It was way past midnight and I was chatting with my best friend with tears rolling down my cheeks. I was sobbing while I typed every message and between this intense chat she suggested something about a gratitude journal. At that moment, I brushed it off as something which I didn’t think would help me. When you are so upset, any positive suggestion is duly ignored because all you are looking for is sympathy, although you won’t admit it then. That’s exactly what I did. I didn’t want to hear any solutions. Fast forward to today, I can’t stop shoving journaling in every troubled being’s face.
Journaling is not limited to maintaining a diary but the ultimate goal of journaling is caring for yourself and your needs. I maintain three journals-a gratitude journal, a goal setting journal and a planner for my blogging ideas which I keep changing often. The journal I reach out to on most days is the gratitude journal. I started gratitude journaling so that I can stop ignoring the little good things that happen every day with me but are so easily ignore. It helps me stay grounded, acknowledge my privilege, count my blessings and look at even a bad day in a positive light. Let’s just say I had a fight with someone today and kept thinking about it the entire day while ignoring everything good that happened with me today, but when I started gratitude journaling I actually stopped thinking about that one negative incident when something good happens on that specific day. I was able to see good even in the worst of situations and that’s not exaggeration. Now all days are not same and I am human, so some days I would still sulk but there have been days when at the end of day I was just grateful for the basic necessities I had access to whereas many others didn’t.
2020 was a trying time and 2021 is breaking records, we no more have the privilege to escape from our troubling thoughts and clear our head by taking a vacation, unless of course you have a private jet and high contacts to fly you out to a safe place. Let me know I would like to join but till then let’s face it in our own ways. So if you are a journaling rookie and want to give it a go, keep reading.
When you hear journal, your mind immediately thinks about a personal diary but what you don’t know is that there are many kinds of journals you can choose to maintain based on your current needs. Journaling is a form of self-care so you can choose a gratitude journal to focus on positivity, a food journal to focus on your eating habits or jot down recipes if you like to cook, a travel journal to reminisce about your past travels and fill it with memorabilia, a personal journal which you can fill with all the things you find hard to speak about, a bullet journal to make you organized and to be precise without investing a lot of time. There are endless possibilities when it comes to journaling, so do not put it in a box and do not let one box define you. Keep a plant journal if you are an enthusiastic plant mom nobody can understand or a dream journal to figure out your dreams. It can be anything as long as it is important to you and works for you.
When you start journaling, you will realize that some things work better on paper than it does in your head. It’s like that science theory you never understood until you wrote it down step by step and cracked the code for yourself. In my case it was usually my friend who helped me crack science and math codes but she too always had to write it down while explaining. Also you don’t just have to write it down, if you are a tech junky; you can maintain an e-journal. Like I said, endless possibilities and individual choices. It will help you connect with your deeper self, track your thoughts and even help you manage stress. Some might think of journaling as a philosophical mumbo jumbo but journaling has science backing it. Journal therapy is also used in psychotherapy at times.
Now picking up the right kind of journal is important. You would need something which will fit your needs. Not all of us will be happy with a leather bound blank page diary. Some of you will fancy an iPad or a mini diary that can be carried along because you like to journal while traveling around (not during this pandemic of course but think ahead and positive). Some would prefer to keep their journal at home and would like it to have a fancy cover. My first gratitude journal was a holographic Minoso diary which I bedazzled with stickers and the likes because those things made me excited and I would never forget to write in it every night. So choosing the right journal is as important as choosing the right kind of journaling for yourself.
We all have been stuck at homes for another year and may find ourselves overwhelmed from time to time. It is a breeding ground for overthinking and negative thinking when you are cooped up indoors with only the windows allowing you a sight of outside world which also looks empty. Chances are if you feel like a caged bird, your mind feels like one too. In these difficult times, journaling can be a tool to help you deal with your thoughts in a better manner, a tool to help you vent it all out without the fear of being judged, a tool to plan ahead, a tool to count your blessings, a tool to escape the negativity. There was no better time to start journaling than today, so do not wait for tomorrow to start caring for yourself. I urge everyone reading this to give journaling a go at least for a month and let me know how you feel about it and to everyone who is already journaling, pat yourself in the back because you are on the right track my friend.
“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” ~ Anne Frank
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