to help you in your journaling journey.
Keep on expanding your journal work.
Lael Johnson, owner of Writer’s Eye Advisory Service, offers creativity coaching services and additional writing resources at:   www.writerseye.com Copyright 2006. Writer’s Eye Advisory Service. Lael Johnson. All rights reserved.

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