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Journaling is a therapeutic tool used in a variety of ways to connect with aspects of self at a deeper level.  It has many advantages when done in conjunction with therapy.  It helps a person become better acquainted with their own hidden patterns of thinking and feeling.  Recognizing and becoming aware of your own patterns is the starting point of change, only when we know what is not working can we change it.  

Journaling is also a good tool for measuring success and change, as you look back at issues you have addressed and worked on.  On the other hand it will also reveal what issues are still unresolved and need your attention.  

As you continue journaling you will find that your understanding of your issues move from a surface level to deeper levels as the underlying fears and motives are revealed to you.  One is often surprised at what is revealed!  It is surprising to find out what you really think and believe as opposed to what you think you think.  The masks start coming off.  The real you starts showing itself.  You are accessing your subconscious self... the one that runs the show.  We tend to live with a socially acceptable persona or the 'false self' that adapts itself to the demands of society and the environment we live in.  

The best style of journaling is 'free-flowing' ie: let your thoughts and feelings flow.  No censoring of thoughts and feelings!  As you start writing you will find that your mind goes off on tangents, one thought leading to another... follow the thread.  Keep asking yourself why do I think/feel this way.  Keep digging deeper and deeper as your inner motivations are revealed to you.  Our thoughts and feelings occur in layers, as you uncover one layer you will find another layer of beliefs under it.  Look at the dark and the bright sides of self.  Honesty, brutal honesty is the key to truly understand yourself.  Don't shy away from your true inner self... as that is the part of you that you need to know if you want to change the negativity in your life. 

Some of the advantages of Journaling are:

Healing

• Self-awareness
• Heals relationships
• Heals the past
• Dignifies all events
• Strengthens your sense of self
• Balances and harmonizes aspects of self
• Recalls and reconstructs past events
• Acts as your own counselor
• Leverages therapy sessions for better and faster results
• Reveals and tracks patterns and cycles
• Allows you to re-experience the past with today's adult mind

Know Yourself 

• Builds self confidence and self knowledge
• Records the past
• Helps you identify your values
• Reveals the depths of who you are
• Clarifies thoughts, feelings and behavior
• Shifts you to the observer, recorder, counselor level
• Reveals your processes - how you think, learn, create and use intuition
• Creates awareness of beliefs and options so you can change them
• Reveals different aspects of self
• Accesses the unconscious, subconscious and super consciousness
• Finds the missing pieces and the unsaid
• Helps rid you of the masks you wear
• Finds more meaning in life

Personal Growth

• Integrates life experiences and learning
• Moves you towards wholeness and growth, to who you really are
• Explores your spirituality
• Focuses and clarifies your desires and needs
• Allows freedom of expression
• Explores night dreams, day dreams and fantasies
• Improves self trust
• Awakens the inner voice
• Directs intention and discernment
• Provides insights
• Improves sensitivity
• Interprets your symbols and dreams

Problem Solving and Stress Reduction

• Eases decision making
• Offers new perspectives
• Brings clarity
• Shows relationships and wholeness instead of separation
• Is often self-starting and motivating and supplies its own energy
• Enhances intuition and creativity
• Increases focus
• Brings stability
• Holds thoughts still so they can be observed, changed and integrated
• Releases pent-up thoughts and emotions
• Empowers
• Disentangles thoughts and ideas
• Bridges inner thinking with outer events

As you start to journal you will have more and more ideas come to you. Capture them. Create an "Ideas" page of things you want to journal about. It may be a great idea, or another topic you would like to journal on, or a question you want answered, or a journaling tool you want to try again. Write it. Any time you have a few minutes to reflect or write, you have some important topics to write about.

If you tend to have an active, creative mind, you may have lots of great ideas pop into your head. And if you do not catch them, they will be gone in seconds. It is great to go back and review multiple ideas, then step back and look at the bigger picture your ideas are creating.

"Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action."  Paul J. Meyer

© Uzma Mazhar 2001
Contact Info:  UzmaMazhar@hotmail.com