(View my how to and why journal page)
Some people love to write in a journal. Some people hate writing, therefore never have tried it. I will let you know that keeping some sort of journal is not hard, even if you do not like to write. I myself love to write and once I start to write it goes on and on and on. I can fill a book in a day lol.. That is not always the case for all though.First I will let you know that expressing your emotions is very important. Keeping things inside can be extremely frustrating and cause more stress to ourselves than a lot of other things. That is why I feel it is very important to have some release for those feelings. If you are able, I think that you should always let a person know how you are feeling. If you are angry with someone, explain it to them in a nice way. If somebody has made you sad, try letting them know that what they have done has hurt your feelings. But it can also be frustrating holding in your good emotions as well. I know that in all cases it might not be the best thing to tell somebody you love them. Especially if they are married with 5 kids, but sometimes we cannot help the way we feel and that happens. So if you have feelings for another person, you should let it out. What is the worst that could happen? They do not feel the same way? Maybe that might happen, but you will be getting the same results as if you never told them, but at least there is a 50% of something happening if you let it out. The odds are much better!
Back to writing. I use to have my daughter do this. There was a stage where she would get really frustrated, really easily. So when I saw that was happening I would give her a pen and a notebook and told her to draw angry circles, then leave the room. She would take the pen, slam it into the notebook and start drawing circles. I would say she would wind up with hundreds of circles. Sometimes she would write things like angry or mad on the page as well. But she would on most occasions come back with the notebook and the paper and say she is sorry for acting the way she was, she would say something like I was mad but I am ok now and then we could talk. If you do not want to write you can draw angry circles also. It is a release, it calms the mind and allows you to think more clearly. If you do not want to write long journal entries, then when something is bothering you try to just go to your "special book" and put a header that says I am angry because: and then list the things that are bothering you. Our minds are filled with so many things, it is hard to work on our anger and issues without separating them from everything else that is going on in our lives. If you have a list to work off of, then you will be able to try to figure out a specific solution to that specific situation or emotion. It is also good to write down next to the specific thing what you might be able to do to change it, or what would make the situation better. It will give you a plan or a goal to work towards.
Usually when you are writing in a journal you are by yourself. Many of us do not have "self" time and it is really needed. I will write more about that another time, but even those 15 or 20 minutes away from the rest of the world, the phone, the computer, the dog is helpful in allowing ourselves to work on ourselves. If you get nothing else out of writing, at least you get some you time.
I would use a "special book" or a book designated for this reason only. This way you can have everything in one place and you can go back to see how you dealt with a situation in the past, or maybe see the outcome of something that happened a while back. It does not have to be fancy just separate from other pads or notebooks you use. I personally like to have a nice book for this purpose. I don't know, I just feel like I am putting special things in it, it should be nice lol..
Before I said that it is good to let other people know how you are feeling. It really does feel like you are taking a ton of bricks off your chest when you do so, but in some situations like death, that is impossible to do. Writing down your emotions and even writing a letter to the person you have lost will help to ease the feelings that you are having. Though they will not be able to physically read it, you would have had a chance to let out what you wanted to say.
I really think that if you have never tried writing or keeping a journal you should try it for at least a little while and see how it goes. What do you have to lose?
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