It’s time to add some joy and inspiration to journaling. While journaling is a great tool for personal growth and self-reflection, it shouldn’t be another chore on your to-do list. After all, what you write about has the potential to tell you much about yourself. In the end, journaling helps you uncover YOU. With journaling you have the deepest, most real conversations you’ll probably ever have—with yourself.
You ask yourself questions, and you answer them. You doodle, you draw, you jot down meaningful quotes and words, and in the process, you get in touch with your true identity.
Where do we start? With this whimsical guide that I've created just for you. Let me help you start a journaling practice, or inspire your current practice. We’ll explore the benefits of journaling, how to start and build a practice, and end with some of my favorite journal prompts.
The Benefits of Journaling
Journaling has many benefits; here are some of the major perks that are about to come your way.
Self-Reflection: a journal is a safe place to explore your thoughts, emotions, experiences, and dreams. The act of writing them down helps you uncover insights and increase awareness of how you’re doing at any particular time.
Creative Expression: writing can stimulate creativity and creative problem-solving, especially when you allow yourself the freedom to write freely without judgment. After writing for a while, you may find that what you’ve written helps you solve a problem in a creative way. Your journaling can literarily allow you to express yourself creatively, through free-writing, brainstorming, and art journaling, or it can spark new ways of thinking that aren’t related to a creative practice but help you make creative decisions.
Stress Reduction: You thought only cardio did this? Writing about our worries, angry moments, tensions and other stressors can help them dissipate. We unload these negative thoughts and feelings onto paper and are able to release them. Words spill onto the page, and the stories they tell help us process and let go of uncomfortable, stressful situations.