My Therapist — Journaling
Sometimes people may not have the time to listen to you, but that white paper always does.
Life is hard. It is meant to be; otherwise, we would not understand the value of joy and peace. While living this journey called life, there are days where getting out of bed seems like an impossible task. The mind refuses to wake up, the heart feels numb with pain, and the body feels heavy with the tsunami of emotions.
Like a sine wave, life has its ups and downs. Every phase teaches us something new, and we rise, grow and learn to navigate troubled roads. In this journey, we meet people. Some good, some bad and some that last for a lifetime. But there is one person that never leaves our side, and if we were to believe that it’s not an activity but our closest friend, then the person I am talking about is ‘journaling’.
From the outside, it seems as if it is only writing on paper, but it is like our own personal therapist in a more profound sense. There is no one to judge you; therefore, you can be your most honest self. The paper doesn’t question your actions, and there is no one to interrupt you when you reveal your darkest emotions and your joyous triumphs.
Merriam Webster defines journaling as –
A record of experiences, ideas, or reflections kept regularly for private use : DIARY
By this, it is clear that journaling might be your closest friend; therefore, you must keep your journal locked up for no one’s eyes but yours.
As mentioned earlier, journaling can be your therapist, and research has proven rightly so. According to an article published by the University of Rochester Medical Center on ‘Journaling for Mental Health’ journaling can help anyone in the following ways:
Manage anxiety, reduce stress and cope with depression.
Journaling helps control your symptoms and improve your mood by:
1. Helping you prioritize problems, fears, and concerns.
2. Tracking any symptoms day-to-day so that you can recognize triggers and learn ways to better control them.
3. Providing an opportunity for positive self-talk and identifying negative thoughts and behaviors.
We all have been through a terrible time together — the pandemic. People have lost their loved ones, and some cannot cope with loneliness. Job loss has rendered people with stress and depression. It’s during these difficult times that journaling has helped countless people to survive.
When I started journaling, I found the act as a time waster and somewhat amusing. I treated the paper as a living human and somehow felt like I had to write rationally so that if someone else read it, I would not sound desperate or be more precise an agony aunt. However, when I kept at it, the paper that I was treating as a person slowly became like my one escape from reality.
We all have a dark side within us. It’s our rational side that is created by the deep-rooted values we instill that help us see things clearly. There are situations where you find yourself frustrated. You can only think of causing harm to the other person, and because you have strong values, you don’t act on it. However, we need a healthy way of venting our pain and anger. That’s when journaling truly helps. It’s the only time when your thoughts are out on paper, and your mind and heart begin to feel lighter.
Take any traumatic event, when the heart bleeds you not only need someone to listen to you, but you also need a channel to express your pain without requiring a response. That white paper staring at you does that same thing, and you can be your most real self.
But journaling is not just for the bad moments, and it shouldn’t be that way. Why should your therapist only know about your sorrows? It’s not fair that the one activity you lean on is only reading your traumas and not reading your healing process.
As time heals all wounds, journaling becomes a record of your healing process. When you look back on how you were and where you are today, you realise how strong you can be and overcome anything. To do that, you must pen down your happy moments too.
According to Success Consciousness, experts estimate that the mind thinks between 60,000–80,000 thoughts a day. That’s an average of 2500–3,300 thoughts per hour. That’s incredible.
Other experts estimate a smaller number, of 50,000 thoughts per day, which means about 2100 thoughts per hour. This too, is a great number of thoughts.
If nothing, give your mind a break from the endless chain of thoughts. Make some coffee, slip into your most comfy PJs and book an appointment with your journal. The meeting could last for five or thirty minutes or even an hour. The time doesn’t matter, but the end result does. And after the end of each appointment, I promise it will be the best invested time of your life.
So, start today as this therapist is free. You could use your phone to journal or spend on a diary that will motivate you to write in it every day. At first, you may feel that this is total bullshit, but you will thank yourself later for giving your mind a venting space, if you keep at it.
