Reasons Why to Keep a Journal

Journaling is a wonderful tool you can use to help yourself in the process of transformation and growth.

A journal is a way you can share your thoughts and your deepest feelings, knowing there is no judgment.

It can help you understand yourself better and open your awareness to thoughts and feelings that seem to gain clarity when put into words. This is true when you share with a friend, but becomes even truer when you symbolically serve in the role of befriending yourself by keeping a journal.

One of the main reasons why to keep a journal is because your journal can become a way of clarifying what you are experiencing. It becomes a meditative experience, which helps you gain insight and get in touch with the perspective and wisdom of your Higher Self. In this way, writing in your journal becomes a tool for deeper insight and understanding. It becomes a way that you can heal your life.

Over the years that I have kept a journal there were countless times when a problem or issue that was troubling me resolved when I sat down to write because my thoughts and my feelings were clarified and resolved by the process of writing. This happened so frequently and profoundly that I now associate journal writing as a way of transitioning from the perspective of my personality to the wisdom and insight of my Soul. This is why I recommend to my counseling and coaching clients that you keep a journal.

It not only becomes a record of your personal growth and healing, but becomes a way you can look at your life circumstances and situation from the perspective of the detached observer, something I frequently recommend as a tool for insight when you are striving to change your life. By understanding the power of your thoughts being sent out into the universe, you can gain a better perspective.

Understanding that “energy follows thought” helps you look more objectively at the consequences of your thoughts. You then, after seeing your thoughts expressed in black and white, have the opportunity to revise and re-frame your thinking to enhance the result you desire.

At times, I have noted that what I was initially thinking was not only dramatically different from what I wanted to create in my life but also at times upon reflection was actually silly or absurd. The opportunity to consider my thoughts helped to shift my feelings and empowered the technique of reframing.

Journaling also helped me to identify and release limiting beliefs that came to my awareness as I wrote.

The best time to begin keeping a journal is whenever you decide to.
– Hannah Hinchman

Keeping a journal can be a valuable and comforting experience. That is why I am always amazed when someone drops the simple discipline that regular journaling requires.

I have played with the idea of intermittently recording my thoughts and feelings, but the very intermittency of that sacrifices the primary benefit in keeping a journal, which is to reveal the process of change and transformation you are undergoing.

For that reason, I encourage you to approach journaling with discipline to make an entry daily. Even if that entry is as simple as, “too tired to write tonight,” or “too busy to write today,” those entries become launch points for your next entry.

A journal is really a record of your life over a period of time. Like life itself, some are good, some are difficult. Some are well done and some of it has room for improvement.

As a record of your life for a particular span of time, I recommend that when you decide to start a journal you get a fresh book. Indeed, a new journal is a symbol of a fresh start. At this time in my life, I like to pick a new blank book. There are many beautiful blank books to choose from. The choosing of a new book in which to record my new revelations and my new story has become for me a significant step in the process of keeping a journal. The cover, the design, and any pictures often reflect the place I am in with my consciousness at that time.

You may choose a book with lined or blank pages. Journals are certainly available either way. I like a blank book because that gives me the freedom to make lists, chart things or draw pictures or images along with the words I write.

Many, many years ago, when I first began keeping a journal I did not purchase books with a designed cover. I purchased basic black artist sketchbooks and only the dates within revealed when I wrote in them. However, when I chose a book that had a beautiful cover or image, I found that it enhanced my overall satisfaction and enticed my interest when I went back to read my old entries.

I would now recommend that you choose your book cover by what you are intuitively drawn to as part of the reason you are journaling. It is a special book, almost a sacred book, where you can capture and reveal the promptings of your heart, mind, and Soul. It deserves special attention.

I have always liked to identify a special pen for journaling. My all-time favorite is a fountain pen, although they have over the years become more and more archaic.

Another designation is to choose a particular type of pen or a special color of ink. As strange as that may seem, the shift in ink color has often signaled a shift in my growth and consciousness. It has often surprised me how significant a change in ink color can be, even over a specific period of time.

The rituals of a special book, a special pen and, or ink color, enhance the experience of keeping a journal. When I determine I will start journaling, choosing those things seem to prepare me and commit me to the discipline.

I have also found it beneficial to have a particular time of day to write. Most of my years, it has been early morning upon awakening. In that way, my journal can also serve as a dream journal where I record any significant dreams that I can remember.

I now use that ingrained discipline to do the writing that I share with you in these various articles and books. Still, a journal is different from, and in many ways more special than regular writing.

When I began journaling, I resolved to live each day so that when I looked back upon it when I got older I would smile. Now, no matter what sorrow or loss I may have been experiencing at the time I was writing, when I pick up an old journal to read, I find I do smile.

Although it may be bittersweet, I realize that I have new understanding and compassion for the person I used to be. The love and compassion that the passage of time has granted to others, put everything into perspective.

Journaling Affirmation

I find that journaling allows you to look back and affirm:

I did survive,

I did prevail, and

I have arrived in a different moment of time,

bringing with me the wisdom that those events long ago imparted.

I am able to see the growth and understanding I have achieved.

– Genevieve Gerard

The very act of journaling has brought magic into my life with the healing way it has brought me through the dark night of many experiences into the light.

Early in my experience of journaling, I began to notice that no matter how unhappy or unsettled I was when I began to write, the process of writing would begin to clarify things. By the conclusion of the writing, my perspective had shifted and I was able to understand life and events with a greater depth and clarity. This aspect is still one of the main reasons and primary benefits of keeping a journal.

The change to a new season, a significant shift in time, such as a New Year, or a new monthly Moon which starts a new lunar cycle are all powerful times to make a commitment to starting a journal. Picking out the book and bringing it to where you can easily reach it, with your special or designated pen helps encourage you.

Whatever your choice of book, I encourage you to write the start date on the title page and when the book is filled, record the end date. This is valuable when you go back to remember specific times and life-transforming events.

For that reason, specifying a book for a special trip is often helpful. By just letting the dates record the start and end of the journey clarifies that those insights or even people who came into your life were unique to that experience.

If you chose to begin journaling now, I would recommend you take the time to choose a special book, identify a pen, and make the choice of those things special. It is too easy to lose random notebooks.

Certainly, in these days of computers, notepads and smart mini computer cell phones, any of those could be used to journal. The advantage I could see to using these new technologies is they tend to be kept with you and easily available. The cloud and new platforms open up a completely new possibility. The ease of accessing your journal from where ever you might be, opens new opportunities and potential.

Another good reason to keep a journal is it is a great way to make valuable use of waiting time. I have found it often a great way to nourish and support myself when eating alone. Keeping a journal gave me the freedom to be alone in many of the places and times that people were with others, without making me stand out of feeling lonely. In the years that I frequently traveled on business and found myself eating in restaurants alone, it also helped me to not feel lonely.

Whatever equipment and whatever platform you choose to use, I would recommend that before you begin to write in your journal you take a few minutes to ground your energy, to center yourself, to open your heart and mind and to consciously choose to be aligned with and receptive to your Higher Self. This can only enhance and magnify the benefits and advantages of journaling.

Check out Grounding Arrow MP3 by Genevieve Gerard

Experience how to ground your energy, center yourself, and rebalance yourself to your life force with my Grounding Arrow Guided Meditation MP3 Download.
Click here to >> learn more about this guided meditation.

Remember, your Higher Self, your Soul is an integral part of you and is always available to you wherever you are.

As I write these words to you, I realize that I would like to add this new technology to my smartphone through Google Docs. I will share my experience of that with you the next time I reach out to you and write about the advantages of keeping a journal.

Whatever tools or techniques you choose to use, I encourage you to make the commitment to yourself to use this way to transform your life and grow. Make a commitment to open your life to the increased awareness and insight the journaling can give you.

This is a gift you can give to yourself, to empower yourself. It is something you can do today to open your life to becoming all that you are meant to be.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

P.S. Do you keep a journal? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your thoughts on journaling in the comments section!