Journaling

[ABernie]

So many people suggest Journaling. I am absolutely for this idea as I do love to write, but I'm scared to start.

 

I'm scared to go through the pain again. I'm sure it's cathartic. Do I avoid writing about the past and just stay in the here and now?

[Beachead]

So many people suggest Journaling. I am absolutely for this idea as I do love to write, but I'm scared to start.

 

I'm scared to go through the pain again. I'm sure it's cathartic. Do I avoid writing about the past and just stay in the here and now?

 

Journaling is anything you want it to be depending on where you are in your grief and what you feel you need.

 

What I like to do most of the time is just write my day to day thoughts. I don't spend time formatting. I don't care about grammar. I don't care if I cuss or not. I just write. No holds barred. It's called free-writing and its a good way to not just release your thoughts but also see the patterns in them. You start noticing what your most dominant thoughts are in the day. What you talk about the least. You get to see how negative or positive you are. From there you can start to pick what you want to change in your life.

 

Unless I want to, I don't usually write everyday. I write when I need to. Sometimes I'll go months without writing a passage. But I'll tell you this much..it's helped me focus. I even have a note in my room that says "Just Keep Studying" because at the moment I'm back in school. Everytime I struggle, I see that simple message and it sets me back to focus.

 

Its awkward at first and its a slow start because you often hold back due to being trained your whole life to filter who you really are with anyone, but once you realize, no one is listening or watching, you'll find that pen will start to flow after awhile and things will just come out.

 

My most recent addition, I write down 2 things I am grateful for along with every free-writing entry.

 

Another thing you can do with journalling is write out your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, 5 year time frame goals..and then your ultimate plan and purpose in life. You can write out where you see yourself living. What the house looks like. How big is backyard or what floor of the condo are you living on. Is it an urban or rural place? Whether you want a pet or not. How much education you aspire to attain. What your dream job is. Suit or business casual or plain clothes? How much you want to be paid. What your dream girl looks like and what her personality would be etc. Get detailed. With this type of journal, write it out everyday and speak to yourself about it out loud every now and then as if you're being interviewed. It sounds crazy but it works. It's a good way train your mind to focus on whats needed.

 

In this way, you burn it into your head and consciously work on it. You won't realize it..but it'll change the way you operate in life.

 

Hope this helps

 

- Beach

Edited October 12, 2018 by Beachead

[Ronni_W]

Hugs, ABernie.

Do I avoid writing about the past and just stay in the here and now?

Yes, just start wherever you are most comfortable...but also allow your own Intuition to guide you. At some point, looking at the past will help to free you 'in the here and now' -- and there is nothing to say that you cannot or should not look at your own past from the perspective of a neutral, if interested, observer who has no direct, emotional connection or attachment.

 

Again though, no need to rush it, either. Best of luck.

[preraph]

I used to journal all through my 20s and 30s and then had a bad circumstance that threw me into a major depression and even PTSD, and 10 years later, I needed to look something up and picked up my journals looking for it, and got totally caught up in it and did nothing but read and cry for the next few days. And then I went through them again and again and typed them up (900 pages) and each time, I learned more and more.

 

But the important thing is reading them made me remember who I was and how I got that way and it snapped me back into life, raw as a twig for awhile, but I was baaaa-aaack. It saved my life, honestly.

 

I started mine when I was between jobs and had time on my hands in the mid-1970s and I started mine with just a current entry. But then I wrote about 100 or 200 pages looking back and described some of my childhood and then wrote about all my current friends and acquaintances (I was leading a colorful life at this time -- too much time on my hands, devil's workshop, all that). Then I went to daily entries from there on the rest of the years.

 

Just start writing what you did today and don't pressure yourself about the hurtful things, but you'll end up writing about them sooner or later because what you did today will somehow be contingent on something else that happened earlier, and that's the type stuff you learn from it. I wish I could still handwrite because it was very cozy to curl up at the end of a day drunk or tired or both and scratch it out. Handwriting is so much more expressive, too, but typing will be fine. I rarely write poetry anymore, but I type it when I do, with my eyes closed like I'm in a trance and then don't go back to it until much later to edit. Good luck.

[FMW]

Since you are interested in giving it a try, just start in whatever way you are comfortable. If it's something that's going to be useful for you you'll get into the flow naturally once you make a start. There are no rules, no one to please but yourself.

[ABernie]

Thank you all.

[Beachead]

Thank you all.

 

You're most welcome. Feel free post and ask more questions about it whenever.

 

- Beach