HOW TO DO JOURNALING FOR MENTAL CLARITY & ACHIEVE GROWTH ?

HOW TO DO JOURNALING FOR MENTAL CLARITY & ACHIEVE GROWTH ?

We often struggle to express our emotions, whether it is a negative feeling, fear, past issue, or emotional instability. Our environment to a great extent influence our thoughts and emotions, if there is always a negative environment around you, it is possible that you also feel negative and have a pessimistic approach, if your environment is stressful and there is always a victim mindset then it is easier for you to also feel like a victim, it's not like there is always a negative influence of the environment & there are many positive examples too, BUT most of the times the environment negatively affects us because nearly everyone wants to heal from something and they are often suppressing it which after some time converts into anger, negativity or victim mindset and affects the people in their circle, and the reason behind all this mental suffering is that " THOSE EMOTIONS ARE NOT EXPRESSED CLEARLY " .  Not expressing emotions and suppressing them is not good in the long term because it can significantly impact your life, and journaling is one of the most effective & well scientifically researched methods to express emotions without any fear of judgment from anyone because journaling only requires " YOU " .

American social psychologist James Pennebaker has observed in his research that when the participants of that research wrote a journal for 4-5 days and expressed their long time unexpressed emotions, initially they felt bad because they had to deal with those emotions again while writing , but in long term, it made them feel better and to be more mentally clear and helped them to regulate their emotions better. He often regards this as EXPRESSIVE or THERAPEUTIC JOURNALING.

Let's See how journaling helps us :-

1 - Bringing subconscious to conscious

Our actions are often or not governed by our subconscious minds, habits, preconceived notions, environment, and some psychologically. Unless we covert our subconscious actions into conscious actions , we can't have an organized life and mental clarity, ( and this means, taking actions willingly and consciously rather than getting driven by anything else ).

Expressing all the unclear thoughts, anger, stress, frustration, feelings, anxiety through journaling will release the excess unnecessary burden from your mind and will help you in regulating your emotions. You will be able to see your problems from a third person's perspective and this will help you to point out all the things you did wrong or what are the things you have to be more careful about next time, you will be able to see what triggers you and how you can overcome it.

2 - Helps in managing negative emotions

If you are someone who constantly feels negative, anxious , worried, or bothered from your past, then journaling will going to help you in expressing all those emotions because when you write them, everything stuffed in your mind & all the clutter and rotten thoughts that were unexpressed since long will be out from your brain and this doesn't mean that you will going to forget them for forever but now whenever they will come again, you will be in a much better mental position to tackle them without getting stressed or anxious about them. Write out all the emotional baggage that you were carrying for a long and be as detailed as possible. No one will judge you for anything because this process only requires you, pen and paper, THAT'S IT ! & be honest with yourself while writing.

3 - Rewire your brain

Journaling can also help you rewire your brain into any form you want. You can write about your daily, monthly and yearly goals & all the possible ways by which you can achieve them, it will going to help you in staying focused & motivated because it is one of the most common problems of people that they don't stay focused regarding their goals in life. Writing about your goals can turn your dreams into reality sooner than you expect them to be, people think that they just need to remember or think about their goal and they will going to achieve it but that's not true ! because nearly 50000 thoughts come into our mind in a day ( although many of them are not even important enough ) but they engage your brain and drain your energy , so you need " selective attention " on the things which are actually important, so the most effective option is to write about them and when you constantly write about them , you are conditioning your brain in that direction and due to this , you will going to achieve it on a much faster rate than those who just think about their goals.

Now , How to actually do the journaling ?

There is no specific method or a template for journaling and it varies according to the desired result, whether it is healing from the past, dealing with emotions, achieving future goals etc , just make a regular copy/register/diary whatever you feel comfortable with, and start writing at least for 10mins every day. There are various ways to do it but the only condition in all of them is to be true to yourself while writing & stay consistent.

Some things on which you should focus upon are :

• Don't worry about your grammar or format while writing. Write in whatever way comfortable to you.
• Do not write in different diaries every other day, but rather make a dedicated diary for it.
• Always try to write exactly what you are feeling and don't dilute it with formality or fancy words, put your true emotions out.
• Always write the truth, even when sometimes it can hurt your ego but in long term, it will be beneficial. ( this is one of the most important things)
• Try to avoid writing digitally, for example: on a laptop, phone, etc. Try to write it using pen & paper as it is more effective than the digital method .
• Stay consistent and write every day even for at least 10 mins a day is enough but write every day. (the most important thing )

These are few sample formats that you adopt for your writing and you can customize them according to your need.

Staying consistent and being honest & detailed in your writing, is the only requirement for a journal to be effective, all rest you can customize according to your comfort & need.

This is one of the easiest, effective method which can help you in regarding literally anything, whether you are dealing with past memories, loss, negativity, emotional instability, anxiety, stress or you want to articulate yourself more, attain mental peace & clarity, achieve your goals and literally anything ! just pour your heart out while writing and be honest while writing & stay consistent ( at least for a month or two ) and you will going to see the change in your life soon !