Therapeutic Journaling for Healing

Therapeutic journaling is a great way to bring more clarity and positivity into your life. It assists you in being proactive in your healing journey.

Some benefits of journaling:

Promotes gratitude
Helps you to see your progress
Releases negative emotions
Reduces stress
Tracks behavior patterns
Assists you in problem solving
And many more!

Journaling sometimes seems like it can be a lot of work, but you don’t have to do it very long, or even every day, in order to benefit. In fact, some studies suggest that three times per week is even more beneficial than every day.

To help start this healthy habit, decide if you want to journal on paper and pen, or using an online app or the computer. (I enjoy journaling on paper or in my Passion Planner). Decide if you’d like to journal in the morning or the evening. Sometimes I like setting up my journaling with a candle or incense and even a brief meditation. Other times, it’s just simply writing a few thoughts in the journal I keep bedside before going to sleep at night.

Here are my favorite journaling techniques to help get you started.

Gratitude journal! A gratitude practice is vital to your health and happiness, and there are many ways to do it. Here are a few of my favorites:
Write down three things that you are grateful for. Choose three different things every day!
Keep an ongoing gratitude journal about your partner or spouse. You can keep it all year and it makes a great birthday gift for them.
Focus on a positive event during the past 24 hours and write about it for 7 minutes.
If you’re stuck, just go on Google or Pinterest for plenty of gratitude prompts.
The unsent letter. The unsent letter is a wonderful technique for expressing feelings to someone who you cannot communicate with. You can use the unsent letter for sharing feelings with loved ones who have passed on from this life, or for sharing your feelings with someone who is difficult for you to communicate with.
Freestyle. Just write whatever you like! I enjoy doing this, and doodling as well.
One Year from Today. A fun technique is to imagine that it’s one year from today and you are looking back at the best year of your life. What events have made this the best year of your life? Write it all out, in vivid detail.