I’m often recommended Journalling as a way of helping ones anxiety. My therapist I’ve been seeing for many years keeps recommending it, and I keep trying it!
What is journalling? It’s basically a way of writing down your thoughts, in whatever form. Some people use a diary, some people a notebook, some people scrap bits of paper. Some people do it electronically of course.
Why journal? The point is that you WRITE, and that action of writing gets the stuff out of your head, and onto ‘paper’. THis has a cleansing effect, a way of clearing the brain of those thoughts, and putting them somewhere else.
What do I do with the Journal? What happens next with what you’ve written is of little importance. You can keep it in a safe place, as it’s for your eyes only. If you are scared of it being discovered, and hence perhaps not writing some (probably really important) stuff down, then maybe you need to consider destroying it as soon as you write it? You shouldn’t read what you’ve written, not immediately, leave it for a few days, or a few weeks or months. You don’t even have to write it at all.
Another method is to write letters, or emails, to a person. That person can be real or imaginary. And, you can either send them, or not. You don’t have to send them! This can be a very powerful technique, tell them what you think.
What do I do? Well, I often email myself with a journal entry. It then just gets saved in my email, and I can search for it later if I want. I’m aware though that I don’t write about some stuff frankly in that way. So I’m going to try Morning Pages [http://www.theartistsway.com/tools/the-basic-tools] too, written on loose sheets of paper that I’m going to shred. I don’t need to keep the stuff, I need to let it go!
I’m often recommended Journalling as a way of helping ones anxiety. My therapist I’ve been seeing for many years keeps recommending it, and I keep trying it!
What is journalling? It’s basically a way of writing down your thoughts, in whatever form. Some people use a diary, some people a notebook, some people scrap bits of paper. Some people do it electronically of course.
Why journal? The point is that you WRITE, and that action of writing gets the stuff out of your head, and onto ‘paper’. THis has a cleansing effect, a way of clearing the brain of those thoughts, and putting them somewhere else.
What do I do with the Journal? What happens next with what you’ve written is of little importance. You can keep it in a safe place, as it’s for your eyes only. If you are scared of it being discovered, and hence perhaps not writing some (probably really important) stuff down, then maybe you need to consider destroying it as soon as you write it? You shouldn’t read what you’ve written, not immediately, leave it for a few days, or a few weeks or months. You don’t even have to write it at all.
Another method is to write letters, or emails, to a person. That person can be real or imaginary. And, you can either send them, or not. You don’t have to send them! This can be a very powerful technique, tell them what you think.
What do I do? Well, I often email myself with a journal entry. It then just gets saved in my email, and I can search for it later if I want. I’m aware though that I don’t write about some stuff frankly in that way. So I’m going to try Morning Pages too, written on loose sheets of paper that I’m going to shred. I don’t need to keep the stuff, I need to let it go!