THE MIRACULOUS BENEFITS OF COURAGEOUS JOURNALING

These are some of my favorite passages in “Heal Your Self With Journaling Power” by Mari L. McCarthy

 

— Whether you’re dealing with health issues or other personal matters, courageous journaling gives you the opportunity to be bold, to be loud, and write down anything you want any way you want.

Remember, this is YOUR journal. Nobody is going to read it but you. You don’t have to be polite with your writing, and you don’t have to be politically correct. You can bring down the hammer and write anything YOU want that is bothering you.

Again, it’s the best and least expensive form of therapy. When you write about things that upset you in a hard, direct manner, solutions will start flowing back to you in the form of answers and action plans.

The key is to be brutally honest with your thoughts. In other words, be courageous! This is a great way to get things out of your system that you might otherwise keep bottled up.

The tremendous benefit of courageous journaling is that it allows you to get the words out without anybody else hearing them. So you don’t have to worry about filtering your thoughts, and you don’t have to worry about “saying things” to someone that you later feel the need to amend or apologize for.

This is an incredible tool when you have fierce issues going on in your life. We all know people who’ve kept quiet about what was eating them up inside, until one day they let loose and exploded with rage and anger they later felt embarrassed about.

Now, imagine if these people had instead emptied their rage and anger onto the pages of their journal. They’d feel so much relief inside, and they’d have absolutely nothing for which to apologize!

Have you known someone like this? More important, has this person ever been you? If it has, it never has to be again. Because now you can rant and rave whenever you need to...to Dr. Journal!

Are you angry with your boss or a co-worker? Let ’em have it in your journal. Rant and rave and spill your guts about how you really feel. Let it all out! Are you angry because you’re struggling with health issues? Pour your  raw, honest thoughts into your journal. Remember, Dr. Journal is there to listen to you 24/7, and she doesn’t charge a dime.

Everybody gets angry and upset. It’s part of being human. What sets us apart is how we deal with it. We all know it’s never healthy to keep things bottled up, but it can be equally as unhealthy to explode emotionally and verbally rage in front of others.

On the other hand, verbally exploding into your journal can be courageous, combative, and incredibly cleansing! So go for it!

— When the issues in your tissues have you really worked up, there is a huge advantage to letting your rage loose on Dr. Journal, instead of flying off the handle during a personal confrontation.

When you have issues you know will eventually require a direct con- versation with someone, journaling about them first gives you the advantage of being able to collect and organize your thoughts. It also enables you to rehearse the thoughts, feelings, and words you need to communicate.

The benefit of this process is that when you finally do confront some- one with your issue, you won’t come across as an over-emotional mess who is shooting from the hip with a series of rambling and disconnected thoughts.

Journaling your rants before an inevitable confrontation also gives you time to pause and consider someone else’s point of view, or the other side of an issue you’re dealing with. Over time this can deliver a sense of ease, calm, and healing to you.

Ranting and complaining to Dr. Journal also gives you a tremendous chance to fiddle with your feelings and thoughts over a period of days after your initial pen-to-paper outburst. By doing this, you are not continually dealing with your issues and the people connected to them in a state of emotional upheaval.

Think of times in your past when you had an issue with a friend, lover, co-worker, or family member that resulted in a confrontation where both of you got emotional, shot from the hip, and said things you later regretted. Or, as most often is the case, you didn’t say things you wish you would have.

When you think back to these times (and we’ve all had many), wouldn’t it have been a great advantage to you if you had at least a day or two to first rant to Dr. Journal? Wouldn’t it have been a big help if you had first put your emotional rant on paper, and then taken a day or two to sort through your thoughts and feelings before you had a direct conversation with someone about the issue at hand?

Sure, there are some issues that confront us on the spur of the moment, and we have no choice but to react to and deal with them immediately. But the large majority of our issues are challenges we see coming ahead of time.

Spending some time venting to Dr. Journal (who doesn’t charge a dime) is a great way to work through your challenges before they lead to a confrontation with someone.

Plus, you’ll be in a much calmer, cooler state during your conversation, which can provide you with a big edge if you’re confronting someone who’s never heard of Dr. Journal.

— Courageous journaling gives you a fantastic way to write things down you might not want to say out loud. You don’t have to be polite, proper, dignified, classy, or politically correct. You can just let it rip!

Not only CAN you do this, but it’s important that you DO! Be brutally honest with your thoughts and feelings and let them pour out. The more honest you are with your writing, the more helpful Dr. Journal becomes.

When you are real and authentic with Dr. Journal, she will reward you by sending back answers, solutions, and action plans that are equally real, honest, and authentic.

In addition, when you are true and honest with Dr. Journal, you’ll realize that all your thoughts and feelings have value. And when you commit them to paper you will truly realize this.

Then you will have the power to choose whether you want to express these thoughts and feelings publicly with one or several people. You will also be able to decide if you need to keep certain thoughts and feelings to yourself, and just learn from them.

Another benefit of being open and honest with your rants is that you can look back on them and learn. For example, when you read your courageous journal entries from six months or a year ago, you will notice things like...

—  I’ve come so far in this past year because I learned so much from my rants.

— I notice I only half committed to the action plans I said I would take six months ago.

— I no longer hang out with the people who motivated my rants last year, and I’ve made new friends and I feel energized.

— Gee, I seem to be ranting about the same damn things as I was a year ago, and I’m hanging out with the same people and repeating the same old patterns. I need to get on the ball and address this!

This is a great example of why you shouldn’t hesitate to rant your raw, unfiltered thoughts to Dr. Journal. Let’s face it, they’re in your head so you may as well write them down.

This way, when you look back in your journal you’ll be able to see if your rants from a year ago are the same ones in your head right now. On the positive side, you’ll also be able to see if last year’s rants are a distant memory you’ve learned from and left in your past as you’ve moved on to bigger and better things.

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