How Journaling Has Positively Changed My Life
I always heard that journaling came with so many health benefits, whether it was from an online source or word of mouth. But even so, these benefits weren’t enough to bring me to start journaling. Instead, I always said to myself “Meh, I don’t need to journal. I’ll get over this” and passed at the opportunity. Every. Single. Time.
Even when my anxiety was at an all-time high, I passed on journaling. I just wasn’t motivated enough to try it - I had falsely assumed that it would have no effect on me. So I continued to brush it off every time I was anxious and stressed. You can already imagine the pent up emotions I was feeling by not journaling, right? I either let my friends suffer as I vented their ears off, or I held all of this tension within me - definitely not a healthy way to deal with one’s emotions.
Months later, I finally brought myself to the decision to try out journaling for the first time. Besides, I have nothing to lose, right? I opened up a brand new notebook, started answering journaling questions that I found through YouTube, and EVERYTHING started pouring out. I could write easily and endlessly - for 30 minutes or longer with ease. After this experience, I can safely say that journaling has changed my life for the better.
How have you changed after daily journaling?
In all honesty, I notice that I feel much more lighter, carefree, liberated, happier, and grateful. To put humorously, I feel like a zen grandma. LOL. Daily journaling allows me to be fully vulnerable and honest with myself without judgment or the opinions of others. In other words, I feel a lot more peaceful and centered throughout my day when I am able to express my emotions through writing.
By writing down my thoughts, I am literally taking the weight off of my shoulders and putting it on to paper instead. Thanks paper for helping me lift this weight off my back!
What are you go-to essentials for daily journaling?
I’d like to humorously joke that my new Instagram name should be called @thejournalinggrandma. My best friend, Wendy, and I laughed at this name as I made it up out of thin air and I told her just how accurately this name describes me. Although I don’t think I should be proud to feel like a grandma at 28 years old…
Sorry, went off on a tangent there, LOL. My daily journaling essentials come down to a wide-lined spiral notebook, a good pen, and a lap desk, which I’ve linked below. However, I do want to mention my lowkey excitement for my incoming Erin Condren package and I’m working on a fun project with them for an upcoming YouTube video! Can’t wait to share more soon ;)
Shop my Amazon storefront here.
Why do you recommend daily journaling for others?
Much like therapy and meditation, journaling is a way to work on yourself. Your inner soul. Your peace. Your emotions. Your life. Journaling is just one of the many ways you can be open and vulnerable with yourself and this raw honesty and openness allows you to learn SO much about yourself.
When it comes to talking with a friend, family member, counselor, and/or your therapist, let’s be honest - we can be honest, but just HOW honest can we be? Maybe there’s a tragic story, a traumatizing experience, an embarrassing life moment that is just so uncomfortable to bring up that we just can’t muster up the courage to tell somebody the honest truth in private. That’s where journaling came into play. Journaling involves you and yourself only. By being on your own with a pen in hand, you’re giving yourself the chance to be as honest with yourself - and this honesty opens the door to self-growth, learning, and a transformative life experience.
I didn’t realize just how much humans THINK until I experienced scrutinizing anxiety, the kind of anxiety that makes you cry three times per day. I realized that so many people suffer from anxiety and our wandering thoughts haunt us like the damn Slenderman when you’re tryna find the scrolls in the dark (LOL insert random gamer reference here). I never knew the true, frightening power that anxiety held over us until I experienced anxiety for myself. By journaling on a daily basis, I allow all of my stresses, grudges, wandering thoughts, and worries to release out of my mind and on to paper. And to be quite frank, journaling has an amazing way of changing how you feel once you start writing. It definitely carries a different impact than therapy and I wish I had started journaling a lot earlier in my life.
All in all, quarantine has definitely changed my personality in so many ways and I have no regrets for how I’ve grown during this time of self-isolation. The status of my mental health has skyrocketed to an all-time high. My inner peace is left unscathed. The happiness that I feel comes from within, and not from external sources.
If you guys want to follow more of my self-care and self-love journey, I plan to incorporate more mental health and self-care videos on my YouTube channel so don’t forget to follow me on YouTube if you haven’t already!
Lastly, I wanted to point out how ironic and relatable this blog post is - writing this blog post felt like I was journaling this entire time, hah! However, I wanted to share my honest thoughts with you guys about journaling and why I recommend it. After reading this, I hope that you guys (or the ones who haven’t tried journaling yet) give journaling a try someday! I can promise you that it is life-changing.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you guys in the next post!