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You’ve heard of THOSE people, right? The ones who’s lives just look easy? They never have bad hair days… Their coffee is always the perfect temperature… Their commute to and from work is always smooth… At work, their tasks flow effortlessly and each interaction with their coworkers seems to spark joy… In the evening they enjoy every single moment they have with their kids and spouse… And at the end of night they lay in bed, grateful and content, as if they have never known a single moment of hardship in their life….
[Eye roll…]
Just in case you were thinking it from the title of this post, I’m NOT one of THOSE people.
Those people don’t actually exist.
You see, stress is the great equalizer for us all. We all experience it and, at times, we feel so overwhelmed by it that we don’t know how we will go on.
So then how can I make such a bold claim that I have NO bad days?
While my days are not, have never been, and never will be stress free, I can say that I’ve experienced a very real shift in my overall mental health and ability to cope with stress since implementing this one crucial healthy coping strategy: Journaling.
This CAIGE Diary is the journal I have been using for the past couple of years.
Why I love it:
- It comes in multiple colors
- It’s leather exterior is soft and buttery feeling
- It’s durable (I’ve had mine for about two years now)
- It’s refillable so I can keep using it again and again
- It’s lockable – so I don’t have to be paranoid about people in my household reading it (that’s been a lifelong paranoia for me…)
- And the lock combination is easy to set
How I began my Journey to Journaling…
You see, prior to journaling… I was kind of a mess.
I was trying to cope in what I thought was a healthy way by venting to my husband, my mother, and my friends about this person or that situation, whatever it was that was causing me to feel a negative emotion. And when I would do this, it would feel REALLY GOOD. And I’d receive the validation that I really thought I needed in the moment.
But I realized something after a while…venting to my loved ones about my stressors wasn’t actually helping me to process, heal and move forward. It was actually keeping me stuck in anger, sadness or anxiety, so that I could continue to receive the validation I thought I needed from others.
You see, venting my frustrations and worry to others regularly was creating an unconscious feedback loop, keeping me coming back for more and more validation.. The feedback loop looked like this:
Venting helps us to experience a cathartic emotional release… but at what cost?
It does not allow us to build resilience by sitting in the emotion to truly process it and put it behind us.
It can keep us stuck in our negative emotions because when we’re rewarded for seeking validation for them from others, we continue to seek validation for them. As a result, we continue to be easily triggered by the same or similar triggers.
And it can cause us to alienate ourselves from our loved ones if and when they begin to feel overwhelmed by our emotions or pressured to help us fix “it.”
Let me be clear, it’s important to ask for support from others when we’re feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, or cannot come to a solution on our own, but we cannot and should not rely on someone outside of ourselves for everything.
Remember, we are all magical, intuitive creatures who are capable of solving many of our own problems!
And, at the end of the day, it is no one’s job but our own to manage our emotions.
The Benefits I experienced from Journaling…
Even after I began journaling, I still noticed a desire to pick up the phone and vent to someone about whatever it was that was causing me distress. It was a habit. That’s because the social reward we receive from venting is so great. But eventually this desire to vent became less and less as I noticed the benefits of taking ownership of my emotions and processing them on my own, rather than dumping them on my friends or family.
It freed up my time to talk to my loved ones about other, positive topics, which made my interactions with them more light and enjoyable and strengthened our relationships.
I felt more confident in my ability to navigate difficult situations, having been successful in doing so on my own (helping me to build resilience).
Being able to actually process the emotion helped me to LET IT GO, and I was not as easily triggered if the same or similar trigger happened again.
I can’t describe the peace that comes with being able to process a situation and your emotions, let it go, and live life unbothered.
Journaling has helped me to better get in touch with myself and my experiences. I can now more quickly and easily identify the thoughts that I’m having which fuel my emotions, and then work to reframe them.
Journaling is also an outlet I have available to me whenever and wherever I want to use it.
This journal is compact enough to fit in my purse so I can take it with me wherever I go.
Scientific evidence of the benefits of Journaling…
Journaling has incredible benefits when it comes to processing and healing from our negative emotions.
Research has actually shown that writing things down can support the brain in building new neural pathways more efficiently than simply thinking or speaking our thoughts can. (Neuropathways in our brain are what create our habitual patterns of thoughts, feelings and actions). Therefore, journaling can help us to embrace the thoughts that help us to move forward, more quickly than simply speaking or typing them can.
Finally, an added benefit of writing things down is the opportunity to reflect and build upon the thoughts we have record of as we meditate and recall even more of our history that has long since been buried. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referenced past journal entries and expounded on them to further my healing.
So, in reality, it’s not that bad days don’t happen to me… journaling just helps me to process my emotions in a way that makes me feel empowered to work through my challenges from a grounded place.
And that helps to make things feel…not so bad 🙂.
Now, if you’re new to journaling and don’t know where to start, I’ve put together a free resource to help. Get it here:
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