How To Journal For Improved Mental Health

Journaling for mental health is a great way to transform your life and take control of your emotions, thoughts and beliefs. In this episode, I  share how journaling helps, and my favorite tips for how to journal. Especially great for mental health, anxiety, depression, understanding limiting beliefs and more.

Transcript

Welcome.

My name is Andrea Trevillion,

And I teach emotional healing and spiritual growth with the goal of helping you transform your life into one filled with inner peace and joy.

I do this through writing,

Classes,

And one-on-one work.

In this episode,

I want to talk about using journaling to improve your mental health.

Now,

I have been journaling for,

Let's go over 20 years.

It's been a while,

Let's just say that.

And it is my go-to to solve problems,

Work through my feelings,

And really figure out what's going on.

And a lot of people use journaling as a tool to track goals and things like that,

But I believe that the power of journaling lies in its ability to help keep you mentally healthy.

So I first want to talk about why journaling is beneficial.

In case you're not on the journaling bandwagon yet,

Let's cover that.

Researchers are really starting to study what happens when we use journaling.

And what they have found is that the act of writing out your story,

So you have an emotional traumatic experience,

The simple act of writing about it will help you process and get over what occurred.

So even if you don't dig into the emotions behind it and try and solve it,

Just writing it down will help you move forward.

And to me,

That's huge.

If I can write down what's going on and that releases pent-up excess energy and feelings,

Fantastic.

Now,

The second thing that they have found is that writing actually activates different areas of your brain.

Now,

Most of the research that I have found on this is tied to learning.

So they have students take notes by hand and they have students take notes on a laptop.

And then they have them study the exact same way and then take the tests.

And what they have found is that those students who took notes by hand did better.

And basically what's happening is it's activating different parts of the brain.

And at the same time,

It's making them decide what is important to write down,

Whereas the typing,

The people just type everything.

They're not really listening.

They're typing.

You can type faster than you can write for most of us.

So those two things pulled together is why I believe journaling is super powerful.

So what I want to share now with you are some tips and tricks on how to use journaling to improve your mental health and get through those emotional issues.

So the first thing that I want you to do is feel safe.

And what I mean by this is if you are going to be writing in your journal about your problems,

Your emotions,

Your feelings,

You have to feel comfortable enough and safe enough that you're completely honest with what's going on.

And you can't be completely honest while journaling if you have some sort of fear,

Whether that fear is somebody's going to read it and find it or somebody's going to be looking over your shoulder.

So before you ever start journaling for your mental health,

We need you to feel safe.

Now,

If you really,

Truly aren't in a safe environment,

First of all,

I encourage you to go get help.

Second of all,

You can do things like write and then shred,

Write and then turn it into a bunch of tiny pieces and take it to the dumpster right away.

You don't have to keep your journal writing in order to gain the benefits.

Now,

There's some techniques you can use later on down the road where you access your old writings that can be beneficial,

But it is not necessary to keep what you write in order to get the benefits.

So if you don't feel safe keeping that information around,

Journal,

Then destroy.

If you don't feel safe in the space that you're at,

Again,

I would encourage you to get help if there's other circumstances,

But maybe you change where you're writing.

So if you really,

Truly don't feel safe at home writing,

Try writing at a coffee shop.

The goal here is to get safe so that you can be completely open and honest in your writing.

Okay,

So now tip number two is ask yourself why.

There's a concept called the why ladder where most of what is going on below,

We never get to.

We stop at the surface issue.

So if you're dealing with a problem,

Ask yourself why,

And then keep asking yourself why.

Why am I mad at my boss?

Write your answer down,

And then ask why from what comes out.

I'm mad at him because he passed me over for a promotion.

Why?

Why did he pass me over for a promotion?

And go through that.

And then when you get to the bottom of that,

Why?

Keep asking yourself why until there's literally nothing more to write.

The deeper you get into the problem,

The quicker it is that you can identify what is bothering you and then work to solve it.

So don't stop at the surface answer.

Keep digging deeper by asking yourself why.

Now,

The next tip that I have is to write the story.

We talked about that in the research.

If you have had some sort of emotional trauma or pain,

Write the story.

No judgment.

Write the complete truth as you view it today and just get it out of your head,

Get it out of your heart,

And on to paper.

That alone is going to be huge for you.

So write your story down.

Now,

The next thing that I do is I imagine I'm in a counseling session.

So yes,

If you look at my journal,

It will actually look like I'm having a conversation.

And I do this as a way to get myself into somebody else's shoes.

And we often have to look at our problems and really solve them by stepping out of our own space.

So ask questions that a counselor would ask you or that you would ask a friend and engage in that dialogue that you would have with other people in order to possibly begin to understand it better.

This one might take you a while to get to,

But keep going because it is highly beneficial.

So going back to the example of you're mad at your boss,

You're mad at your boss,

Why?

And then you say,

Well,

Because I got passed over for a promotion.

And then your counselor would say,

Why do you think you got passed over for a promotion?

And you might say,

Because he hates me.

Why does he hate you?

It's a different version of the why,

Because now let's say he hates you.

He hates me.

Well,

Why does he hate me?

Hate you because I have to leave early every day because of my son.

And so then the counselor would say,

Now,

Are you assuming that or has he said that to you?

So you really kind of have this dialogue of what you would have.

And if the counselor idea doesn't work for you,

Like I said,

Do it with a friend,

Put it as if the problem was your friend's problem and work through it that way.

Now,

The final tip that I have for you is ask yourself where else in your life you're having the same problem.

Most of our problems occur because of limiting beliefs blocks that are inside of our mind.

And it's not going to show up in just one area of your life.

If you have a limiting belief that you're not worthy,

It's not going to show up just in your career.

It's going to be in your career,

Your relationships,

Your health.

It's going to be pretty much everywhere.

So if you're having a repetitive problem and really struggling to get through it,

Then ask yourself where else do you have a similar pattern to the one that you're trying to get over?

If you identify what that similar pattern is,

Then you can dig into that problem to perhaps find that limiting belief or that pain that is holding you back that you simply can't see in this other area.

Sometimes we have these blocks in one particular area.

So you might be fixated on your career and you cannot solve that.

But if you can solve the same problem that is appearing in your personal relationships,

Then it's easier then to go back to the career one and see it clearer and move forward.

And at the same time,

If you can identify it over in the relationship but not the career,

Then you heal it in the relationship.

You flip the script on that limiting belief,

It will impact the rest of your life because you've eliminated that limiting belief.

I hope you found this information beneficial.

If you do have any other questions about what I've covered in the review section,

You can leave your question in the comment area and I will get back to you with an answer.

Thank you so much for sharing your time with me.

Reviews

Thank you for this. Using the friend strategy I think will be helpful. 😊

I am starting to journal more and will try this technique to dive further into my reflections. Thankyou

Thank you, this was very helpful. A good explanation of the benefits and how to feel safe when writing. I know it helps and can do it after a difficult situation but resist doing a daily journal which I would like to.

Thank you! Learned a lot. Ready to take my journaling to a whole, deeper level.

Lovely reminder on writing down our thoughts and troubles.

Thank you so much! Informative and easy to follow!

Hi Andrea, I’m not able to express my feeling within words. It’s like I have tendencies to not overindulge with what I am feeling and hence, it is difficult for me to write at times. What do you suggest? Highly appreciate your podcast and suggestions to journaling

Great tips. I do some journaling, but this ideas will help me get more out of it, specially the Why… Why… Why… to get deeper I to the issue. Thank you!

Very succinct and applicable 🙏🏻
Thank you Andrea 🥰

Thank you Andrea! I have listened to/ read many articles on journal writing but your points are brilliant and in a timely fashion can enable a person to get to the roots of problems, issues. For me a brilliant tool. 🙏🏾💕

Thank you. Very profound. Things to think over often.

This gave me such a big realisation about not feeling safe enough in my home as a child were a family member looked in my diary whit out my consent … after that I wasn’t able to write diary until I over
Out… now I do it a lot and it helps me greatly! ✨💫💛

Thank you for sharing these great tips on journaling. This helps me understand how my journaling can be more effective. Thanks again! 🙏

Motivates me to journal after a long gap.
Question- how to get started? Big thank you.

Great tips thank you very much!! I used to journal for a long time in my life but I stop at it years ago and I have passed through very difficult events since then and now I find very difficult to journal again. Between follow your chips and I'm sure they will help me thank you thank you very much Andrea 🙏🌷✨

Thank you 🙏🏽 xxx

Good motivation to start journaling and solid tips on beneficial ways to journal, plus Andrea offers to help/respond if you reach out to her with specific questions/concerns. She's definitely dedicated to helping us move forward in our lives! 💓

Thank you for a lovely talk with some helpful tips. Peace to you 🙏😊

Excellent. Very insightful with practical tips.

Awesome info thank you.