Journaling is the Best (and Cheapest) Tour Guide Available

Mari — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:52:00 GMT

Journaling for Life

By Melia Dicker

Since I was around five years old, my journal has been my closest confidant. I was still getting used to holding a pencil at the time when someone gave me a little hardback journal with a metal lock and key. Even though my secrets weren’t any juicier than “I went to Disneyland. It was fun,” the important thing was that I had a place to keep them.

As I grew older, my journals changed along with me. In middle school and high school, I used thick 8 ½ by 11 college-ruled Mead notebooks. As a preteen, I filled them with boy gossip and inevitably ended entries with “I heart so-and-so forever.”Often, I listed two or three names of boys that I loved deeply. In high school, I documented my teenage emotional highs and lows, my severe school stress, and the rare fights with my best friend. My journal let me vent and cry, even when I had no one else to talk to.

I kept a travel journal when I went to Europe for the first time in college, describing the beauty of London, Paris, and Madrid. I began to paste mementos into the pages with a glue stick—postcards of the places I’d visited, snippets of brochures from art museums, and concert ticket stubs.

While I was studying in Spain for a semester in 2000, I bought my first Miquelrius journal in a little papelería, an office supply store. I haven’t used another kind since. The spiral-bound journals have sturdy but flexible vinyl covers and come with or without lines. They’re 6 x 8inches and perfectly portable.

I got into the habit of gluing keepsakes not only into the pages of my journal, but also onto the front covers, so I could distinguish one journal from the other by the period in my life it represents. Every inch of the covers of my current journal, which I began on April 3, 2008, are covered with items like an Apple sticker on it to commemorate my first Mac computer and address labels from my old apartment in San Francisco.

Within the pages of my current journal, I wrote about falling in love with my partner, Darren, leaving the organization I co-founded, and eventually moving to Mississippi. Even though I talked about all of these things with my friends, the experience of telling them to my journal was different. I could be as completely honest, incoherent, enraged, immature, jealous, goofy, insecure, or despairing as I felt in that moment. I could share my thoughts and feelings freely, without worrying about how someone else would react to them.

I love looking back through my old journals and reading over the colorful adventures I’ve had, and the struggles I’ve survived. Just as much, I love looking at the blank pages of a new journal and wondering what events will fill those pages—tomorrow, next week, or next year. I expect that by the time I’m into my golden years, my friends will have come and gone, but my journal—my unwavering source of strength and solace—will still be at my side.

Melia Dicker is a freelance writer based in Jackson, Mississippi, who has kept a journal for nearly 25 years. She blogs about lifelong education and personal transformation at www.reschoolyourself.com.

How to Use Journaling to Cure Depression

Mari — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:15:00 GMT

If your depression is minor and not bordering on severe, you could try therapeutic journaling as a natural aid to help overcome depression symptoms. Journaling is highly recommended by therapists for those suffering from mental illness and it can be an important tool in fighting depression. Journaling can release pent-up thoughts and feelings and enable you to understand your emotions and therefore becomes a therapeutic way to work through those thoughts that lead to your depression.

Your journal could include writing, drawing, painting, and/or creating collages to depict your thoughts and feelings. Use it as a safe space to release negative energy and feelings as you work through problems or bad thoughts. A journal enables you to dump these things out, while not feeling bad about doing so or being judged for what you say or feel. You can also engage in this activity at any time, rather than waiting for a scheduled therapy session. However, never allow any negativity to come through in your journaling; focusing on the negatives will make this exercise lose its effect.

You should journal every day in a quiet place for at least an hour and write about your feelings to help lift your spirits and soothe your soul, regardless of what tools you use, such as a traditional notebook, blog account, word document, etc. Daily, you should write about five things you are grateful for. Even though it may not be easy to begin, simple things such as the weather, food, or a supportive friend could suffice.

Also, try communicating five positive things that occurred each day. Writing or expressing your accomplishments in life and your thoughts on them will help you stay proud and happy. Perhaps you learned a foreign language, graduated from high school or college, learned a new skill, raised a nice family, etc. Writing down both a short and long-term goal every day can give you something to work towards. This constant reminder can give you the motivation to start moving in the morning, get out of the house, or work on an assignment or project in order to bring yourself closer to your goals. You can also list all the major moods you went through that day, their approximate times, and respective triggers for further self-analysis. Rating your emotions on a scale from one to five, in regards to how manageable they were, can help you numerically chart your progress every few days.

This guest article was written by Christine Howell who frequently writes about online degrees and college related topics for OnlineCollege Guru, a directory of accredited online degrees.

Artwork provided by Master Journaler and Artist Steph Jordan of Diviacity.

Journal Therapy Cures

Journaling is the Best (and Cheapest) Tour Guide Available

How to Use Journaling to Cure Depression