Self Care and Journaling
Self care is about what our souls or inner selves need and then taking action to address those needs. Journaling helps in self awareness and self discovery and brings about great scientific benefits. A quick search on Google reveals the many benefits from journaling. See the blog post Research on Journaling to find out more.
Journaling is a form of self care that brings about greater self awareness and clarity of what you need and how you can take actions to improve your well-being and mental state.
We will explore the following topics:
1) How to journal for self care
2) Self Care Journaling ideas
Self care is very important. And Self care journaling brings greater awareness of what may be holding you back and what you can do to cope with and deal with uncertainty and road blocks. With greater awareness you can determine actions or steps to overcome obstacles and cope with challenges.
Greater self awareness and understanding brings about greater joy, helps you deal with causes of stress, and what you can do to create the life you want rather than a life you are just going through the motions.
Usually our inner selves are struggling with emotions that we fail to process or are not sure how to address.
How to journal for Self Care
Our emotions or feelings become less scary and overwhelming when we are able to talk about them. Self Care journaling allows you to get your feeling and emotions out on paper so you can process them and write them down.
Self care journaling allows you to clear your mind and not be weighted down by your feelings and thoughts.
Keeping Track
It is important to keep track of your moods and fluctuation in your moods. When you have anxious moments it is helpful to describe the experience and what you did to manage the moment.
Ways to Journal for Self Care
1) Keep a Self Care routine - stick to a ritual
Carve out time during your day (5 - 20 minutes). Make your journal routine more relaxing to increase the self care quality of it. Maybe have a cup of coffee, listen to relaxing music, and focus on self care journaling. Clear out distractions and clear your mind.
2) Let go of your feelings - Be liberated from your emotions
The whole point of Self Care journaling is to let out your bottled up emotions and to be liberated from them.
Be honest with yourself when you are writing in your journal. Allow your time journaling to process any lingering or unaddressed feelings or issues. Don't judge your feelings. Feelings are feelings. They are neither right or wrong. It is important to understand your feelings and what may have triggered your feelings.
Being true to where you are at both mentally and emotionally is a key to successful self care journaling.
If you are not sure how to begin you can use the 50 best journaling prompts or you can start with a event that recently impacted you. Describe your feelings of the event that affected you. Be it positive, negative, or neutral be honest about your feelings and write from the heart. Release your feelings and let your guard down.
3) Processing time is required
It is important to allow time to process your feelings and emotions. Self care journaling should allow you to separate yourself from your emotions and feelings thus freeing you from them.
When self care journaling, make sure to spend time in self discovery. Self discovery of what your capable of and your strengths in managing situations. Ask yourself questions that help you find or determine solutions or actions you can take.
Questions such as:
1) Why am I feeling this way? What triggered this feeling?
2) Is there a real threat or am I just anxious or am I uncomfortable about a situation or the company that I am around?
3) What is the best way to respond that won't hurt me further?
4) What do I need to do to move forward?
Allowing time to process our feelings, helps open our path ways and clear our minds. In processing our feelings, we are able to turn something negative or something that is bringing us down into a positive. Self Care journaling should also focus on how to move forward from our current situations or feelings. The journaling should reveal actionable steps to move forward to a better path.
4) Try Guided Journaling or try using journaling prompts
Try the 50 Best Journaling prompts or guided journaling techniques. If you do a little research you can find journaling prompts (questions) or journal books that are structured and maybe suited to your personality.
There are plenty of guided journaling resources out there that maybe helpful for getting started with self care journaling.
5) Gratitude is Key
Self Care journaling is a great way to allow gratitude into our daily lives. By being mindful of the little blessings that happen every day that we normally look past will bring you joy. Keeping a gratitude list of kind acts, spontaneous joys, or little blessings will have a profound impact on your mental focus.
List all the people, places, situations, and things you are grateful for in your journal. For example, I am grateful for my kids, for my neighbor that stopped by to say hi, for my mom who sat and listened to a problem I was having.
Keeping a daily gratitude list helps you realize how blessed your life is no matter what difficulty or challenge life throws your way.
Write down one or a few things you are grateful for each day. This will help you realize how truly blessed and loved you truly are.
6) No Editor Allowed
Journaling and Self care journaling are about free form writing. Let your feelings and thoughts spill freely on the paper. Don't worry about grammar, spelling, or if it looks good. As long as you can understand it then that is all that is needed.
So, allow your thoughts and feelings to flow freely on paper and clear your mind. Allow journaling to help you process and get your emotions, feelings, and thoughts out from your inner self so you can figure out how to manage situations and take actionable steps to deal with the situation with integrity, guided by your value, and realize how truly blessed you are with the daily gratitude list.
In Summary
Self care journaling is a healing process. Allowing your thoughts, feelings, worries, and struggles to flow freely on paper allows you time to process and think through your situations. Journaling brings about greater clarity, self discovery, and more awareness of actionable steps you can take to cope and manage difficulties life may throw at you.
Journaling allows you greater awareness of the people, things, and situations you are grateful and allows you to deal with the struggles with greater understanding of your feelings, and choices in dealing with them.
Are you ready to get started? If so, check out Getting Started Journaling and the next section "Self Care Journaling Ideas".
Self Care Journaling Ideas
Self care journaling is a great way to support yourself in life. In Self Care journaling you are taking the time and taking actions to put together a list of different ideas and actions to aide in feeling more peace and joy. It will likely also attract more positivity, resilience, and a greater sense of strength and well-being.
To help in getting started with self care journaling here are various ideas for your self care journaling:
1 - List or write about the good parts of your day - What inspired you today? Did you enjoy your time with someone special or a friend today? Did you have an enjoyable experience? Did you learn something new that you can teach someone else? What are a few things you are grateful for today?
Write about the good moments that happened in your day.
2 - Freely write about or list the bad parts of your day - The bad parts of the day tend to stay in our mind weighing us down and bring us down.
By freely and openly writing about the bad parts of the day and how you felt and what you wished happened differently allows you time to process and release those negative feelings lifting the weight off you.
3 - List what you thought about through the day and why - Why are you struggling with certain emotions or insecurities now? By thinking through the reasons for your struggles or difficult emotions it helps you understand yourself better and have greater awareness of yourself. It may lead you to some past issues or wounds that you need to heal from.
4 - Make a gratitude list and write positive memories - Take time to reflect and be mindful of the most positive moments in your life. Bringing awareness and being mindful of the positive moments and blessings in your life will allow you to be kinder and gentler to yourself.
5 - Keep a list of your favorite activities and meals - Add to this list so you have a variety of options when you need some self-care in your day
6 - Make a goal list
7 - Make a list of your hopes and dreams for the future
Check the Travel page for destinations in the Midwest you can travel to for inspiration and journaling spots.
In Summary
Be disciplined in your self care journaling ritual. Journaling is a great way to support yourself in life. Through self care journaling you will discover yourself and have greater clarity and be more aware of yourself. It aides you in putting together a list of actions and items that bring you more peace and joy in life. There are seven (7) self care journaling ideas to use when journaling - writing about the good parts of your day, listing or writing about the bad parts of the day, write about what you thought about throughout the day and why, make a gratitude list and write about the positive moments and memories, keep a list of favorite activities and meals, make a goal list, and finally make a list of hopes and dreams for the future.
