Healing Through Writing

How to Use Journaling for Self-Development

(Originally published July 2019)

The last six months have been the most intense period of personal growth I have ever experienced. I can truly say that my self of last summer would not even recognize the person I am today. It has been a transformative time of healing and growth. Although the externalities of my life look a lot like they did last year, everything feels different to me. I react to the world in a different way now. I have dedicated many hours to intensive inner work as I seek to grow and achieve my potential. This has been very powerful in my life — I have transformed my inner dialogue from one of self-doubt and shame to one of courage and compassion, I have developed stronger bonds with those closest to me, I have let go of toxic and harmful relationships, I have learned how to speak my truth to the world in love and honesty, I have found my own path and am not afraid to follow it…wherever it may take me. As I share more about this radical transformation, people have started asking me about my process. How did I make this happen? What does this process look like for me?

These questions have made me stop to really think about the specific steps of self-development. I want to find a way to share these lessons because I want to help other people experience the same kind of growth and healing I’ve found. In my reflections on the past few months, I realized that a major part of my development is centered around my journaling practice.

Now I know you might be thinking, “Yeah yeah, I’ve kept a journal before, but that is pretty basic. I don’t see how journaling is going to make that much of a difference. Everyone can sit down and spew out their thoughts. How is that going to help?” Believe me, I’ve been there. I started my first journal/diary when I was 7 years old and continued to write on and off throughout my teenage years. I fell out of the habit as a young adult because every time I sat down to write out my feelings, I would just spiral deeper and deeper into depression and confusion. Instead of gaining clarity, journaling made me even more miserable.

But when I began to see a therapist early this year, she suggested journaling as a way to connect more with my emotions and she gave me guidance on how to make it a useful practice for growth. My journal entries became the prompts for our therapy sessions as it was a very raw perspective on what I was dealing with. Journaling has become the center of my healing process, so I want to share some specific details about what that process looks like for me.

Let me preface my “how-to” with some important mindset elements that need to be incorporated for journaling to be effective. These mindset changes might be part of your life already, but I felt it was important to share so everyone is aware of this. Journaling won’t work if you approach it from the wrong perspective. For me, these were the lessons I had to understand first:

1. Recognizing the value and validity of your emotions. Growing up in a conservative Christian home with little emotional awareness, I learned how to suppress and judge everything I felt. I was supposed to be joyful at all times, no matter what. Any negative emotions were either inconvenient or downright “sinful.” So now I am learning how to undo that damage. If you are angry, there is a reason you are angry. Whether it makes sense intellectually or not, it is a valid emotion. I’ll talk more about how to understand and process negative emotions later, but the starting point for me was knowing there was something valuable to learn from how I felt. It took time for this perspective to become a habit, so for a while I just had to keep reminding myself.

2. Realizing there are two different “voices” in your head. A lot of the negativity, emotions, and inner dialogue we experience are a product of our trauma and emotional wounds. We all go through various degrees of hurtful and toxic situations in life. These experiences can be especially damaging when we are young because we haven’t learned how to process them in a healthy way. If someone made you feel ashamed or unworthy as a child, this message becomes part of you — and you don’t even realize it. Then you keep hearing this message throughout your life and believe it, thinking that it must be true since it is coming from within yourself. It is important to understand that there are many things we feel or tell ourselves that are learned from our past trauma — not some intrinsic truth from our core self, but a message we accepted from the world around us. The more we can tell which “voice” is talking, the easier it will be to access our core self and live in alignment with who we truly are. Again, this is something that takes time to truly apply and embody, but it is a crucial principle to remember as you begin to journal.

Now for some practical details about how I journal, so everything isn’t too abstract and vague. For my journaling, I chose to use a notebook, rather than typing on my computer. For me, the act of writing by hand is very powerful and feels more personal than typing. I used a small notebook that I can easily carry with me so that I can journal whenever I need to, instead of needing access to my computer. I enjoy being in nature, so I often take my journal on a hike and find somewhere quiet to write. I chose a notebook that has an aesthetically appealing design and feel to it and have a special pen that I use only for journaling. I feel that putting thought into the materials I use has helped me value the process more than just grabbing the cheapest notebook from Walmart.

Journaling can feel awkward at first. It might take you time to get in tune with your voice. The words may feel stilted and forced, you may read over it and think, “this doesn’t sound like me.” Just keep writing. It took me a few weeks of journaling before it began to flow. If you continue to get stuck on the actual writing process, consider other ways to achieve the same connection and insight. If writing does not seem natural for you, maybe meditation or another practice might be more useful. But don’t give up on journaling too soon. And remember that it isn’t about perfect handwriting, spelling, or grammar. Journaling has helped me overcome my perfectionist tendencies because I don’t let myself stop to correct anything. No one is going to see your work; it doesn’t matter if you spelled a word wrong — that’s not the point. Just focus on the meaning of the words and what you are trying to express.

Especially for the first few months, I tried to write every day, even if it was just a few sentences. I found that the more consistent I was, the stronger the results. Once I skipped a few days, it was really hard to get back into the practice again. I also found that I can only journal when I am alone. Sometimes it works to write at a coffee shop, but the best environment is when I am completely alone. Even being in the same room as my husband or other family member creates too much distraction, even if they are completely involved in something else. For journaling to work, you need to be completely honest and authentic; I think that the presence of another person can be inhibiting to the practice. I also created a special playlist of songs that help me get into a quiet and meditative space. This is a training habit that now triggers my mind to go into that meditative state when those songs are playing. The journaling practice is most powerful for me when multiple senses are involved, so it’s not just a mental exercise but incorporates all aspects of being. Other ideas might be to have a special tea that you drink only while journaling, or to use a candle/incense during the practice. Experiment with different elements to create a ritual that suits you.

As I took up journaling again, I wanted to use a different approach — something that was more productive than just wallowing in whatever misery or sadness I was feeling. I found that using questions helped me discover deeper truths about myself. There were a few questions that have been especially powerful, these questions comprise the core of my journaling practice.

How am I feeling? When I started my journaling practice, I felt very disconnected from myself. At any given time, if someone asked me “how are you feeling?” I would have no idea how to answer. I was hyperaware of the people around me but knew very little about my own feelings. So, I began journaling by simply trying to answer that question, “how am I feeling?” on a daily basis. If I wrote, “I feel sad,” I would keep describing the sadness and peel away the layers, “What does the sadness feel like?” I think in metaphors, so I would think of what the sadness reminded me of. “It is like swimming in an ocean and struggling to keep my head above water.” Or “It is like falling into a deep dark void.” I would bring awareness to the feeling by asking, “Where in my body can I feel the sadness?” Or explore where it might be coming from. “When did I start feeling sad?” “Can I remember another time recently when I felt just like this?” As I journaled about these feelings, I became much more aware of my emotions through my daily life. Instead of realizing hours later that I was overwhelmed with anxiety, I could sense when it was just beginning. This made it easier to pinpoint what events or thoughts were triggering it and helped me process it before the emotions were overpowering.

What am I afraid of? After a few weeks I discovered that all of my “negative” feelings were based in fear. For example, when I was feeling sad, I realized that I was afraid I would never be able to achieve my goals in life. This fear made me feel hopeless and depressed. So I started to ask the question, “what am I afraid of?” This gave me some very interesting insights. For example, a couple months ago I hit a mental barrier with publishing my work and suddenly lost my inspiration to write. Asking the question, “what am I afraid of?” helped me discover that I was afraid of achieving my goals because I didn’t think I deserved it and I didn’t want people to judge me for being successful. In my upbringing, people who were wealthy and successful at doing what they loved were criticized for being selfish and for somehow taking advantage of other people. I found out that I was holding on to this mentality and using it against myself. Fear is always trying to keep us safe, and sometimes that is a good thing, but other times it is like an overprotective mother who doesn’t let her child grow up. I don’t have to be afraid of being judged for my success anymore because I am not surrounded by people who condemn success. I am free to pursue my goals without judgement. So now I can work on encouraging my passion and eliminating that judgmental voice of fear.

What am I getting out of this? Remember how I said there are 2 different voices? When I was pursuing my goals, there was this voice telling me that it was selfish and bad to do what I want to do. So when I stopped taking action, the voice stopped — so I felt better. Even though I wanted to achieve my goals, there was a part of me that didn’t want to. Part of me wanted to stay in the same old comfort zone of my old life and not chase after my dreams. I discovered this by asking the question, “what am I afraid of?” Let’s say you are feeling miserable and unhappy with yourself. There is a reason you feel that way. There is some part of you that wants to feel miserable. For me, feeling unhappy validated the voice that told me I would never be good enough, that I would never succeed, that I didn’t deserve to be happy in life. That part of me wanted to be miserable because it kept me in the safe zone of how my life had always been.

That is essentially my journaling practice. Being a verbose writer, it can take up a lot of space to go through those questions, but that is my basic framework. As I said earlier, consistency is key. I started journaling in February, and it took a few months before I really began to see incredible changes. But those changes have made such a difference in my life. In reflection, I have seen a few major changes in on how I think and react to difficult situations:

• It is easier to deal with negative emotions before it gets out of control. Now I can easily sense when something is off and I have a process for understanding what is causing me to feel this way. When something goes wrong, I can retreat to my journal to work through my emotions. This makes me feel more confident and courageous — I am not afraid of a negative experience that might overwhelm me. I know I can work through however it makes me feel. In fact, I will sometimes seek out situations that will help me learn more about myself. Instead of avoiding anything painful or unpleasant, I can choose to lean into an experience to find out what it tells me about myself.

• By consistently making time for myself, I know that I am serious and dedicated to this work. It is my way of telling my unconscious or intuition or inner self, “I am here and I am listening.” In return, it is talking to me more. I get ideas and insight now that seems so obvious, but I had somehow missed it for so long. The more I pay attention, the clearer the voice becomes. I get very strong intuition about certain things now. For example, it is easy to get overwhelmed by looking at how everyone else is running their business. Should I have a newsletter? Start a YouTube channel? Join Snapchat? Create an online seminar? There are so many options and you can get pulled in every direction. Now I can sort through this foray and get a sense of what is right for me to do, instead of just following all the other voices. My way might be different, but I am confident because it is the right approach for me.

• I have become attuned to my emotions and the voices within. For example, I know when the negative voice is strong, even before I am consciously aware of it, because I get a pit in my stomach. I can tell when I am acting in alignment with my inner self because I feel physically open, relaxed, and grounded. I am not journaling as often now because I have found I can process more in my mind, without having to physically write. I still do a check-in with my journal every few days, or more often if I’m dealing with something really difficult. But it is easier now to just follow the process mentally as I am going about my day.

• Journaling has helped me go much deeper into my growth. For example, in the past when I was struggling with taking action to achieve my goals, I would reflect on my emotions to find out why. I would realize that I was lacking in self-confidence. The solution was obviously, “be more confident.” Now I know that is the equivalent of realizing the 5k feels so difficult to run because you have a broken leg, so you just put a wrap on it and keep running. There are usually some very deep issues that result in a lack of confidence, such as core beliefs formed around unhealed trauma. Journaling has helped me get past the symptoms to explore the source of my emotions. Once I can see what the core issue is, such as lack of self-worth, then I can figure out how to work with that and begin to heal.
  

In closing, journaling is a quiet and “boring” practice. There are a lot of really trendy activities that are much more dramatic. I do believe that journaling is a nice gateway into other practices such as meditation or manifesting. However, the power of journaling is that it is all about connecting with yourself. All the ulterior motives, like bragging to your friends or keeping up with the latest guru, are stripped away. There are usually not any sensational experiences — it is slow and steady work. It isn’t about visualizing your best future but confronting the darkest shadows within. For journaling to work, you have to be committed to your own authentic growth, and that is what makes it so powerful.