Mona Symone: How Journaling Helped Me Be More Calm, Mindful And Resilient

An Interview With Heidi Sander

Forgiveness — Blogging acts as a buffer between you and the subject at hand. With time and space, healing can occur which allows us to forgive.

Journaling is a powerful tool to gain clarity and insight especially during challenging times of loss and uncertainty. Writing can cultivate a deeper connection with yourself and provide an outlet for calmness, resilience and mindfulness. When my mom passed on, I found writing to be cathartic. When I read through my journal years later, there were thoughts that I developed into poems, and others that simply provided a deeper insight into myself. In this series I’m speaking with people who use journaling to become more mindful and resilient.

As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Mona Symone.

Mona Symone is a hard-working entrepreneur, dedicated mother and author of the children’s book ‘One Brave Knight’ that teaches kids to face their fears of sleeping alone. After her 12-year-old son endured bullying several times, she took immediate action by having continued discussions with her child and school administrators.

Mona maintained an open dialogue with her son, encouraging him to tell her everything that happened each day so he would be better equipped to handle what was happening. He slowly learned how to fight his own battles, including when to fight, when not to, and when to seek adult intervention from mom and administrators. The bullying her son faced and the uphill battle with administration inspired Mona to create I’m Just Me which provides important resources to parents which allow kids to get help and stand up to bullies. She then went on to create an online empowerment store where kids can truly show how empowered they can be.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! We really appreciate the courage it takes to publicly share your story of healing. Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?

I am an involved parent. This means I have daily conversations with my son about his experiences at school. As I spoke with him, I learned that he was being bullied in middle school. In fact, it was so severe that he endured treatment no student should face such as being punched, slapped, and even having his backpack thrown into the garbage. It was unlike anything he ever experienced before.

I immediately activated on his behalf to get to the root of the issue. This meant having continued discussions with my son and school administrators. When it came to educating my child on how to handle himself, part of the conversation revolved around school policies. The information seemed contradictory and unhelpful. For example, there is the issue of self-defense. Some schools have a zero-tolerance policy against physical violence. But what happens if a student is defending him or herself from bullies? Should they get suspended for it? I certainly did not think so, especially in cases where there is a known bully and incidents have occurred in the past. Defending oneself should not leave a student with the same punishment or backlash as the person who initiates the conflict.

The social landscape of school is significantly different from my generation. Growing up, I was teased from time to time. However, as many of us do, I figured it was acceptable and typical behavior. Some people even normalized the practice. Today, however, it has taken an entirely new form. With the rise of social media, bullying often does not stop when the bell rings, and can easily become an around-the-clock form of aggression and torment.

This led me to start the I’m Just Me brand. It was a way for me to provide resources for parents to help their children draw the line and empower them to say, “Enough is enough.”

I learned a great deal on my journey and felt the need to share these things with others. For example, children often internalize their emotions or blame themselves for what is happening to them. There are also undercurrents of shame and potentially depression. Our children should not suffer through this because the implications are quite serious.

It took a while to make change, one that I would describe as an uphill battle. As a result, I started blogging which created important resources for other parents to benefit from.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about journaling. Have you been writing in your journal for a long time or was there a challenging situation that prompted you to start journal writing? If you feel comfortable sharing the situation with us, it could help other readers.

Blogging is a form of expression similar to journaling. They both reveal depths and points of view others would typically not know about a person. Sometimes you can’t always tell people how you feel, and it is better to write instead.

I was primarily prompted to blog when my son started to experience bullying in school. It was a frustrating experience to realize the policies in place were not serving the bullied student well. There needed to be a greater dialogue between parents, teachers, and administration.

A Time to Fight Back was my first entry. It helped me release pinned-up thoughts and feelings that I felt no one else understood. I did not realize that other parents could identify with my situation. This blog was essentially a word bomb, a stream of consciousness that formed the basis of my continued writing.

Seeing the benefits of my blogging, I encourage all parents and children to write as a method to express their thoughts. There is even a strong mental health component involved. In fact, research suggests that journaling helps reduce stress which can potentially boost the immune system.

To me, writing in the form of blogging helps me process the stressful emotions I feel when navigating the topic of bullying. There are moments when we may want to say things in anger but instead, try writing your thoughts and reading them over the following day. You may not feel the same way anymore.

How did journaling help you heal, mentally, emotionally and spiritually?

Taking on school policy is no simple task. I found blogging to be a positive way to continue moving forward until I reached the much-needed answers I sought. Part of my healing came through writing.

Mentally, I felt consumed by the thoughts I had cycling through my mind. I had to figure out how to advocate for my son effectively. I also had life lessons to teach my son related to self-esteem, self-respect, and self-defense.

Emotionally, I felt worried and anxious for my child’s well-being. There were times when I was a ball of nerves at work for example. I was sure that every time the phone rang, or I received a notification, it was going to be about an incident with my son. You can only push a person so far and as parents, we neither want to see our children hurt nor do we want to see them hurt others.

Spiritually, I felt defeated at times. Blogging helped me put everything into perspective, replenish and soothe when days were particularly draining.

Did journaling help you find more self-compassion and gratitude? Can you share a story about that?

I have shared my personal story on my anti-bullying platform. This prompted others to do the same. The gratitude and self-compassion experience is a two-way street meaning parents benefit as well. I am grateful for the messages I receive from parents on my site. They share their perspective that parents of bullied students can appreciate.

What kind of content goes into your journal? For example, do you free-write, write poems, doodle?

Blogging is certainly a form of journaling. The content that goes into my blogs has an anti-bullying theme. I consider it a home base for parents and students to get ideas and inspiration from my experience.

Since confidence is a major theme for, I’m Just Me as well, affirmations play a significant role in my content. These affirmations boost kids’ self-esteem and encourage them to just be themselves — they are perfect the way they are. Our children will not be victims and parents will not let them suffer. My content is essentially like training with the ultimate flex of being empowered.

How did you gain a different perspective on life and your emotions while writing in your journal? Can you please share a story about what you mean?

Blogging helped me gain a sense of perspective on the scope, or size of bullying. My entries have connected people not just across the country but worldwide. I’ve realized that bullying is an epidemic that affects millions of households. I truly get emotional when I hear horror stories from parents, but these interactions help fuel me to keep shedding light on the problem of bullying. To illustrate, here is some of the feedback I get from parents:

• “My daughter is special needs and I always feel like it is so important to educate people on her conditions. She is 5 and doesn’t know that she’s different. She is a superhero to me. I want her classmates to realize that bullying hurts and that everyone has something unique and special about themselves. To honor those differences.”
• “My 13-year-old daughter recently was the target of bullying at her school. Unfortunately, it led to her getting a concussion, CT scan, and back X-ray last week. She is afraid to go back to school even with the SRO pressing charges for us against the girl that did this to my daughter. We are now looking into virtual homeschool options for her. Bullying is not ok; I have 5 children from 9–19 and they have all been bullied.”
• “It is very important for children to stand up for themselves against bullies! This bullying stuff has gone on way too long and it is time for it to stop!”
• “Recently in the past week my 15-year-old Autistic son was bullied through TikTok. Although he has never seen it was sent to me privately. It has been removed, but I do have a copy of it. My momma bear claws came out. My son believes everyone is his friend. I wished that was true.”
• I think blogging helps us process collectively. We learn tips and strategies from each other and different cultures.

In my own journal writing, I ended up creating poems from some of the ideas and one of them won an award. Do you have plans with your journal content?

I am going to continue to inspire parents to be resilient and strong models for their children because they depend on us to help right any wrongs that happen in the school system. This means I continue to shine light on the bullying epidemic through ImJustMe.me.

Fantastic. Here is our main question. In my journaling program, I have found that journaling can help people to become more calm, mindful and resilient. Based on your experience and research, can you please share with our readers “five ways that journaling can help you to be more calm, mindful and resilient”?

There are several points that come to mind when considering the ways blogging helped me become more calm, mindful, and resilient:

1. Emotional Intelligence — Getting in touch with our true feelings makes us better able to respond to what is going on around us. As mentioned before, in the moment, blogging helps release unpleasant emotions of anger and sadness. Taking a moment to process and decompress means we avoid acting on our emotions. After all, we may not feel the same way in the morning.
2. Forgiveness — Blogging acts as a buffer between you and the subject at hand. With time and space, healing can occur which allows us to forgive.
3. Mental health — Blogging has several mental health benefits, especially when it comes to stress and anxiety relief.
4. Strength — I found that blogging helped strengthen me mentally and emotionally. It is an opportunity to strategize and plan my next moves.
5. Mindfulness — Blogging is a consistent reminder to focus on healing. This means clearing the mind and taking oneself off autopilot. This awareness then transfers to others around us.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of peace to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?

Part of the reason I love blogging is that I am inspiring a movement: the I’m Just Me movement! My brand helps children regain their strength and confidence as part of the mission.

• Stand up to bullies by expressing one’s limits.
• Unleash true talents without fear of ridicule.
• Build confidence to stand up for themselves.
• Polish their character so they do not mimic the same behavior as bullies.
• Spread positivity through strong affirmations.

I’m Just Me is about emotional soundness, empathy, and respect. These things foster peace.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

Steve Harvey. Harvey tried his hands on lots of jobs that never really worked out. From being a salesman to a postman, professional boxer, and other jobs. When he became a comedian, he had to battle many financial setbacks. He lived out of his 1976 Ford Tempo for three years and did menial jobs to survive. He even had to take showers at swimming pools and gas stations.

However, in those three years, Harvey kept believing against all odds for a breakthrough. I’d like to understand what gave him the courage to be so optimistic in the face of such seemingly insurmountable challenges.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Please visit: https://www.imjustme.me/ and https://shop.imjustme.me/

Follow us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/iamjustme.me and Instagram: www.Instagram.com/imjustme.me

Thank you!

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued fulfillment and success with your writing!

Thank you!