What I learned by writing journals for four years

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Journal writing is therapeutic for me. Sometimes our minds can go crazy, making up problems before they even appear. It’s a haven I can resort to when the walls of the outside world seem to be shrinking. Pouring my mind on to a paper and connecting my emotions and feelings to those encircling thoughts is something that comforts me. I use it as a medium to figure out what’s happening and why is it happening.

How does writing journals help me?

Journal writing never tires me. Whenever I have some kind of conflict within myself, my first instinct is to open my journal and start brain jumping and penning down all the demons dancing inside my mind. Sometimes the problem isn’t as enormous as it appears to be. Sometimes it’s just your emotions that swell up the actual problem and make it appear gigantic. Being able to filter out those emotions from the actual problem is just another benefit of spending some time with a journal.

But wait a minute… what is journal writing?

Journal writing, contrary to what many people think, does not have a structured format. A stereotypical image of journal writing one might see is of a person sitting by the sunset and scribbling, “Dear Diary, today I feel…”. There is nothing wrong with it but it just shows a small reflection of the bigger picture.

In my opinion, it is a very personal thing and how one approaches it differs from person to person. It is, in reality, a safe space for you to process your thoughts and emotions. It is also very helpful for tracking one’s mental and emotional growth over the years. One can rewind and go back to the writings from 2 or 3 years ago and assess the changes that took place.

If you take my advice, consider starting by just writing half-page a day about how your day went or just scribble out your feelings at that moment.