Would you like to join Louisa May Alcott, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, Queen Victoria and Nijinsky among millions of others? We’re talking about journaling. As personal journals go, the oldest one that’s available today is that of the 2nd CE Roman philosopher statesman, Marcus Aurelius. He wrote a series of meditations that he titled To Myself.
And that has remained the concept of a journal throughout history – it is something that you address only to yourself, where you share your most private thoughts, reflections, observations and ideas. Some journals are kept for a specific reason such as travel, hobbies, to record the day’s events or dreams, gratitude and kindness, reading list, ideas for writing or speaking and more.
Post the Covid 10 pandemic, journaling has gained more traction, as people cope with feelings of isolation, anxiety, job loss, grief on losing a loved one or embarking on a new path in life or at work. Deemed to be one of the most effective and simplest routes to wellness, journaling is a habit that grows on you and offers a surprising array of advantages.
Journaling Benefits
The process of maintaining a journal requires mindfulness, consistency, and complete honesty. Today, many people who keep a journal do so on blogs, vlogs, or social media updates. While these have indisputable pluses, the traditional journal scores way above all these.
Stress Buster: You could plunge straight in, and use your journal to rant, vent and generally unload your stress and angst. Or if you’d like a more structured approach, you could play by a few rules of your own making – write 5 things that made you sad, happy, grateful, envious or reflective. Either way, you’ll find your stress levels dropping by the time you finish for the day.
Secret sharing: There are things you wouldn’t want your best friend to know, which could create emotional blocks that weigh you down. Penning them down in a journal helps you to unburden your heart and mind. Writing down negative stuff creates a more objective view of them.
Boost confidence: When you look back at the things you’ve gone through and recorded in your journal, your self-confidence rises as you note how well you’ve coped and how far you’ve come.
Planning: Journaling is a great way to plan for life events, career strategies, and social and emotional goals. Seeing them in black and white is a great way to take them forward.
Mindfulness: The act of bringing thoughts from the subconscious to the conscious mind is a mindful, effective way to cleanse the emotional ecosystem.
Self Respect and Gratitude Journal
Respect is the food that allows relationships to grow, sustain and thrive. But unless you respect yourself first, it’s hard to develop respect for anyone else. Self-respect allows you to value yourself, set boundaries and protect yourself from being exploited or manipulated.
It’s only when you respect yourself that you can see the positive things in your own life. The next logical step is to acknowledge these aspects through a sense of gratitude. And before you think you have to be grateful only for big things, take a look around you – sunlight dappled on water, a baby’s smile, a stranger giving up a seat on a crowded train, the taste of freshly baked apple-pie, hearing music drifting out of an upstairs window – all these can give you an instant boost of happy hormones.
You can develop self respect one day at a time through your gratitude journal. Most of us are very hard on ourselves, and we tend to make harsh self judgements. When you pen your thoughts down in your gratitude journal, you put some distance between your emotions and your words – and this helps you to see things from an alternate perspective.
Practiced daily, self respect and gratitude journaling can improve your physical health. In today’s world, our fight vs flight response is always on high alert, not giving the rest and digesting complementary response to bring our bodies back to equilibrium and stability. Mindful activities such as journaling help to resume normal body functions such as digestion.
According to psychologists, there are 3 main stages of gratitude:
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- The feeling of gratitude, responding to something good that has happened or is there in your life
- Expressing gratitude to those who have been good to you
- Changing your behavior as a result of gratitude
It is important to pass through all the stages so that you reach the final point where you can be less judgmental of yourself and others, become more perceptive and empathetic, and adopt a more positive attitude towards life events.
All you need is a few minutes of your time every day. You can make it a bedtime ritual that helps you to unwind after a hectic day. Some people prefer to start the morning with their self-respect and gratitude journals available at https://restanddigest.com.au/collections/gratitude-journal, to set the tone for the day.
