The Power and Benefits of Journaling
Affirmations for Happiness
When I feel happy I manifest more reasons to be happy.
I create my happiness by accepting every part of myself with unconditional love.
My happiness is reflected back to me in everything I attract.
Happiness is alchemy for my spirit.
The ritual of journaling will help you connect to your higher self by helping you peel away the layers of your self-limiting beliefs. When you get into the ritual of journaling you have newfound confidence because you realize you can write and share all of your feelings and secrets openly, as if you’re writing a letter to your best friend. Journaling for us has helped us keep track, and understand our seasons of life. By keeping our feelings, thoughts, gratitudes, and triumphs in a paperbound notebook, we have found the ability to be easier on ourselves.
We are going to walk you through six of our favorite benefits to keeping a journal…
1. Healing Inner Child
As you write, things start feeling nostalgic, something about keeping a journal just feels like you’re able to connect to that inner child again. Whenever you get the chance to go back and read these different parts of your life, from your older, wiser self, you feel so much compassion for the younger version of you going through, what at the time may have felt impossible to get through. By going and rereading these past experiences you really are able to help heal that inner child, to that younger version of yourself.
2. Communication
Communication skills are being improved from journaling because journaling essentially just helps us express ourselves more. Also, seeing your words on paper can help you to rechognize and correct any issues that you may have with communication. Journaling is just great practice for communication, and the more that you do it, the better that you will likely get at communicating.
Journaling also really helps with becoming more self-aware. The more self-aware you become, the more you can make yourself understood to others. Writing leads to clear thinking – which in turn leads to clear communication. You’re able to process your feelings slowly, without having that inner chatter interrupt you. You know those conversations or disagreements you get into, and after you think to yourself, wow I really wish I would have said “…” this is the perfect time to grab your journal and express everything you wish you had said, and reflect. Journaling can benefit you in relationships and marriage, where so many problems come from simple misunderstandings.
3. Stress and Anxiety
Journaling about your anxieties soothes your nerves and helps you brainstorm solutions to your problems. By writing your worries, or things you’re anxious or stressed over you can evaluate, and get clarity. When you’re feeling any of these feelings come up, write about whatever is on your mind. Keep going until you feel you have written what needs to be said. Describe the events that are currently causing difficulties for you. Keep in mind that with anxiety, sometimes it isn’t what is currently happening that causes stress, but the concerns you have about what could happen, Then – reread and re-think what you have previously written. Could things be different? Is there something that you could do to change your circumstances right now—or to change your thoughts about your circumstances?
4. Tapping Into Creativity and Spirituality
When we journal, it is for us and us alone. We aren’t worrying about structure or spelling errors and we most definitely aren’t holding ourselves back with some sort of structure or guidelines we have to follow. All we are doing is putting pen to paper and seeing what comes out! This alone allows us to be freer and see what we can create by simply just showing up. So, what are the benefits of journaling for creativity? Journaling enables us to silence the inner critic and declutter ideas in a safe space with no judgment. It gives us permission to listen to our voice, our hopes, and our needs.
Journaling encourages us to dig deep. It definitely takes some time and practice, but as we persevere we are able to really tap into our creativity… Within this deep, sometimes uncomfy space, we can truly connect with our inner voice and narrative. You will start to recognize what is needed to nourish this inner voice and, as your confidence grows, bring it out into the world.
When we write, we allow all the energy and experiences to flow through us, which often provides further insight into our own spirituality.
5. Increasing your discipline
Having the ritual of journaling every single day can really help to make you a more disciplined person. Being more disciplined can be very helpful for your life. This is because it can help you get used to completing tasks and avoiding procrastination. Procrastination is a productivity killer, so learning to avoid it is a good thing.
6. Perspective
Journaling lets you explore uncharted thoughts and emotions. Writing about your recurrent thoughts gets them out of the way and clears your mind to make room for other ideas. Writing on paper also lets you examine your ideas from various perspectives. When you take the time to keep a consistent journal practice, you can look back over what you’ve written, be it a week or a year later, you will have the distance you need to more objectively interpret your raw feelings. Doesn’t matter what you’re going through, good or bad, make sure to keep it all noted in your journal so you can go back and reflect.
TCR Method
Chelcie and I both have a consistent journal practice, and we have found ourselves through self-reflection on the toughest challenges life has faced us and we see the magic in unblocking self-limiting beliefs.
Here at The Collective Ritual, we have taken our love for journaling and created the TCR method. Inside of the membership, we have Journal Workshops for whatever you need, from Fill Your Cup, to Goals, to Setting Boundaries. There is definitely something in there for you. We upload new journal workshops every month and go live on Instagram on Sundays to walk through the workshops with you!
