Transform Your Life Through Emotional Journaling: Understanding and Healing Your Emotions

Journal writing, a tool for emotional self-discovery and transformation, allows for identifying, processing, and releasing emotions, this can create greater understanding of yourself and relieve stress and tension. Try it, you just might find yourself.

Welcome to Authentic Living with Linda
I’m Linda Codlin

Welcome, My Friends.

This week has been interesting.
Do you find that you start something with vigour and pizzaz?
I found myself in the middle of a goal I set at least two months ago. Sighing wishing it was finished, I wanted to move onto something more exciting.
This goal is about organising my files and part of that is completing the incomplete.
I’m finding I have a lot of incomplete files, and when I discover them, looking at them, deciding whether the file is something that is needed to be kept and completed or whether it can be deleted and forgotten about, is challenging me in new ways.
This week has seen me sitting with myself, around having to do the leg work to complete some of these files.
Do you find that you get to a certain point in your project and find something that needs research, or a thought upgrade, or something that requires a hard decision and this stops you?
This has been me this week, my growing point this week and in the week’s ahead is to set up time in my schedule to do the work to get these completed.
To get out of my comfort zone and face the scary things that will move these files into the completed pile.
And while I do the hard things, I’m shifting my view of myself, I’m getting the nagging things out of my brain and out of my life and into my completed file.

This week I want to talk about EMOTIONAL JOURNALING

What is emotional journaling?

It is the practice of writing down your thoughts. It is my belief that thoughts belong on paper so they can be investigated.
Emotional journaling is also writing out your feelings, and experiences or events as a way to help you process your emotions and to gain insight into what is going with your emotional state of being.
Emotional journaling is a tool for self-reflection,and self-actualization that helps you to recognize and understand your emotions, making it easier to manage them and thus improve your mental well-being.

Lets take a look at 7 key aspects of Emotional Journaling.

1. Identify Your Emotions.

This is where you focus on identifying and labeling your emotions, a list of emotional words could help if you haven’t been in touch with your emotions for a while.
When I started identifying my emotions I began with Angry, Sad, Happy and Glad, then as I got better at reading my emotions I moved onto the finer emotions like confusion, disappointment, gratitude, and pleasure.
Writing down exactly how you feel, in your words, without judging spelling, or grammar or your hand writing, helps you to become more aware of your emotional defaults.

(If you would like a copy of emotional words, email me my address is at the bottom of this post)

2. Emotional Triggers.

Journaling allows you to explore the situations or thoughts that create the triggers you respond spontaneously and emotionally to.
A trigger can be as small as walking through the kitchen and having to grab a snack as you go through, or it can as big as family history that created harm and trauma in your past.
By identifying these trigger points you can begin to see patterns of emotions and behaviour.
Some you may want to eradicate, and others you may want to encourage. A trigger can be both positive and negative.

3. Processing Experiences.

Keeping a daily diary or journal can be super effective at helping to process the events of the day.
This is where you could record your wins, and celebrate the good things that happened in your day.
It can also be where you vent your frustration about situations that are not working out the way you want them to.
It can also be where you investigate your next step on lives journey, weighing the pros and cons.
Each of these forms of journaling help you to gain clarity around what you are feeling and what you may want to be feeling.

4. Releasing Pent Up Emotions.

Journaling is a safe space to vent, to get all the emotions you may not yet feel comfortable sharing with others out of your system.
I use journaling as a way to understand more about myself and the emotions I’m feeling, I will write until all the emotion has left my body, and then I will safely burn the paper and feel the release as the paper curls up and the smoke drifts off into the air.
This form of journaling can be very therapeutic, and freeing.

5. Gaining Perspective.

When you put your emotions into words, you create a bit of a distance between yourself and the emotion, this enables you to gain a clearer perspective of what is really going within yourself, and the other people in your situation.
Over time you may notice that you are changing the way you perceive and react to certain people and situations.
This gives you more clarity around what your part in the situation is and gives you insight on what you may be able to do to make a difference to the outcome.

6. Tracking Emotional Patterns.

Regularly writing in your journal can help you keep track of your emotional patterns over time.
When I first started journaling, I found I was stuck in the loop of always being angry, anger was my default emotion. Once I recognised the pattern I was able to begin the process of rewiring my brain and my emotions.
It is important to be open to see the recurring themes and patterns in your emotional life, your patterns might be persistent worry, crippling anxiety, overwhelming stress, and like me, anger.

7. Setting Your Intentions.

Emotional journaling is fabulous for looking forward into your future and bringing that future into today. This creates change quickly and permanently when it shifts your belief about yourself.
You can use this type of journaling to set intentions for how you want to respond to emotions, thoughts, and beliefs that may occur in a given situation you face regularly.
Setting intentions helps you to plan strategies for managing difficult situations and emotions in advance so you are not caught off guard.

Now let’s into the fun part, the actual journaling.

This is a personal activity, there is no right or wrong way to journal.
I’m going to give you a few suggestions that will help your journaling to be the most effective it can be.
You will be the one experimenting to find what works best for you, and I can guarantee it will change over time, as you change and your emotions change.

1. Find a spot that is yours, where you won’t be disturbed for the amount of time you want to dedicate to writing in your journal. Make this space yours, and keep it sacred to you.
2. Choose a format you will enjoy to use. It can be a physical book, a digital journal, or even a voice recorder.
   The secret is to enjoy the mode you choose. I have tried many different formats and I still prefer an ordinary blank, lined A4 spiral book, so I can rip the pages out as I want to.
3. Write Freely. Write without judgment. As I said earlier grammar, spelling and form doesn’t matter, these are your words written your way.
   They are not for anyone else to read unless you choose to let them be a part of your growth.
   Let your words flow, if you are afraid they’ll be seen by someone you don’t want to see them, purchase a book with a lock, use a digital format that is password protected, or you could burn the sheet afler writing it.
4. Be honest. The more honest you are with yourself in your journaling the more beneficial it will be.
   Write your true feelings no matter how dark and ugly you may think they are, write them when they are uncomfortable and difficult.
   The more you get them out of your body and brain the sooner you may feel better. Be completely honest with yourself.
5. Ask yourself deep questions. By asking yourself a deep question and writing it down, it will spark a thought and an emotion which will help you to gain clarity.
   I use two different coloured pens, one to write the question, and one to answer the question.
   I always make myself answer the questions I ask. This stops me from procrastinating about my emotions, thoughts and beliefs.
   If I don’t know what the answer is, I ask myself. ‘If I did know the answer to this question what would it be?’ Then I write the first thing that comes into my mind.
6. Create a regular time for journaling, this really goes with number one, creating a sacred space for journaling.
   A regular time helps to create a habit. Consistency helps you to stay connected to your emotional world.
7. Reflect on what you have written. From time to time go back through your entries, see the wisdom you have written, see the shift in your emotional state. This will help you to gaining insights into your growth, Where your trigger points are and where your cyclic patterns are. You may find you require additional support to break these patterns and cycles to continue your emotional healing.

Journaling is a great tool for exploring and understanding your inner world, which will transform your physical world in ways you never knew it could.

Until Next Time: Begin writing, begin getting all your emotions onto paper and feel the difference that not carrying the burden of unshared emotions can bring you freedom and liberty to live the life you really want.

(If you want a few questions to get you started email me, my address is below this post)

oxoxo Linda.

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