JOURNALING

As a therapist, I recommend journaling a lot of the time to my clients. Journaling is helpful for many different reasons. Some include, being able to take a step back and think about the events in your life, have a way to write down and tell your story as well as express your emotions. The list goes on. I had a recent discussion with a friend about keeping a journal which I recommended that she start as new one as she embarked on a new stage in her life. This made me reflect on my own discovery of how journals can be helpful not too long ago.

A few months ago I was trying to correct some faulty beliefs I had about myself and my source of self-worth. As I was journaling, I decided to go through all my journals I kept during high school and college to gain insight into the origins of these false beliefs that were now crippling me in being able to be myself. What I discovered was astonishing, I was able to find exactly what I was looking for. I found themes that occurred and developed throughout my journal keeping.  I found myself searching for my self-worth in the men I sought after and in role-model figures. I saw my need to for attention from these people and a theme of anxiety when around them. Being able to see this develop and evolve over ten years enlightened me and gave me a power to change it.

I was also taken back this week when I had not journaled for a while and felt I was in a good place and wanted to check back on how I felt exactly a year ago, as I was searching for the same date a year ago, I finally came to the first day I started the journal, which marked a new stage in my life. This coincidence took me back and I became thankful for the grace God continues to give me in my life to grow into the person he made me to be.  

I challenge you to start a journal if you don’t have one already and if you do to reflect back on past journals to see how you have grown. Are you headed in the direction you want to go in? Have you reached goals that you have written down? Do you still hold on to hurts? As we take this journey of life, no matter what you want to write about, physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual aspects of yourself it is way to also monitor progress, to see how you have grown into the person you are today and gain a better sense of where you would like to go.

If you’re in one of my fitness challenge groups, it’s a great way to monitor your struggles, to be able to go back and say, this made me emotionally eat, but now it does not really have any power over me or I forgot I had lost so much weight at that time and it made me feel so happy and confident. We keep track of so many things in our lives, why not the most important, ourselves and our journey in becoming the person God has made us to be.

God Peace,

Cherie