Journaling

Author: Chels Holmes

Updated: May 30, 2023

Journaling is a practice of writing down your thoughts, ideas, feelings and more to be able to understand them more clearly. For someone who is more analytical or reflective it can be an activity that makes a true different in your life, looking at you air and water signs! It has been well researched and proven that journaling leads to improved mental health and wellbeing especially for things like mindfulness, anxiety, depression, and memory. This article in The New York Times gives a great overview of the benefits of journaling. So now that you know you want to do it, how do you actually journal? Here are my go to journaling practices that I highly recommend and the journaling practice that fully changed my life was Morning Pages and participating in The Artist’s Way.

Three Journaling Practices I Use and Love

  • Brain Dump

    Writing things down to just get it out of your head and onto paper. This can help with feeling less overwhelmed, getting organized, and seeing next steps. This can be on paper or digital and can look like a free write journal entry or a list.

  • JournalSpeak

    This journaling technique created by Nicole Sachs, LCSW, is a digital journaling practice where you open a new document, type out your thoughts and what comes up in your stream of consciousness. When you’re done you delete the document. This is great for getting out frustrations, anger, shame, repeating thought patterns, and more.

  • Gratitude Journaling

    Gratitude journaling is a practice where you’re simply listing out what you’re grateful for each day or in life. This journaling option can be life changing to help you acknowledge what you already have and leads to many positive mental health benefits.

The Artist's Way and Magic of I Journal

Morning Pages

I can’t talk about journaling without mentioning morning pages and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This book along with morning pages, one of the exercises used in the book changed my life. I wouldn’t have this business or many of my current opportunities and outlooks on life without going through The Artist’s Way.

So morning pages, essentially you write three long hand pages of stream of consciousness journaling first thing when you wake up, before social media, before life gets in the way. This is similar to brain dumping above, but it’s a commitment to do all 3 pages daily for 12 weeks. It’s a very pivotal part of The Artist’s Way journey. Learn more about it below.