Mindful Journaling to Release Emotion
Talk therapy is an evidence-based practice with decades of research showing clinically significant improvement in mental health outcomes. If you’ve been to therapy you can literally feel the weight lifting off of your shoulder, your chest or even your lower back after a session of talking (and sometimes crying) about an uncomfortable or painful experience.
In a perfect world our partners, friends, family and/or colleagues would be able to gift us empathetic listening everyday so that we could talk about, and release, emotions that come up for us each day. But human beings are far from perfect and so few people have the capacity to gift empathetic listening to people they care about. Therapists can fill the need for those wanting to express what they are feeling and holding inside for an hour, once a week or twice a month.
In the real world full of constant and chronic uncertainty, financial stress and time constraints most people don’t have the resources to participate in therapy as often as they would like or even at all. Instead they carry their deeply held experiences and emotions around with them, held inside in the hope that they will be released by talking to someone special or will just magically go away after time.
What we do know is that emotions don’t just disappear over time. Feelings are akin to energy and the energy of an emotion needs to be released in some way or fashion. Writing about what you are holding, feeling, experiencing deep inside of you is a great way to express and release this energy.
Caren Osten Gerzberg wrote eloquently at Mindful.org on November 10, 2022 about mindful journaling:
A mindful writing practice can brighten your quality of awareness, helping you to make sense of your thoughts, feelings, and perspectives
Try these tips from mindful.org to help you start a mindful writing and journaling practice.
Make a reminder or calendar appointment to set aside 15-20 minutes for mindful writing.
Within this 15-20 minute space you’ve created, write down the thoughts and emotions that pop up in this space into a notebook or document on your computer. You can also write about an important (recent or past) emotional event or challenge that has impacted or stayed with you.
Try to let go of judgment and explore your deepest emotions and thoughts. By removing self-judgment you can get in touch with what else is within you. Or write about how it feels to have an inner voice that is judgmental and critical.
Write only for yourself. Do not worry about spelling, sentence structure, or grammar !
Continue writing until the time is up. You have begun the process of stepping out from your experience to gain perspective on it.
Want to learn more about mindful writing and journaling? Check out these two posts at mindful.org: