For past several years, I have found joy working as a motivational writer and speaker. One of my greatest passions has been gift of sharing my deep love and respect for written word. Words are powerful. They provoke thought, stimulate creativity, and most importantly, they hold within them power to heal. Most people do not realize incredible life-changing potential writing has.

Journaling is a practical tool that anyone can use to enhance personal well-being. It knows no limitations and it is available to anyone willing to make a commitment to themselves. It only requires minimal investments of time and money, and provides fast results. From practical to artistic, there are many varieties of journaling styles, all providing healing benefits.

Through this series of articles, I will explore how journaling heals, journaling styles, and keys to successful journaling.

How Journaling Heals:

Journaling helps clear mind

Journaling is an excellent method of clearing mind-clutter and managing thought patterns. The “untamed” mind tends to wander about aimlessly. At any given moment, we have a multitude of thoughts and internal conversations. Our random thoughts can turn into worries, which turn into stress, which can then manifest as conditions like depression or illness. The act of addressing our thoughts and acknowledging our inner voice allows us to clearly express our feelings, motivations, and desires. When we do this, we gain insight needed to effectively manage them. What many fail to realize, is that even seemingly random thoughts, hold powerful energy. All energy seeks an outlet to express itself, therefore what we think and believe manifests.

Spend some time today consciously paying attention to where your thoughts go. Notice ratio of positive to negative. When engaging in self-talk, what does inner voice express? Is it primarily negative self-talk, worry, or other energy zapping emotions? If so, journaling is a positive first step that can be immediately taken to help understand and then redirect these sneaky self-sabotagers.

Journaling Sparks Creativity

It is very important, particularly for those of us in creative fields, to always have an outlet that enhances our creativity by challenging us to think in new ways. Journaling provides that, because it causes us to purposefully express our thoughts and emotions. Through reestablishing a conscious connection to our thoughts, emotions, and experiences we provide challenge our mind needs to keep its creative spark.

Writing prompts and exercises are a great way to wake up inner muse. They keep us thinking on our toes, and often become launching points of bigger projects.

Journaling Keeps Us Honest

Life becomes stagnant for varying reasons; however, most causes include 1) forgetting how to re-motivate oneself and 2) waiting for next "thing." In both cases, it's a matter of fast-idling in a comfort zone in hopes that something better will come along. However, while you wait and hope for best, opportunities are passing by because you are not open to having them in your life.

--- Re-Motivation ---

Motivation is tough. It requires an objective, a plan, and a reason. If any of these items are missing, then reason for pursuit of a dream disappears. We sometimes become so stuck on a way of life, or a direction, that when we encounter a loss of any type, resulting change causes us to stall. Life, as we once knew it, is over. This, because we've been so focused on a given path that any sudden changes knocks us off balance. But, end of one way of life is indeed beginning of a new life altogether!

In such cases, we have forgotten how to motivate ourselves and decide that it's easier to idle with imitation projects in a comfort zone to fill our voids as opposed to breaking out and chasing a dream. We work hard to stay where we are by devising busy-work to occupy our minds that then become excuses for us to remain stationary. However, re-motivation is a necessary part of life management as it allows us to adapt to changes (i.e., success, loss, and trauma at end of a cycle or period of extremes) that can affect our lives.

--- Just Waiting Around ---